Telecom boards with gold-capped CPU's on board Value?

[Pnutfarmer]

Hey guys,

I've been taking apart some racks of telecom equipment I've had for some time. I pulled these boards and would like to know what they are worth. I've taken apart several racks and have at least 20 of the double gold-capped CPU boards. The boards have a steel back plate and end piece. The boards weigh just over 10 oz each and the back plates weigh just over 6 oz. I know they are telecom, but am wondering if I could get better prices by pulling off the CPU's to sell at a gold-capped price and thereby devaluing the whole board. Also, if I leave the boards intact, should I take the time to remove the back plates? Either way, I'm going to come out great on this one. I got these in a load of towers and didn't know what was in them until I opened them. I still have several to take apart and may get more of these boards or just more regular telecom boards. Thanks for any input guys. PS.... anyone know where to sell telecom power supply boards that slide into the racks?

[parrothead]

I have one similar currently that I have shipped off. I trust my buyer after basically weekly dealings with him. Find a buyer you can trust, and send some pictures off to him (or her if that is the case) and see what they say.

[Gravitar]

No offense, but a couple of posts ago you told me about looking in the buyers section and to "Research research research" about a question I had, and you go and ask a question like this. Here, I'll help you out:
http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/elect...se-boards.html
http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/elect...older-cpu.html
Yep, I did my research.

[pcscrapper]

Ka Bloom...

[Pnutfarmer]

Gravitar....Yes, earlier I didn't realize at first what you were asking about and corrected later. I wasn't chastising you for not researching earlier. I was actually trying to be as helpful as I could because I know there is a wealth of info here and many people don't know you have to dig for it.

About the telecom, thanks for the links but I have already read those two threads and several others. Neither of them gave any values on specific boards, just a generalized value of $3-6 on telecom which I already know about as I have sold some. My difficulty is figuring out whether it's better to pull the gold capped cpu's off and sell at approx $100+ per lb. Assuming somewhere around 20 per lb would make them worth $5 each or $10 per board. If the board whole weighs 10 ounces it would have to bring $16 per lb to sell for what the CPU would bring. I don't know what the board would grade with them removed, but a couple bucks a lb wouldn't be out of the question with the long pin connector and two larger sockets on the end of the wire. I wouldn't want to ship these off at even the upper $6 per lb telecom price. I haven't seen a higher price listed for telecom, but there may be one out there so I wanted to start this thread to see if it is actually better to separate them or not.

I realize I need to contact some of the buyers directly and I will do that. I'm just happy to get these and don't want to go the wrong direction with them. I'll proably pull one apart and weigh the CPU chips.

See ya later.

[Bear]

in some cases it's probably best to give the question with photos to a buyer, or maybe 2 or 3, and see what they tell you, and find what offers they submit

[mattcotner]

i would leave them on the board if it was me. 1st thing im thinking is the chips have no pins if you remove them being they are soldered on. dont think they would bring the full 100 per lb without them? if you remove the chips from the board then you got a lower grade telecom. if i had to guess i would say that board would be in the 5.00 per lb with the chips on? i could be dead wrong but sometimes you just gotta go with it.

[ron22]

I have similar boards and had the same questions. The buyers I talked to all agreed leave the soldered chips on. Remove any extra metal.
The buyers I emailed photos to also quoted me a price pe pound based off the photo.
So I would sugest some emails to buyers.

[Pnutfarmer]

mattcotner....Hey, I didn't think about causing a reduced value of the gold chips if they don't have pins or I pulled them off trying to desolder. I'm going to have to check that out.

ron22....Thanks, I will definitely send some pics to buyers. I have to get the rest torn down and see how many of each board I have. I think it will be easier to price having several identical boards in a lot. Removing the extra metal is also going to save me in shipping costs.

I've seen threads talking about not removing anything soldered on, but never really got a handle on the actual price reduction if one or two chips were removed. I do know that shearing or totally depopulating a board takes it way down.

I hope to post values given by buyers for these for information, but only if they agree to let me do so. I would keep their names private also if they want.

[Pnutfarmer]

mattcotner....I just had to do it. I desoldered the two chips to check the pins. They do have the gold pins on the bottom so that's a plus. I haven't got a value per lb of those yet.

Parrothead, Bear, Ron22....I am doing as suggested and sending the photos and weights to buyers, I just have to know what breaking them apart will do as a comparison and to let everyone else know.

