Stacking PM's from scrap electronics

miniroo

miniroo

Well-Known Member
Silver Stacker
Hi all, Just thought i'd add some stuff about stacking pm's in the form of electronic components.

Aside from the regular incomes made from scrapping e-waste, like selling steel, copper, circuit boards etc and maybe using that money to buy bullion.
Another form of stacking PM's is stacking electronic components that contain PM's.

One reason I prefer to stack electronic components instead of actually refining them and stacking the PM's raw is
they don't cost anything as they are, but in most cases they are worth just as much as they would be as refined bullion.
a bit like the 1966 50c, it's 80% silver and it's valued by the metal content as it is, not after it's been melted down.

Also there are many budding refiners who just want to refine pm's, profit is not the goal, it's all about the process
so electronic components containing PM's can have better than melt value as is.

I just wanted to add some video's from time to time, it's not everyone's caper, infact scrapping e-waste is dirty, heavy and hard work.
But just like any kind of precious metal mining at ground level, it's where it's most rewarding so if you can handle it, there's plenty for everyone.

Silver & Gold in Crystal Oscillators..


If your wanting to sell any of your electronic components in Australia, see my e-waste buy price list here..

http://scrapforum.com.au/forum/main...sing/12029-buying-e-waste-melbourne-full-list
 
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Monolithic Capacitors are another electronic component on modern circuit boards that contain PM's in the form of Palladium & some Silver.

New technologies have reduced the amount of Palladium in an MLCC but at present the e-waste we are getting is 4 years old or more.
in a few more years we'll start to see these new tech' mlcc's appear which will reduce the overall recover rate, but for now, mlcc's are very good scrap value.

Palladium & Silver from Monolythic Capacitors (MLCC's)

 
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Tantalum is an oddball PM that can fluctuate quite a lot in value, and because so it's an ideal electronic component to stack.

Tantalum comes under the conflict metals group meaning when shtf in the few countries that mine it, prices can skyrocket to insane proportions.

Modern day electronics have made it easier for scrappers since a lot of Tantalum cap's are in the form of SMD's, Surface Mount Devices.
Tantalum Capacitors over the years have changed a lot in looks, older electronics have all kinds but today an average scrapper won't find
much of the old stuff.

we see a lot of old tantalums being mixed in with regular capacitors because they look like them, it'll save you a lot of time to not worry about old stuff
as sending tantalum to a buyer that has a mixture of non tantalums will probably get your stuff returned to you.

SMD's Tantalums Capacitors (Yellow & Black) are very common now and easy to spot, ensuring you will have 100% tantalum capacitors in your stack.

 
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Ribbon wire from electronics can have gold plated fingers on the end of the ribbons, they can be sold as gold fingers or refined with gold fingers from circuit boards.
In this video I talk a bit about how to prepare ribbon fingers to stack, sell or refine yourself.

 
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Plug ends from computer equipment can have gold plated ends.
Valuing gold plug ends is difficult because they are mostly made up of bulky plastic and steel of various sizes.

For scrappers who stack plug ends, I recommend not only cleaning them up a bit before you stack but before you consider selling,
maybe process them down to just the actual gold pins, removing all the plastic & steel.

This is obviously a slow process doing it by hand, something more suitable to times when you just want to tinker in the shed.
The gold pins alone are quite sought after as they are the easiest thing to process for a new refiner.
Sure they are only gold plated pins but they are very common and after a couple years of stacking these, I found they add up very quick.

This video I talk about preparing plug ends to sell or to stack..

 
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Often I get asked, where do I find e-waste?
Well, aside from my commercial recycling, most scrappers get their e-waste from hard rubbish collection days.

The beauty of e-waste is two things, first the general perception is there's little value in scrap electronics so it's all over the place,
and second is most people live like ultimate comsumers, always needed the latest so again, it's all over the place :)

Those two factors is why so many people go out and scrap electronics, but many more people just go out scrapping for steel,
they don't even know what's inside a pc tower, to them it's just like any steel.

Whilst I don't scrap hard rubbish like I used to, I'm still going out just as a scrapper would, trackie dacks and a pair of steel caps, for research purposes.
I went out Saturday morning since hard rubbish season has just begun near me to get a feel of things and show what can be found in your spare time.

After about 2 hours I was buggered but I did pick up some good stuff, I went out too early that day and if I went out a few hours later I would of filled up the van in 30 minutes.
I'll be adding a few more over the next few weeks and that'll give you a good feel of things out there too.

So here's my video of day 1..


Here's the update video when I got back..

 
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CPU's from end of life computers are another form of electronic component I stack for PM's.
Whilst they don't make 'em like they used to, CPU's are valued mostly for their Gold content but also contain other PM's that often gets forgotten.

Here's my CPU stack so far..

 
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RAM Sticks are another electronic component I like to stack for PM's.

My current stack is over 1500 sticks as well as vintage RAM sticks, RAMbus and Silver or Tin plated RAM sticks.

Here's my stack so far, i'd like to add to this stack and am happy to buy them in qty if your wanting to sell..

 
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Scrap Keyboards are one of the most common items containing PM's.
Whilst they don't have a great deal of value, keyboards are easily found and over time keyboard mylar does build up and is worth processing for the Silver.

