Found Silver & Tantalum - Page 2

BigBurt,

You an EE...?




Jon.

Here are some more pictures of low grade boards that I have found these epoxy tantalum capacitors on., Going from left to right, the tan board is a thermostat board, the middle green/green is off of industrial machine monitor (B&W) and the right one is off a chemical making control board. All three are low grade boards and made in the 80's and early 90's. The tan board only had two caps, the middle had eight black caps and the one on the right had three red & orange ones. It literally takes only seconds to snip these off of the board. I do use magnifying glasses (5X magnification) that make this job much quicker. Takes much longer learning what a tantalum capacitor is and where they can be found!

Jon, I never really considered myself a working EE, as I spent more time managing engineers and technicians. I did originally go to school for that. I spent over 20 years in the aviation community, both in the military and commercial airline. I have been running my own company now for another 20+ years none of it electronic engineering related. I can still read a schematic and a data sheet (I think?). I do enjoy breaking down E waste and it allows me to get back into the electrons and hole flow movement in a very small way!

Besides Silver and Tantalum, I maybe should point out the Gold. Yes that's gold in those first two boards, the tan board has nineteen test points five of them are gold and fourteen of them silver. The middle board had two removable dip chips and the sockets that they plugged into are gold plated. Here's another view of those two boards stacked on top of each other. Hopefully you can see the gold!

Thanks, BigBurt,

Its just kinda interesting to see the background of us SMF'ers.

As I said in my rants about the guy making $2500/night raiding retail store dumpsters--we in the buz cut across all walks of life. The way that article characterized the typical scrappie just blew my mind. I never cease to be amazed at the common sense and intelligence that comes off of these pages, from people who are in this game. There's a few winners out there, too, but its amazing how they usually get themselves banned or just kinda slowly disappear.

Now I see a chance at some teasing....hmmm..."boss of engineers".... Dilbert's boss comes to mind..... {wish we had Sirscrapalot here to help...} maybe something like "Pointy"?



Jon..... unh, wondering if he should look for cover....

I'm sure Sirs. is lurking close by and yes the diversity of this group of people has both surprised and amazed me. Then again when you get down to this business it makes more sense than anything Iv'e dealt with. Furthermore this is for a thinking persons much more than a nonthinking type. Certainly one needs to be ambitious, creative and a non-follower if you want to succeed.

I also am of the opinion it doesn't really matter what one chooses to do, just need to work at it and do the best job with the abilities you have. In short for me it doesn't matter if one shovels monkey $hit, just do a good job at it and things will work out for the better.

This is a close up of the "Pizza Board". With the 37 PMT's, cards, non-soldered IC's, and the two soldered silver/tantalum capacitors, now removed. I'm guessing this would sell as a "Riser" board? All of the contacts for the cards and IC's are gold plated.

That's what I would put it at, although "riser" boards are usually connected via a slot of their own to a larger board. IE a PCI riser board would extend more pci slots out of one slot parallel to the motherboard. Your board is what I would call a backplane. I could be wrong, it's late and I'm tired. Palletizing TVs isn't a late night activity.

This a picture of a nice populated board, that came out of a keyboard. Made in England in 1988, the board is called a keyboard interface. Has fourteen epoxy "drop" type capacitors, that I will not be removing. There is ten non soldered IC's that I will remove, have already removed one of them (had gold plated top and pins). This board has gold plated pins on all of the connections and jumpers as well.

I too have started in on the tantalum hunt recently and your spot on when you said that they are nowhere near as prevalent on the "newer boards". One little thing that I have noticed that applies across the board is the color MUSTARD YELLOW. 90% of the epoxy Ta and even the ones I call bricks are mustard yellow in color. Now the tear drop ones do come in an assortment of colors but with those the shape and the fact that everyone has a little kick in one of the lead legs. Anyway that's my little tip for the easy to find ones.

Just wanted to update a little more info on that last board (keyboard processor). Removed the nine removable IC's and the board weighs a little over a pound. Have seven of these boards and one keyboard that I haven't scraped yet.

Thanks for the thread. Its one that I know I'll keep going back to in my quest for the ever illusive tant . which thanks to this thread its not so hard to spot.
Cudos big Burt!

Im a definate newbie and with all that i have looked into this tantalum cap is like chasing your shadow in the sun untill ya get a hand on it. I have seen a few drops here and there on various mid and low grade material but the really good ones seem to be most present on telecom gear of sorts. I scraped a wave form thinggey the other day. Sorry for not getting pics but pulled 10 of the wet TA caps and found every wire connector to be gold plated. Ill fish for the parts to list the correct part number. Thanks again this one keep going and going and going. Dang TA

Originally Posted by Blue414

Im a definate newbie and with all that i have looked into this tantalum cap is like chasing your shadow in the sun untill ya get a hand on it. I have seen a few drops here and there on various mid and low grade material but the really good ones seem to be most present on telecom gear of sorts. I scraped a wave form thinggey the other day. Sorry for not getting pics but pulled 10 of the wet TA caps and found every wire connector to be gold plated. Ill fish for the parts to list the correct part number. Thanks again this one keep going and going and going. Dang TA

If you look at scrapping as if you are a prospector it helps to put things into prospective.
Ewaste allows us ,modern day prospectors, to mine for more than one metal.
Tants have good value and are worth removing. Save them up. In my opinion tantalum is just going to steadily rise in value, because its such a rare metal.