The two chips I desoldered were from the first board and identical. They weigh .35 oz each so it takes 45 of them to make a lb. This compares to 20 486 chips at .8 oz each. The chip in the pic for size comparison is a 486.

The desoldering was the first time I've ever done it. I heated up the back of the board with my heat gun and they came off very easily with a light pry of a screwdriver. Had both of them off in about a minute.

[Jonniebrass]

Ahh heat gun. Be right back.

[brucie]

was the smell bad?

[Jonniebrass]

Wow, worked great. Fantastic I love adding value to an item. Thanks for tip op. The odor was not that bad.

[Bear]

was the smell bad?

that's some hazardous heating there

[Pnutfarmer]

Ok, I had a long post this morning that didn't work so I'll shorten and try again. I did find the answers I was looking for when I contacted some buyers. The final word ended up being that you guys are right and I should just leave the CPUs soldered on the board. I had prices on my earlier post and that may be why it didn't work. In all, I found that removing the CPUs and selling them and the board separate yielded 9% less than just leaving them on. So I'll just leave them on and save that time, effort, possible hazard and money. Thanks to all who had suggestions on this, I knew you were right, I just have to get to the heart of the scrap sometimes.

[twoonesicks]

Leave them on the board and try to sell them as "Chip Board". As already mentioned those fumes are beyond toxic.

I was always told by the owners of the e-scrap buying yard I used to be the scalemaster for to pay 65% of normal value to all chips sweated off.

Edit: Chip board should be $6.5 - $8.5 / lb.

[Durango59]

Old thread I know but I always use the heat gun to desolder ceramic gold capped
chips like these. My thought being, if I can get $80 to $100 a pound for something
off the board or $4 to $6 a pound leaving it on the board that chip is coming off.
Especially if it only take four to five minutes of my time.

I get paid relatively the same whether the high value chip is on the board or off
it when selling telecom boards in quantity. At most $2.00 a pound difference.
So, why not keep a few extra dollars in my pocket if I have the time and a
well ventilated place to do it. DO NOT do this indoors unless you have a fume hood
as it may cause some serious health issues.

[BarrenRealms007]

Old thread I know but I always use the heat gun to desolder ceramic gold capped
chips like these. My thought being, if I can get $80 to $100 a pound for something
off the board or $4 to $6 a pound leaving it on the board that chip is coming off.
Especially if it only take four to five minutes of my time.

I get paid relatively the same whether the high value chip is on the board or off
it when selling telecom boards in quantity. At most $2.00 a pound difference.
So, why not keep a few extra dollars in my pocket if I have the time and a
well ventilated place to do it. DO NOT do this indoors unless you have a fume hood
as it may cause some serious health issues.

The gold capped chip's I would take off the others I would leave on. If you are getting the same price for them as your boards I hope you are getting kissed after the deal.

[drozenski]

Old thread I know but I always use the heat gun to desolder ceramic gold capped
chips like these. My thought being, if I can get $80 to $100 a pound for something
off the board or $4 to $6 a pound leaving it on the board that chip is coming off.
Especially if it only take four to five minutes of my time.

I get paid relatively the same whether the high value chip is on the board or off
it when selling telecom boards in quantity. At most $2.00 a pound difference.
So, why not keep a few extra dollars in my pocket if I have the time and a
well ventilated place to do it. DO NOT do this indoors unless you have a fume hood
as it may cause some serious health issues.

Well lets assume this based on his weights for gold chips.

45 = 1 pound

Well estimate each board at 2 pounds each.

For estimates sake well say he gets $6 with them on and $4 with them pulled

He receives 2 chips per board.

So it make 1 pound he removed them from 22.5 boards

Well say it takes him 5 mins per board to take both chips off and get the next board ect. So it will take him 72.5 minutes of work.

Now 22.5 boards would have netted him a straight $270

Well since we took of the chips they now net him $176 bucks

But now he has 1 pound of CPU's at $100 per pound.

Well add 100+176 and we got a whopping $276 bucks

So he would have made $6 for pulling them off in this scenario, or roughly $0.07 cents per minute or $5.76 per hour.

Not to mention the fumes and other toxic things the person would have enjoyed breathing in.

[Pnutfarmer]

That's not too far off. I actually ended up getting $9 per lb on the boards with the chips on and $4 with them off. The chips themselves went into the $90 per lb category. I ended up selling half of the boards to the buyer who quoted me the best price and pulled the chips off the rest. I got pretty good at it and could remove the chips at just over a minute per board. It wasn't a great gain to pull them off, but I sure do love the sight of those golden beauties piled up.