gold pin removal

Hey guys was going through youtube and found this intresting video on removing gold pins.:p

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LWe...e_gdata_player

But the big question is how much does it de-value the CPU?

Looks like yet another person going for the PM they can see and disregarding the ones they cant.

It hurts the value a lot, you can't guarantee what you are buying.

Heat Gun works, also a small handheld torch works. I personally use a torch because it cuts the time down even more, and those heat guns can run you up an electricity bill if you are using it for hours. The torch will burn off some of the poisonous gases that are created when the PC Boards are heated, there are all kinds of things in the solder, and the board you don't want to breath in. I can't tell but it looks like the person in the video isn't using a fume extractor (like you would for soldering), a fan or anything else to move the fumes away from where he is breathing.

If anyone does use this method, make sure you do it so that you are not breathing in the fumes, in a well ventilated area. Not trying to be an alarmist, but if you search google about PC boards, and either burning or heating them and what type of health hazards they produce you will see what I am talking about. In 3rd world countries where people are processing this type of material, outside but in huge quantities, the average life expectancy of the people working it is less than 8 years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd_ZttK3PuM

Scott

Are the pins real gold? They look like 2 different metals. How much would it take to make this worth your while?

The pins that come off fiber or transitional CPUs are most often times iron or kovar plated with gold, the plating is very very little. These are the lowest yield pins you can process.

Scott

Just a intrest here.

I first processed using HCL & H2O2. It took time & I still have not actually got melted gold. I need a heat source to do that. A lot of waste but it was my first time...

But. I got left with a lot of copper containing HCL acid.

So, for the second go, I just put my HCL/solder cleaned pins in a jar & added some of the leftover copper containing HCL & let it rot.
It rots into a green/light blue oxide. I'd add some more acid to dissolve that & pour it into another bottle. The sediment dropped out of that & I'd pour off the acid.
Then I'd add that HCL to the pins again & let it rot for another few days.
You only need to get the pins wet, you need air to make it rot.

I could see the gold flakes drop from the rotted/acid mix to the bottom at the same time the sediment dropped out.

So I kept doing that till it had all rotted. The sediment from the process added up & once all of the pins had rotted. I.

Added even more acid to the sediment (you don't need much more) & the sediment dissolved into the copper satuated HCL mix & the Gold flakes it contained dropped out to the bottom of the solution.

I think this is a good quick way to the Gold. Its just taking the copper away from the gold, not actually dissolving the gold at all & the extraction is just from the weight of the gold. Nothing fancy.

It takes a while (weeks, maybe months, probably weeks) but with a lot less danger & actual working time taken. Less hours = more profit.

Also. We here are not really interested in getting 99.9998% Gold. If it contains Gold & we know how much %, then its a saleable item.

I'd suggest doing it this way for beginners. No heat at all.

Dissolving the base metals and leaving behind the gold foils for further refining is the way to do this. You can do this several different ways, some better than others. Before that however, you should read whatever books that pertain to these types of reactions first, join GRF and read the posts pertaining to the processes you will be using, and do familiarity tests so that you understand the reactions. Not only that, but these types of reactions MUST be done either outside in a well ventilated area so that no other people or animals are able to breath in the NOx fumes that are given off, or under a fume hood, or best in an enclosed reaction system connected to a wet fume scrubber. The rusty colored red/brown NOx gas that is created can cause serious harm, or even death, sometimes days later. It's bad stuff to say the least, I wouldn't play around with it unless you know what you are doing and have some chemistry under your belt.

I was speaking with someone not long ago about platinum refining. This particular person, who has some experience refining gold under his belt made a very simply yet potentially deadly mistake. He added a substance in an attempt to neutralize the excess nitric acid, this created a highly explosive and volatile solution, then he added another substance to the solution to bring the PH down which caused the solution to explode. Imagine if you can, a highly acidic solution, in glass, exploding with such violence that it throws acids and glass shrapnel all over the place. Fortunate for him he was doing this in a five gallon bucket and most of the solution was contained. Even still, he did get some on his skin and had to neutralize it, he probably will wear the scars for many years to come. To say the least he was extremely lucky it didn't turn out far worse than it did.

Refining using these methods is extremely dangerous even for those experienced. You have to have a process, understand the different reactions and know what to do in case things go wrong. I would strongly suggest, if you are interested in this type of work, that you head my advice above and seek out others, read books, join GRF, etc before attempting anything.

Just a side note, what you dissolved was probably not copper. To dissolve copper with HCl you either need an excess of oxygen in solution, or the HCl has to be so hot that it's almost boiling, not generally the best way to do this. If the pins you were doing were of the type we have been talking about on this thread, then the metal was probably iron or kovar or perhaps both, which both would dissolve in HCl.

Scott