Gold plated connectors

I believe phone cords are generally not wanted. There is a pretty good thread on them already, I'll see if I can find it.

http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/showt...Connector-Ends

Originally Posted by CanIScrapIt

So let me get this straight: Gold plated cable ends are things like monitor, parallel, printer, serial, and ends like that? What about phone cable ends?

What else am I missing? If it looks like gold, is it safe to throw in the gold plated bucket? Or is there a catch sometimes? Thanks!

When you process your own gold, telephone connectors count,the gold plated wires are very similar to what you would find in a Ethernet or modem cards and associated cable ends.

First picture un shredded computer cable ends, 2nd after shredding, 3rd look closely you might see some gold, 4th is the inside of the hammer mill that did the dirty work. After shredding I use a magnet to remove any iron. You could use a gold pan to remove the plastic and keep the wire for processing the gold, but I have other plans.

Originally Posted by CanIScrapIt

Perfect! Thank you for the link.

Also, very interesting pictures. Thank you for showing me that. How much gold would you usually get for that amount of connectors?

The pins from those connectors are mostly copper so this is what I'm going after first any gold, silver or platinum is a by product from the copper anodes I process in my cell.

The copper below has been plated out of a copper anode, the precious metals stayed behind and fell to the bottom of the cell as slimes. Because I have homogenized by melting everything into the copper anode. I'm unable to answer your question - How much gold is there.

Suggested reading is Ammen's Refining Precious Metals or Hokes, Refining Precious Metals Wastes.

Pure copper, by the time I'm ready to discard that cathode it will weigh about 20 lbs.

First picture un shredded computer cable ends, 2nd after shredding, 3rd look closely you might see some gold, 4th is the inside of the hammer mill that did the dirty work. After shredding I use a magnet to remove any iron. You could use a gold pan to remove the plastic and keep the wire for processing the gold, but I have other plans.<<

you do not remove the plastic prior to processing?

i was curious what your weight & volume ratios are. from raw connectors to milled material ready for processing.
processing time from connector to milled? pounds per hour/day? very interesting setup.

Originally Posted by rbrooks715

First picture un shredded computer cable ends, 2nd after shredding, 3rd look closely you might see some gold, 4th is the inside of the hammer mill that did the dirty work. After shredding I use a magnet to remove any iron. You could use a gold pan to remove the plastic and keep the wire for processing the gold, but I have other plans.<<

you do not remove the plastic prior to processing?

i was curious what your weight & volume ratios are. from raw connectors to milled material ready for processing.
processing time from connector to milled? pounds per hour/day? very interesting setup.

Yes everyone wants to know weights and returns, last year I had a 45 gallon drum and a 20 liter garbage pail full of connectors, using the large hammer mill it took less than 1/2 hour to shred.

The real work begins separating the wheat from the chaff, to process that lot the plastic was left with the pins. I added a dilute sulfuric acid which leached the copper out as copper sulfate leaving the gold to settle on the bottom of the pails as a powder.

Separating the plastic from the gold powder at this point was fairly easy,

Finely divided gold in powder looks like coco powder the color will vary depending on the gold content. The powder only takes on the color of gold once you re melt it into a bar or button.

You still have to refine that gold to get pure gold.

This year I decided to go with the copper cell, much less liquid wastes to deal with then I also believe I'm getting much better returns.

There are many different types of cells, since my anodes consist mostly of copper this is the type of cell I use the electrolyte consists of copper sulfate with a bit of sulfuric acid to make it more conductive.

When I cast the anode I add those junk gold plated pins which are at best considered low grade scrap into the melt along with some silver contacts still attached to the copper bars.

Had I used a torch to remove the silver contacts from the copper bars some silver would have remained on the copper, by running this through the cell I get it all back with out any loss.

After running a batch of silver contacts, the ones I collect from washing machine and dryer timers among other things my observation was that the hammer mill is doing the job.much better than I ever thought possible.

The elements involved, plastic, iron, copper, brass and silver, the parts are feed into the mill while making contact with the hammers, the plastic breaks into little pieces, the copper balls up he brass may ball up but mostly breaks into powder as will the silver

Sometimes the silver contacts just come loose from their mount then fall through the screen, but what I'm seeing is that the silver being so soft is being abraded into powder. The fact that the silver is being turned into powder will make it so easy to separate.

Last year from that barrel of plugs, once they had been shredded I ran the lot in a ball mill filed with water with a tad of soap. This was a very successful experiment, what I found was that the gold eventually abraded off of the pins after 12 hours run time, but not enough to cal the job a total success.

A shaker table would work to separate the heavier silver and gold from the plastic, or I could simply incinerate the lot.

I've choose to build this e-tower, there are no moving parts, plus I may have all the parts needed right here in my project pile.

Does the e-tower use water or air?

Originally Posted by freonjoe

Does the e-tower use water or air?

Water, the valve is to control the incoming pressure and the volume of water coming in, the PVC pipe inside has holes drilled into it the round gray thing is a screen used to diffuse the current. The screen is held in place by fitting it in between the bottom and the threaded top piece.

The siphon hose is to gently remove the water once you have a good collection of sediment. The only change I would make here is to plug off the end of the siphon then cut a small hole into the side just above the plug so that your siphon is drawing liquids from the side and not the bottom.

I just want to make sure that if I've got the right idea =].

I took the gold looking 4 peices out of a telephone cable connector on both ends, it looks like gold just to be sure can u tell me if it is fully gold gold plated or just ****ty old brass