Is it a waste if time to scrap these items?

I do have a lot of time on my hands to scrap, but since I'm a newbie, I'm wondering if I'm wasting my time by collecting these items...sorry I don't know the names yet:



1-small metallic pieces with thin plastic skin, taken off motherboards...highly magnetic.



2-usually screwed onto a heat sync.


3-chips off tv's, cards and motherboards.

I wouldn't waste time pulling off the eproms(Bottom Pic)or the other do hickeys there. Unless you see gold or a window in the case of the eprom, I wouldn't bother. As our esteemed Matt in the Hat said, it can lower the value of the board.

Is it worth it? That is up to you to decide, everyone values their time differently. I got time to do tv's when I want to, others don't, so they focus on what works for them and their situation.

An far as I know second pic is all copper baring. Third as I said above is Eproms, and...flatpacks I think. I dunno, I don't normally pull them unless their gold or special in some way.

Good luck!

Sirscrapalot - Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. - M. Scott Peck

Top pic, on left, plastic coated aluminium roll of Aluminium = Capacitor. Value = nothing.

Top pic, middle, metal can, two wires underneath = Quartz crystal, the frequency's printed on its side. Contains small amount of Silver. Value = Nothing really, there's nobody buying them seperated from everything, by themselves.
(I do pull them off boards if I am cleaning everything off a board, saved them up simply because I can. I have no idea what to do with them at all)

Top pic, right, Ali can on black base = Ali foil capacitor in Ali can. Value = nothing.
_------_

Middle pic, These are power transistors for power regulation. The backing metal plate and legs are 'Tinned' Copper. Value = Dirty Copper price $. Save up enough of them and you have a few $$.
(I save them up, I have put them in a can and chucked it into a fire and burnt off the plastic, after sieving thru a microwave door I got 'Domestic Copper'. I chucked it in with other Dom Copper and sold it. So I now save them and have a 5gallon container full.)

Middle pic. Thing with 'STK xxxxx' written on it. Its a amplifier, probably Audio. They normally have a Aluminium backing heatsink, screwed to a bigger heatsink. Sometimes the backing plates Copper, scratch it to see what it is. Inside, pry the black plastic off. There's big transistors with Silver wire going to each one. Value = If its Copper backed - Domestic Copper price once plastic removed.
Or Ali = Ali domestic price with no plastic.
(I picked off the Silver wires from a bunch of them, got 80cents worth of Silver... Its under a sticky clear goo, boil goo and Silver in turps and then pour off turps and let it dry, goo dries up to crystal chunk, melt Silver and burn off chunk and pour into ingot mold with other Silver, if you want too.)

Bottom photo
Big chips, plug in chips, probably because they have to use different chip programmes for different world areas depending on local transmission or power supply factors.
Value = These can be sold to ewaste buyers and do have a price per Kg or Lb. The legs are 'Tinned' Copper and there's either Silver or Gold wires connecting the legs to the silicon chip.
As these are a higher grade chip because its a plugin sort, probably more Gold wires than normal.
(I save these and intend to sell them or burn the plastic off and sieve thru microwave door to remove the Copper legs and then separate charcoal from Gold wire/charcoal and gold pan about 60% of the Gold wires out. Its called 'Patnors method' and you can find it on the net. I have a 10gallon bucket full of the lower grade 'thru hole soldered' chips like these)

Bottom pic, the thinner chips. These are 'Flatpack' chips, soldered directly to the board.
These are brought by the Kg or Lb too, by escrap buyers.
Same deal as the other chips, higher quality chips with Gold wires.
(I have 2 gallons of these. Sand off legs with belt sander and 'Patnors method' them)

Bottom photo, the random bit by itself, looks like a mounting block for a chip. Value = nothing.
Unless its got Gold plating on it, then escrap buyers will buy them.


If you have taken any of these parts off 'Green boards' you have devalued the boards.
Green boards will be brought by escrap buyers and without these parts, are worthless.

Even if they came off 'Brown boards' you have devalued them IF you can sell the brown boards.
If you cannot sell the brown boards, then maybe you can do Patnors method to get some basic Gold, which will be more for fun than big $$, but don't spend any money doing it.
Your times worth money and this sort of stuff takes a lot of time for a small return.

Like even with Patnors method, in some cases the left over Copper legs will get you a few $ too.
The Gold values probably a few times the Copper value if you can sell the Gold like you get it.
Take the case of the STK amps Silver.. 80 cents from 10 STK amps.. Lotsa time involved and little return. Maybe if I only picked off the big Silver wires, was quicker, and had more amps, I c
'could' have some Silver of value. Which I would add to my 'relay contact Silver' and make a ingot and put it aside for show. That's about it.

