Yes that is likely cast aluminum. It *could* be die cast (or magnesium like mentioned above) which also shatters but shouldn't be a problem mixed with your cast Al. If your yard currently pays more for die cast might be worth getting a tiny bottle of silver nitrate from a hobby shop or hardware store. A drop on die cast will darken but it'll have no significant effect on cast Al. Cast iron too shatters but will be magnetic.Originally Posted by Dbone
Last edited by JJinLV; 02-22-2020 at 02:02 PM.
Also where in Florida are you? Company I work for has a yard in JVille.
Experienced Scrapper
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Sorry, one last pic showing how much copper I can get out of these transformers. This is 15 lbs from only 4 of them. 3.75 lbs average per transformer, that's $7.50 @ $2.00 a lb. It takes me currently 10-15 minutes to crack it open and get the coils out. Some are too difficult to clean all of the paper off, I'm sure that will affect the price a bit. Or am I being too optimistic? With 300 to go through, in copper alone, that's over $2,000.
photos. app. goo. gl/ eZo2NMvdYtgYbPHaA
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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15lb from 4 =~ 1125lb from 300.... It would probably go as #2 copper in as-is condition by me which is $1.80/lb. So yea.... about $2025 in copper alone.... at 15 mins each, thats 75 hours to do 300.... So about $27/hr (just for the copper). Yay money!
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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Just a few suggestions:
Do the nastiest, hardest, least paying work first. Discipline yourself and save the best for last. That keeps you working toward the end goal payout and gives you something to look forward too.
Make a few trips to different yards in your area and see if you can establish a rapport with the people there. Get a feel for how it all works before rolling in with a large load of anything. Also ... get a sense of how they treat the newbie that's easily fooled. Is it an honest yard ? Bring a copy of their price sheet home and study all the different categories. Any questions ? Let us know. We might be able to help you with that end of things.
You may generate some trash with this project. Make a plan for how you're going to deal with it.
I'm uncertain about those metal halide bulbs. They may have mercury in them. Try to do the right thing and see to it that they are properly disposed of as a hazardous material. They may be pressurized to 50 PSI as well ?
That's it's own hazard. Ya know ... accidentally drop one and it goes off like a little hand grenade ?
Perhaps set up a little (dis)assembly line in your garage. You would have to figure out the smoothest step by step order of operations on that one. Station 1 you do this. Station 2 you do that .. and so on.
Put the (sheet) domes in one pile.
Put the (cast ) boxes in another pile.
Put all your wire in a barrel or contractor's trash bag.
Put all your transformers in another pile -or- in a big box somewhere out of the way. Looks like they will be your payoff at the end of the job so just leave them be till all your other work has been done. You're going to have a bit of copper there. Somewhere around 1,000 lbs ? Play your cards right and you might be able to negotiate a better price if you bring it all in at once. Get to know your yard first though.
For the sake of simplicity and ease:
Bring all your domes at once. Same thing with the cast and so on if you can. Try to avoid having a dozen different things on the truck when you offload at the yard.
Give some thought to the people that you are getting the lights from. Are they in a rush to get them out of there ? If so ... put their need first before your own.
=================
It was a good day today. I've been setting all my copper bearing goodies aside and getting the scut work out of the way first. Finally got caught up and started work on rotors, stators, transformers and so on. Nice little haul of about 50 lbs of #2 copper. (One single gen head had over 23 lbs of copper in it.) Not much by some standards but good for me.
Gotta go back to work on my regular day job tomorrow.
Don't clean the paper off. Maybe as much of the outermost layer as comes off quick but that's it. Any place that doesn't buy it as #2 copper will certainly be selling it as #2 copper since the contamination from the widning coating and paper is *well* under 1% and is not a contamination that prevents the copper from being furnace ready. Any yard that downgrades it below #2 is scamming you
Experienced Scrapper
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Reply to Hills, also sorry for double post.
That's some great advice. What you said about "putting their needs above your own" especially. I may have went at my own pace, but they did tell me they wanted it gone so I need to work out getting it out of there asap. There are about 120 ready to go right now and another 200 estimated they are changing in the next couple of weeks. I can maybe fit 18-20 in the bed of my Ranger at once. They don't stack too well. Maybe I can rent a uhaul trailer to get them to my back yard. I have HOA where I live and don't want to piss them off either.
I also really like the idea of saving the best for last. Transformers aren't that big and I can pile them up into a mountain and tackle it all over a weekend. I will be sure to document it for you all, maybe it will be like scrap porn, haha.
