Just a question regarding the amount of silver that is found in electrical contacts. I have discovered a place that is tossing out old electrical equipment, namely high voltage motor starters and their contactors. Most of the material is made up of copper, but the actual contacting points are plates of silver, and are fairly good sized(half-ounce apiece). Can anyone tell me what the percentage of silver might be in those contacts?
go for it if you knowe it's silver. it can be easily home refined to .999 if you have doubts about purity.
Yeah oz,I heard the purest silver will come out of larger fuses, I have cut some up myself and found very little silver content and a whole lot of sea sand. Even in high amp rated fuses. I don't doubt this is the purest silver found in industry, but it seems that a guy has to go through a lot of fuses to get enough silver to make it worth while. that's why I posted about the contacts. These things are heavy! But I'm not sure if they're even 50% silver?
They are called Fuse Links. The smaller rated, had 999 grade silver. the larger were usually made of a silver alloy. Also, they used silver solder, which contained Cadmium. I was unable to find out why the Cadmium was used. The expensive part was the ceramic tube, and the white silica sand. Many large contracts had a clause, where the used fuses would be returned. There was a part of the factory where the fuses would be broken down into ceramic tubes, silica sand, and all metal components were batched together, and then sent to a refinery. I used to be the Inwards Quality Control, at the factory that made them.
cadmium makes solder flow and is used to slightly reduce melt point of the solder so the parent metal dont melt when its soldered me thinks