Hi, I am also quite a newbie but in my opinion, no I don't think that you are wasting your time collecting these items. In fact recycling of electronic items and processors like these can be somewhat fruitful.Copper, silver,gold and other useful materials can be obtained from electronic items like these. Especially copper which is often used in wirings and electrical circuits of appliances. Though the ceramic body and plastic body are quite useless and need to be thrown away. But yes I agree that they are not much profitable .You will have more profit collecting and recycling other much bigger metal articles . But if you have large collection of these electronic items then yes it can be quite profitable but not as profitable as recycling your average bulky waste. By the way I have heard that there is a firm in Sweden which recycles electronic wastes like this. So I guess it is not completely a waste of time.

Originally Posted by eesakiwi

Top pic, on left, plastic coated aluminium roll of Aluminium = Capacitor. Value = nothing.

Top pic, middle, metal can, two wires underneath = Quartz crystal, the frequency's printed on its side. Contains small amount of Silver. Value = Nothing really, there's nobody buying them seperated from everything, by themselves.
(I do pull them off boards if I am cleaning everything off a board, saved them up simply because I can. I have no idea what to do with them at all)

Top pic, right, Ali can on black base = Ali foil capacitor in Ali can. Value = nothing.
_------_

Middle pic, These are power transistors for power regulation. The backing metal plate and legs are 'Tinned' Copper. Value = Dirty Copper price $. Save up enough of them and you have a few $$.
(I save them up, I have put them in a can and chucked it into a fire and burnt off the plastic, after sieving thru a microwave door I got 'Domestic Copper'. I chucked it in with other Dom Copper and sold it. So I now save them and have a 5gallon container full.)

Middle pic. Thing with 'STK xxxxx' written on it. Its a amplifier, probably Audio. They normally have a Aluminium backing heatsink, screwed to a bigger heatsink. Sometimes the backing plates Copper, scratch it to see what it is. Inside, pry the black plastic off. There's big transistors with Silver wire going to each one. Value = If its Copper backed - Domestic Copper price once plastic removed.
Or Ali = Ali domestic price with no plastic.
(I picked off the Silver wires from a bunch of them, got 80cents worth of Silver... Its under a sticky clear goo, boil goo and Silver in turps and then pour off turps and let it dry, goo dries up to crystal chunk, melt Silver and burn off chunk and pour into ingot mold with other Silver, if you want too.)

Bottom photo
Big chips, plug in chips, probably because they have to use different chip programmes for different world areas depending on local transmission or power supply factors.
Value = These can be sold to ewaste buyers and do have a price per Kg or Lb. The legs are 'Tinned' Copper and there's either Silver or Gold wires connecting the legs to the silicon chip.
As these are a higher grade chip because its a plugin sort, probably more Gold wires than normal.
(I save these and intend to sell them or burn the plastic off and sieve thru microwave door to remove the Copper legs and then separate charcoal from Gold wire/charcoal and gold pan about 60% of the Gold wires out. Its called 'Patnors method' and you can find it on the net. I have a 10gallon bucket full of the lower grade 'thru hole soldered' chips like these)

Bottom pic, the thinner chips. These are 'Flatpack' chips, soldered directly to the board.
These are brought by the Kg or Lb too, by escrap buyers.
Same deal as the other chips, higher quality chips with Gold wires.
(I have 2 gallons of these. Sand off legs with belt sander and 'Patnors method' them)

Bottom photo, the random bit by itself, looks like a mounting block for a chip. Value = nothing.
Unless its got Gold plating on it, then escrap buyers will buy them.


If you have taken any of these parts off 'Green boards' you have devalued the boards.
Green boards will be brought by escrap buyers and without these parts, are worthless.

Even if they came off 'Brown boards' you have devalued them IF you can sell the brown boards.
If you cannot sell the brown boards, then maybe you can do Patnors method to get some basic Gold, which will be more for fun than big $$, but don't spend any money doing it.
Your times worth money and this sort of stuff takes a lot of time for a small return.

Like even with Patnors method, in some cases the left over Copper legs will get you a few $ too.
The Gold values probably a few times the Copper value if you can sell the Gold like you get it.
Take the case of the STK amps Silver.. 80 cents from 10 STK amps.. Lotsa time involved and little return. Maybe if I only picked off the big Silver wires, was quicker, and had more amps, I c
'could' have some Silver of value. Which I would add to my 'relay contact Silver' and make a ingot and put it aside for show. That's about it.

Wow! eesakiwi this is quite detailed and informative. I agree recycling of electronic waste is not very profitable .Even if you recycle a large pile of electronic waste , the amount of recyclable material obtained from them is actually quite meagre.