I thought I was motivated before, but after joining this site, I could not be more motivated. When I'm at work tomorrow, I'm going to be thinking about disassembling lights. Time to get to work!
Last edited by Dbone; 02-23-2020 at 07:44 AM. Reason: Reply is for hills
Experienced Scrapper
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Thank you. You likely saved me a lot of unnecessary work with the paper. I need to buy some good quality cut-off blades to get through the welds, then I can just bust throught them with a 5 lb hammer and a railroad nail that I have. Works like a charm.
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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The bulbs wont have Mercury in them, i think they will be High Pressure Sodium ( HPS ) bulbs.
Or Metal Halide ( MH )
If they are Metal halide the inner bulb will be a glass tube squashed at both ends with a football shape in the centre, its probably greyish/black/silvery inside it. With a metal wire sticking out both ends, joined to other wires.
The High pressure sodium bulbs will have a whiteish opaque/clearish glass tube in the centre of the bulb, with a metal wire sticking out both ends joined to other wires.
The ballast unit will have either HPS, or MH on it, before a number, most likely 400 or 1000, thats the wattage.
Low Pressure Sodium bulbs, long tubular bulbs with a U shaped tube inside it, normally 50 watts, will have a silvery Mercury looking metal droplets sitting in the dimples in the U tube.
Thats Sodium metal, its not dangerous like Mercury is, it will fizz & pop if it comes in contact with water, then it sparks & flares a bit too.
Fun with Sodium.
Theres Mercury Vapour bulbs, sorta like a Metal halide bulb, but with a metal filiment, just like in a normal incandesant bulb, thats sitting around the inner glass bulb.
Those lights dont have transformers, they use the filiment to heat up the inner bulb, vaporise the Mercury metal inside it, then when its hot enough, it trips a little switch inside it to run electricity thru the Mercury vapour inside the inner glass tube. It then gives off light.
If its got no ballast and/or transformer, and theres that filiment inside the bulb, its a 97% chance its a Mercury vapour bulb.
If the Metal halide or High pressure Sodium bulbs are relatively clean inside, they could be sold.
You would still need to test them in the proper unit and that takes some time because of the long warm up period before they are running properly.
Even then i have had a HPS bulb with a bad connection weld inside it stop working several minutes after it had got into the running stage.
Those bulbs get used for Hydroponic plant growing. There is a market for the units if they do work.
Unfortunately there's some dodgy people involved in that industry.
'Professionals' would only buy brand new units too.
Considering the amount of units you have ( far too many for a single buyer ) and that you will have a decent amount of scrapmetal & $$$$ involved, plus your time. I wouldn't let anybody else know about what you are doing.
Its simply none of their business, its yours, and yours only business. ( Oh, 'cept for us guys @ Scrapmetalforum.com , LoL )
You dont need to tell anyone, or brag about it. You getting enough kudos from all us guys here anyway. ( All the way from the other end of the earth, from here )
Once you have processed & sold your scrapmetal you could possibly sell the bulbs. It does open yourself up to the chance of other, abit dodgy people & their situations too.
If theres any brand new bulbs it could be worth finding a buyer. Maybe. Best to stay safe though. If you could sell them to some business, i dunno, it depends on the situation.
I'd put the bulbs in a sack, inside another sack, till its full, tie it off & using safety glasses & earmuff, and a baseball bat....
Knock them into a smaller volume, then into a dumpster & gone burger.
( Hmm, 'you learn something every day. It turns out that 'gone burger' is a NewZealand saying )
https://www.urbandictionary.com/defi...erm=goneburger
Last edited by eesakiwi; 02-23-2020 at 09:03 AM.
Experienced Scrapper
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I just took a look at the bulbs and they all say on them "Hg" so I am pretty sure that is indeed Mercury. Could they still be sold or is that considered a hazardous product? Thanks for all of the great info though. I appreciate you reiterating the importance of not bragging about it to friends or coworkers as it is definitely tempting! I will stick to the forums to let all of that out.
Experienced Scrapper
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Sorry for the late reply, I am in central Florida in between Tampa and Orlando.
Experienced Scrapper
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Just brought my 2nd batch of lights home and today I found out there will be a total of 450 of these things. 18, 000 lbs in total of copper, aluminum and steel. I have my work cut out for me.
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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You got some money coming your way! Congrats! Have you checked local yards for prices and such on your first load?
