hard-drive question - Page 2

Mine are all somewhat modern from late 90s and 2000s. Thats the only 486 chip I have seen out of 7 pallets of items. Plenty of telecom though. Ill have roughly 1/2 ton of aluminum clean.

I had been thinking of this thread and today I found a older 40gig hard drive with a 100% non magnetic back on it.

The Stainless steel top plate weighhs 117 gms and the pressure cast Ali housing weighs 242 grams, say 1/2 a Lb.

Its not often I find a 100% stainless cover on these, but they turn up, mostly they are 2 sheets of metal, mostly Ali + Steel or Stainless steel and need to be peeled apart.
Also, it had a hidden and tough to undo torx screw under a sticker, holding the reader arm in place.

So, maybe the SS top plates worth 12 cents all by itself...

Parted out there's the excess steel screws etc. Scrap steel weight, it all adds up. I know, they get put in my empty food cans, lid placed over them and crimped over when full, then placed nicely in a empty microwave. Makes forms heavy empty microwave and its easy to handle as well.

Ali cast chassis
(maybe the buyer can be convinced to pay extrusion price for this Ali, since it, as 'High pressure die cast Ali' is supposed to be as 'Ali extrusion grade' of Ali anyway. Good luck with this...
With me the difference would be going from it being worth NZ$0.24 cents to NZ$0.36 cents each.)

2 hard drive neo magnets. Maybe its $2+ on eBay...?

The reader arm. Its got Gold on it. Somebody pays good money just to buy the arms by themselves, dunno who.

The motor, its a Copper/Steel mix, a upgrade in price, added to all other electric motors/small transformers/etc.

The board itself.. Cannot forget that, older bigger ones weigh more too, 2x-3x as much.. Tastey Tantis on them too.

Platters, ho hum, nobody's ever got more than 'Ali Dom' prices for them. EBay if you can/do/sell.

The little Ali ring. More Ali extrusion, or maybe eBay. I save then up to one day in the future, when I will machine a small Vee groove inside them, slit them with a thin cut and drill/tap a hole sideways so a screw will close up the gap. Then they can be sold as a key chain/necklace that will hold a coin of whatever sort inside the groove.
(I saw this idea on a keyring somebody bought in Bali once. A eBay sale again. Or to whoever I find who will buy my other etsy like escrap, CCD image sensors, mouse image sensors, quartz resonator/delay timing components from CRT TVs. There is somebody here in my island who makes hand crafted jewelry. I do intend to catch up with them soonish. When I sell my escrap....lol @ NZ prices.....)

I'm a scrapper/refiner so generally I remove the board, and give the drive a Whack or two with a 24oz rafting hammer. I used to do a full teardown but it takes too much time for the few cents I'd gain. I've got a friend who likes the platters and makes wind chimes out of them to sell. If he needs some I'll break them down... but usually I won't bother.