Any thoughts

Drooling over here! that is a nice bunch of stuff.... If I had all that by me I could get


$0.22/lb for the alum heatsinks and other alum
$0.43/lb for all the wires (as is, mixed with all ends on)

The cases would just be shred at like $0.04/lb.

The powersupplies, since I dont have a powersupply buyer I would take apart. All the wires would go into the wire bin, the alum heatsinks in with the aluminum, transformers ripped off an go in with the elec motors ($0.08/lb around me), the case would go into shred, and the boards Id save as low grade. There is a place a little farther away that buys low-grade board at a little higher than shred price.

If everywhere by you isnt buying though, not sure what youre gunna do as I dont think it would make sense to ship to elsewhere. It might though

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

I think the last quote I got on cast was around .10 cents/lb....seems terrible

That does seem low. The yard by me only has 1 grade/price. "Insulated copper wire". So vacuum cords, power cords, pc cords, electronics cords..... all the same, and about $0.40/lb. Cast and sheet I lump together/dont seperate, and get around $0.20/lb.... might be able to call around and find better prices, those prices do seem low for sure.

One yard here totally removed the low grade wire from their buying list, The other yard was paying .08/lb for that junk wire when prices were decent. Can only imagine what they are paying now

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

There are places buying I just feel like I get ripped off every time I sale it.....they want to give me dirty prices and low grade wire which I guess some of it is

There isn't much in the power supplies that make them worthwhile.It's a hard go with those things.Even the wire coming out of them is tinned copper so it's not worth much. It might be okay of you had cheap labor, processed them by the gaylord, and could extract every little bit of value out of the things. Maybe better to delegate that job to someone in a 3rd world country and use your time more productively ?

It's a similar problem with " computer wire ". It's almost all small gauge tinned copper. Lots of plastic, low copper recovery, and to make matters worse ... there's a fair amount of aluminum braid in it's construction as well. It would be a miserable job to run that through a granulator. Lots of waste and the output product would be heavily contaminated. Barely a #2 copper if that.

Maybe it was a learning thing for the scrap buying industry ? They used to pay better for it .... but after awhile they figured out that it was only marginally worth doing ? It's really scraping the bottom of the barrel for material if you're running a granulator ?

Around here, " computer wire " goes as low grade insulated @ .05 /lb.

Mid-grade is .40/lb. That's stuff that "plugs into the wall" . It seems to average somewhere around 30 % recovery and is seldom tinned. You can get away with mixing in the individual strands of PSU wire & individual strands of marine and automotive wire even though that stuff is usually tinned copper.

Just figured i would throw it out there as grist for the mill. It might make it easier to part with it if you don't feel like you're getting ripped off.

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

Having trouble getting rid of some of these items........Either shipping costs to much or scrap yard doesn't want to pay what I consider fair price.....Oh well I'll continue to process stuff and hopefully get to this stuff later

Where are you in Tennessee? Shipping those PSUs shouldn't be too bad? Do you know the weight of that Gaylord and dimensions? Do you have a way of getting it to a freight terminal. If you do, I'll run some numbers for you. I have found freight to be fairly easy to do.

There is a cheaper way... AND you get free gaylords. Since I can't get decent advice out here, I'm not going to give any freebies out. But there is someone out there who gives a gaylord and shipping combo. Lets see the freight jockey's find this one?

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

So by my math If we went by ewasted prices I would get a check for around $91........That is figuring there is #900lbs of power supplies.......I feel like they are worth more than that

You might be better off disassembling and scrapping them I would think....


round me if that was 900lbs of power supplies, that might be like (just guessing)

200lb wires * 0.40 = $80
20lbs alum * 0.20 = $4
50lbs transformers * 0.08 = $4
200lb low grade board * 0.07 = $14
430 lb shred * 0.03 = $13

So thats $115, and hours of work taking them all apart.... so.... $90 just shipping them off as is doest seem too far off to me. But, I have never had nearly that quanity of power supplies so my ratios may be off, plus you said your prices local are much lower than mine. Might have to just hoarde them a while