If you have, for example, 3 yards within some distance youre willing to drive from you, it might be a neat experiment to take 30 lights, disassemble them each/equally and take each load of 10 to each yard and see which you get the most at. Then take the remaining to whatever that yard is. You can factor driving distance and such in to if you want to get real technical.
For example there has been times where Ive taken stuff to one yard where they pay better for 1/2 of the stuff I am bringing, but worse for the other half.... so now after a while I have figured out which of the 2 around me pay better for which things and sort my loads accordingly!
You may find out one yard pays $0.25/lb for cast alum and $1.60 for #2 copper, and the other yard pays $1.80 for #2 copper but only $0.19/lb for cast alum. It may make sense to split your loads then to maximize profit!
Of course, if you only have one yard close by.... you can throw all this out the window
Just an idea! Good luck! report back please with how it goes!
Last edited by kss; 02-25-2020 at 05:28 PM.
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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I've been thinking about the size of the job over the last few days. Time management and all that good stuff ..
Figure maybe .5 man hours per unit between the picking up, break down, trips to the yard, & everything else involved.
.5 mh x 450 units = 225 man hours
To put it into context : Figuring 40 hr work weeks ... the average guy works 160 man hours per month.
You are going to have to quit your job and do this full time for the next month and a half !
Been tryin' to think of some kind of work around the problem. Seems like you've bitten off more than you can chew. Heaven knows ... that's easy enough to do.
Is there some way you could transport the units directly from your pickup point to the yard ?
Forget the disassembly part and take your lumps ?
Maybe even have the yard drop off a rollaway at your pickup point. All you do is broker the deal for a commission ?
Last edited by hills; 02-25-2020 at 08:10 PM. Reason: fix typos
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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Pfft he'll be fiiiinnneeee ... LolI've been thinking about the size of the job over the last few days. Time management and all that good stuff ..
Figure maybe .5 man hours per unit between the picking up, break down, trips to the yard, & everything else involved.
.5 mh x 450 units = 225 man hours
To put it into context : Figuring 40 hr work weeks ... the average guy works 160 man hours per month.
You are going to have to quit your job and do this full time for the next month and a half !
Been tryin' to think of some kind of work around the problem. Seems like you've bitten off more than you can chew. Heaven knows ... that's easy enough to do.
Is there some way you could transport the units directly from your pickup point to the yard ?
Forget the disassembly part and take your lumps ?
Maybe even have the yard drop off a rollaway at your pickup point. All you do is broker the deal for a commission ?
If 30mins is to fully dissassble one completely you may need to do a slimming down where you take 3 mins on each to get everything out of the large casing and put the innards all aside, and scrap the biggest parts to make room for more and keep up a good pace.
I'll do this for example when I have like 30 pcs, I'll strip everything out of them so I can get rid of the large bulky cases right away, then work slowly on the innards at my own pace since they'll all fit in a large bin where as 30 pcs take up half the garage .....
Other options include renting a U-Haul and a storage unit for a month or so
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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Ummm .... you're not listening K.
I'll try again.
Quote:
Figure maybe .5 man hours per unit between the picking up, break down, trips to the yard, & everything else involved.
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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You may be right.... I'm just trying to give some positive encouragment. Worst comes to worst he can rent a U-Haul and drop the whole lot off at the yard as alum breakage or irony aluminum and still probably be profitable and done with it in 1 day....
Hopefully he updates with progress so we can follow along!
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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I hear ya bro. I would like to see him do well too.
It's a toughie when you're doing the Mon thru Fri / 40 hr per week thing. You're all worn out by the end of the week so Saturday is a day of rest and family time. Sunday is about the only day free where you get to work on your own stuff.
I'm reminded of the term " A month of Sundays ".
In this case, it could quite literally be an entire 30 Sundays or more to do the job.
< sigh> I miss the days of self employment sometimes. My time was my own. It wasn't a problem to take two or three weeks off to work on a project as long as my other obligations were being met.
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From what I see the only problem is storage....rent a unit get some lights (hahahah) and do this stuff in the evening as a 2nd job.....no biggie hills your making a mountain out of a mole hill
BUYING ALL COMPUTER SCRAP WORKING OR NOT
CHECK OUT MY BUYERS THREAD http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/scrap...nic-scrap.html
https://getjunk.net/Knox-County-TN-0...Recycling.html
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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Maybe hes got some kids that can help for some allowance money.... or some friends that would help out for some beers or a few bucks. For me, getting my hands on enough stuff is always my biggest issue, and he has that taken care of. I would find a way to deal with whatever amount I could get my hands on!
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