Wow, this site rocks!

[usernameguy]

Man,
I'm learning a ton from this website. I realize I have a lot of access to Au. I've just been revocering from etch and plating solutions. I am an equipment engineer and also have access to a lot of old cards, memory, etc. Never even thought about the fingers, headerpins, etc. I already have the etch solution that's not saturated to suck the gold off these pieces. Just need to experiment and make sure the Ioding solution won't also dissolve other undesirables into my solution and make dropping the Au more difficult. Now, all I have to do it make the solution sufficiently basic and out it comes. I built a vacuum system to assist with filter paper that's getting clogged.
this is exciting. I'm curious if anyone has any ballpark #'s on how much Au weight wise is on a standard PCB card. even better if one could break it down ie, header pins have moe Au than fingers, processors have more than yada yada, and maybe even how much Au is in a processor. I know I may be asking alot, but if you know off the top of your head, I'm indebted. I want to make sure it's worth the time.
Do/can people make a living from this if they have a good supply of raw material?
Thanks again! I'm liking this.
Guy

 

[Harold_V]

Do/can people make a living from this if they have a good supply of raw material?

Depends on what you call making a living. It's pretty hard to make big money when processing e scrap on a piece by piece basis. It's a great hobby, and certainly worthy of anyone's time that has an interest, but to hope to make a good living without processing in volume is not realistic.

I made my living processing gold for many years, but I processed high grade wastes, material from the jewelry industry, and avoided e scrap for the above reasons.

It's not easy to capture the business of jewelers, but you can make a decent living by providing outstanding service and treating the customer honestly.

Harold