In combination with so many other electronic components containing precious metals, keyboard mylars are yet another addition to the e-treasure chest.

 
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Gold Fingers from Computer Slot Cards, RAM Sticks and other circuit boards are another item from electronic components we can stack.

 
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Next up is a little about pulling gold plated pins from connector plugs and circuit boards..

 
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LCD TV's have all but taken over from the big old CRT TV, not so good for the old school scrapper chasing copper,
but a nice boost for scrappers chasing gold.

LCD's are simple to scrap and much easier to handle compared to CRT's and is mostly all sell-able, whereas a crt still left us with a lead lined tube that's difficult to recycle and heavy to handle.

Finger Strip Boards are one of the circuit boards in an LCD, whilst there isn't much info on finger strips yet, they will be a much talked about item once more people accumulate large enough stocks to process and recover the PM's, then we'll have better idea's on how much gold can be got.

anyway, this is my early take on finger strip boards..

 
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Collecting e-waste for PM recovery from hard rubbish collection has it's limits.
Whilst LCD TV's have added to pm recovery with mostly circuit boards now, there's only a small window of time to gather stuff as it's seasonal.

So the next step for product is to advertise to businesses, e-waste recycling at the highest level is very competitive, but on the lower end there's a lot of opportunity
for anyone wanting to advertise and get the word out, large recyclers don't do small pick-up's or they charge quite a bit for the service.

So offering a free pick-up service and accepting small qty's may not make you a millionaire, but it can be quite lucrative at times.

Here's a video of a good pick-up from an IT dept' of a larger company, not all pick-ups are as large but some can be huge, like having to hire a truck and do multiple loads.

Before I scrap stuff it's important to research what I have, PM recovery is usually the last resort and a lot of things can be sold first but with IT equipment being very high end, they can have high yields of PM's..

 
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Motherboards and Circuit Boards in general can be sold to e-waste refiners or myself which gives you around 1/3 the value of the recovered pm's.

Another way to value add to your circuit boards is to depopulate them of all the components of value and sell them to hobby refiners on ebay etc.

The third option is to process them yourself but that requires a lot of research and the setting up of various refining setups, so for most who gather circuit boards
will either sell them complete or depopulate to sell, which can actually net you as much value as you would processing them for PM's yourself.

Anyone that has tried to depopulate say a motherboard by hand will know just how long it takes using mostly a chisel and hammer, for a few boards here and there it's probably ok but for large qty's of circuit boards the time involved is difficult to justify the value.

So what to do?
Well, after looking into various known methods, like using expensive purpose built machinery, a heat gun or hot sand bath, I have come up with the best, easiest and most fun method.

Firstly an entry level machine to do the job requires many thousands of dollars so for most that's overkill.

Heat Guns on circuit boards don't work for all components and I don't recommend because in order to apply enough heat to remove components your also melting the board itself, thus omitting toxic fumes into the environment.

Hot Sand Bath is what many scrapers believe to be the best method but again you are releasing toxic fumes and it actually doesn't work on large circuit boards.

What you will find on youtube is hot sand baths being used for small circuit boards, mostly cell phone boards.
Well cell phone boards are only a small percentage of what you would have, they are easy to depopulate because they don't have many components, just some IC chips.

The main problem with sand bath for large boards is once you bring your sand up to 600 degrees and put your board in, the heat drops a lot because the board absorbs the heat, it's a slow process and once you've done one board you need to bring that heat up again, so it would take all day to do a dozen motherboards, not to mention you would need to remove all the aluminium capacitors beforehand because they will explode at 600 degrees.

This video shows my idea on depopulating boards in a quick, clean and fun way.
I can rip through a motherboard in a minute, removing all the components I want and leaving a board that could still be sold as a low grade to a refiner.


The first video was done as soon as I setup the air hammer, I missed a few points so I added an update video to clarify a few things..

 
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Sim Cards are another item to stack for gold, although quite a low recovery rate..

 
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Modern day hard drives don't have a lot for PM recovery and probably best to sell complete, older hard drives do have a lot of PM's to recovery and well worth it..

 
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Thick Film Resistors are plentiful on circuit boards, especially higher end boards.
Ruthenium "RuO2" is generally the major precious metal within these resistors.

Here I try and explain them, scrapper to scrapper, so in very general terms but Ruthenium is another metal I like to stack in the form of electronic components..

 
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End of life servers contain a lot of high grade precious metals and are the one item most sought after for e-waste scrappers.
Auction houses are well worth visiting for bulk servers to scrap for precious metal recovery

 
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Some people ask whether it's worth scrapping pc's out or is it best to just sell end of life pc towers to myself or other e-waste buyers instead.

Unless your scrapping pc's for precious metal recovery yourself like I do, it's probably best to just sell the towers whole as there's very little difference between the two.

It's only when you depopulate the components that will give you good value when selling the components or getting them refined yourself.

this is obviously end of life pc's, first point of call would be to try and sell parts, but if your picking up towers from rubbish piles etc and get more then you can keep up with, selling them whole might be your best bet..

 
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Another common form of Silver in electronics are tactile switches.
Mostly in lcd tv's, monitors, printers and pc's, they don't have a heap of silver but because tactile switches are so common it doesn't take long to build 'em up.

 
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