Can You Tell Me If This Board Is All GOLD?

[ChesterCopperpot]

I got this out of a surround sound receiver.

[webuyselltradestuff]

no the plastic is just colored gold (ie PAINT). That actually is a low grade board (typically called brown board) form the limited picture (I think I get like .08/lb).

[ChesterCopperpot]

Bummer.
here's another pic.

[matador]

That's a low grade board. If stereo receivers had boards that size that were solid gold, I'd be able to retire in the Caribbean!

[ChesterCopperpot]

Lolololololololololol

[webuyselltradestuff]

That's a low grade board. If stereo receivers had boards that size that were solid gold, I'd be able to retire in the Caribbean!

What HE said! I wouldn't be working long...LOL

[Tincankeith]

I'm not trying to buck the system here but that sure looks like a thin piece of copper or painted Al. (not sure why it would be but)
If that's just paint it sure is thick. When you zoom in you can see its cut out around the components on the board.
just for S and G's can you take a file or knife and pry a corner of it?

[ChesterCopperpot]

Here's a video of the board after I filed it down a bit & pulled the metal back w/ some pliers.
http://vid69.photobucket.com/albums/...r/IMG_0302.mp4

[Tincankeith]

Videos are blocked at work. lol
I'll have to view it later. but based on your description above it was metal/thin sheet?

[ChesterCopperpot]

Yeah, it feels and looks like a thin sheet of copper. But that could just be wishful thinking.

[PartTimeScrapper]

Its probable a thin sheet of alluminium so that the whole board can act like a heat sink. That would be my guess anyway.

[NobleMetalWorks]

It's probably copper, and used as RF shielding if this has anything to do with reproducing sound, or graphics.

On high end electronics that are susceptible to RF interference, shielding is often used to prevent interference from other electronics. When you pack in a bunch of electronics that reproduce sound or graphics, they generate their own little electromagnetic fields. Sometimes these fields interfere with each other. You can hear this in electronics that reproduce sound as a fuzzy sound, or crackling. This type of shielding prevents the interference. Lesser electronics might use capacitors inline to the speakers to remove this noise, or a magnet that clips around the wire that creates a magnetic field that prevents certain frequencies from being produced at the speakers.

Edited: I just noticed the lines in what I am calling copper plating. When copper is used as shielding, it most often has those same small lines running through the copper. It has something to do with the efficiency that the shielding is able to achieve in preventing interference from other electronics.

I would suggest that this is copper. It certainly does not have the color of gold plating, and we already know your board is not solid gold, I have never seen a solid gold board used in electronics, but I have several boards that are almost completely plated in gold, these are targets for testing ICUs in silicon valley, they wear out and are replaced on a fairly regular basis. I buy them as scrap. I process a lot of these types of boards and can say definitively, unless your video and pictures are totally wrong in their color representation, that the metal on your board is NOT gold. I believe it's copper.

Scott

[kane333]

It is considered a Ground Plane. The main reason large copper sheets like the one on your board are used for printed circuit boards is so designers don't have to run an extra trace for grounding purposes. If it's a digital or RF Circuit Board, the ground plane is used to help eliminate "crosstalk" between traces which causes "noise". Some examples of Ground Planes are shown below. For that first image, whoever did the soldering on that board wouldn't have a job for long. Hope this helps.

[MelvinS]

Nah! Don't think there is much gold in it. All aluminium and copper will be more apt. Yes there may be some gold but most of the 'gold' may simply be a gold plating. If it were all gold all scrap dealers would be rich by now.

[eesakiwi]

Very pretty, my precious......

[unknownk]

Very pretty, my precious......

Older too, the curved had laid out traces give it away.