Cutting some transformers today

and sorting by copper and aluminum windings. I don't often run into both in the same transformer.

Originally Posted by scrapping4ever

This is like this in almost all micorwaves unfortunately

That might have been where this came from. Finally got around to several microwaves last week. They'd been sitting for three or four years. Shows how slow things have gotten the last few months. I think next, I'll tackle the 15-20 copiers and printers.

Know what boat your in Mick, I just got done with a dozen of the office style printers (about 2 ft. tall), a whole lot of fluff, 4-6 motors, couple boards. Had to get them out of my living room tho,,,

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

Know what boat your in Mick, I just got done with a dozen of the office style printers (about 2 ft. tall), a whole lot of fluff, 4-6 motors, couple boards. Had to get them out of my living room tho,,,

I'm fortunate in that I've got a fairly large cabin that I'm using for storage/office. You can pretty well make it out in the background:

You should watch out overloading that trailer like that. Is tying down a tractor with string legal?

Also, I go through a lot of microwaves...even the really old ones have had aluminum in the transformers. Either all aluminum or half and half.

Originally Posted by ryanw

You should watch out overloading that trailer like that. Is tying down a tractor with string legal?

Also, I go through a lot of microwaves...even the really old ones have had aluminum in the transformers. Either all aluminum or half and half.

Thanks. That answered a question I was trying to figure out. I cut seven or so transformers today. Making it like an assembly line - cut one side of them all - sort by type and pound them all out another day. And there's more transformers in that cabin to process. About half were all copper and half all aluminum with this one being half-and-half. I had a few air coolers and portable air conditioners, too. So the all aluminum must have been the microwaves, the all copper were the coolers and this one a high-end microwave. Not that it really matters. They all wind up the same; either the copper pile or the aluminum pile, the electrical wire barrel and the rest goes on the Light Iron pile. No matter what they were in "life", they're equal in the recycle world.

Mick would the alum. ones be worth more just selling as a transformer?? I get .22 a lb and the alum. can't be worth much more than that??? I'm also figuring time invested tearing them down.