How does your "teardown" process go?

I go in stages and only do one type of ewaste at a time, remove everything from the towers ,printers or whatever, then clean up, sort plastic and shred and place everything in its designated home. Then move on to other types of ewaste or break down drives or clean boards. I basically want my work area clean before moving on. I don't know about efficiency, but with how my mind works it is what works for me. Plus with most ewaste once you remove shred and plastic you can store large amounts and keep it organized until you have time.

It depends on what scrap. I do try to unload all like servers or what ever on the same pallets and do one type at a time.

I do have the correct of containers in front of the work area and sort boards, plastic and metal as I tear them down. Avoids handling the same material several times.

Hard drives are a little different. They come to me stacked in boxes, in random. They come in different trays so I have try to sort them into piles according to screw type and size, as I work them.

When tearing down the hard drives I do them according to screw type and size

very carefully!

All parts have their own bins or tubs. Towers get taken apart and after all are disassembled we go back to what has to get processed further. Cut wire off of power supplies, remove fans off of heat sinks, excess steel or al from finger cards. Steel, batts and al from mobo's, drives get done last since these have multple bins for what comes out of them. Keep a bucket nearby to sweep all the screws into.

Best advice is to have your bins close by so you can toss the parts where they belong. Its easier to further process items that are in their own bins instead of fishing through a big mass of parts.

Originally Posted by Chrissm14

I'm curious as to how everyone goes about breaking down their e waste. Do you break things down completely then move to the next item? Or do you break an item down, separate the boards and such and put them in a pile to tear down later? Any opinions on which way is most efficient? So far I've been breaking down items and separating them to process later. I'm getting ready to break down a tub of circuit boards, and a bunch of the boxes that are found on power cords.

Not all Ewaste are created equal, that means some will get more attention than others. Some are not worth the time it takes to break them down. So it's a game time decision and an experience call.

to do pile
any final product gets removed separated as i go wires, metals, boards, ram, cpu.
motors, hd's, power supply's would be examples of items that would be tossed back into the to do pile.

the only problem i have with this method is if i have a slow week end up at the bottom of the pile with a bunch of items that are generally a PITA
winter space dictates bulk must be taken care of first, not so much in the summer.

Alot also has to due with if you are getting material for free or buying. I am about 60/40 buying material so we try to get it in and get it out as fast as possible. Dont want to have a big drop in metals while sitting on material. So even the smaller items get processed as soon as possible

I breakdown into tubs that need to be broken down further.

For example - circuit boards into 1 tub. When full, break off all AL heat sinks (with parts of pins, transistors, and board pieces still attached) and throw in dirty AL bin. When that is full, remove transistors, board fragments and pins.

Rest of circuit boards (minus AL) back into another tub. When full, strip off wires, brass, CU bearing and break off board pieces that have large IC's. CU bearing and board pieces with ICs go into their own tubs.

When CU bearing tub is full, break down ferrite and plastic to remove CU.

When "dirty IC" tub is full, clean off chips.

Like others, I tend to work on "similars" for a day. Makes for more efficient use of time with limited switching of tools. Every day is a little different.

Whatever works best for you is what is best for you. Might want to review this thread http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/day-l...cket-list.html to get some ideas.

my problem persists.......100's of printers and crt's..........the towers are usually processed immediately and the other crap gets put on back burner as I have no local outlet for plastic except county recycle

thanks guys my process is pretty similar to a lot of y'alls. from a $ per hour standpoint I'm prob not making much, some things just fascinate me and I take to long breaking them down lol. I had my first big pick up from a business about a month and a half ago, about 10 tvs, some monitors, 6 pcs, 5 microwaves, 5 printers 3 fax machines, prob 80lbs of various chargers and cables, and a bunch of stereo equipment. I only have 1 microwave, 1 fax machine and 1 printer left to break down. I would have been done sooner but I took breaks to do other things like break down a tub full of boards, and also test/list items on eBay.

Anyone else rarely use a hammer and smash things? I have a porter cable impact driver so it makes pretty short work of most screws. Most of the time I'm breaking things down is when my fiancee or son is sleeping, and smashing things makes a little too much noise in my basement. Plus I can't stand the mess when plastic flies everywhere lol.

I don't use a hammer. If I can't unscrew it, I'll generally cut around the screw. I don't like a bunch of broken pieces around. I just have too much stuff to be broken down to start having broken stuff everywhere to clean up. Besides, I've found a grinder or Sawzall takes less time than a hammer.