What should I really be doing with my boards?

[fiat128]

I can't quite figure out the best way to maximize the scrap value of escrap. I am piling up all sorts of boards from various sources, alot of it being non computer industrial electronics. For some reason, I'm thinking I should be picking the boards and then just sell what's left for what I can get for it. Is this best or should I sell them whole?

Gold plated connector pins
I have been removing the connectors and pulling out the fingers that are plated and sorting them between the ones that look like they are flash plated on one side only (very thin plating) and the (usually square ones) that seem to have better plating.



Eproms and board mounted processors
Any sort of e-prom or memory chip that can be removed is getting pulled off (is there gold in these? I can't see any). The large flat chips that seem to be processors I have been finding mostly off the boards anyway (most of my computers are coming from shooting ranges and the chips break off the motherboards when shot). Should I also chisel off all the ones that are soldiered on as well?

Relays, heat sinks and other things where you can see copper in
I'm pulling off any heat sinks and small copper windings and those flat three wire "things" that are usually attached to a heat sink and have a flat tin plated copper plate on one side and a black thermoset plastic "box" on the other.

Gold card fingers
At first I was peeling the gold fingers off with a utility knife and putting them in the jar with the pins then I wasn't sure if I should just trim the fingers off the board, leave them on the board or what so I'm keeping them on the board for now.

Are some solder traceways plated with gold?
I get some boards out of stuff where it looks like the entire traceway is gold plated. Alot of video cards look like this and I find it in industrial test equipment. Is it gold (it's not lacquer covered, I can tell that)? What should I do with this stuff?

My logic is that I'm going to accumlate several pounds of fingers, pins, processors and other high grade items and then sell them to a refiner on the Gold Refining Forum or pay the fee to have the gold refined for me and get the gold. Other PMs that are in board components will go to the middlemen I guess since I can't figure out what is what.

Escrap is real confusing to me and I see what looks like huge price differences between lots of similar stuff on ebay. For ex. one lot of pins that don't seem to be special high grade military stuff goes for $100 / lb and another brings a few dollars.

Any advice here would be nice as long as it's real advice and not "sell it to me at $4.00 lb. so I can do what you're doing"

I don't expect people to give away the key secrets to their buisness here but a little advice for someone who wants to do more than just sort the boards and sell them whole would be nice.

[fiat128]

Here's a couple of examples:

Both of these boards are from industrial machines. Looking at them, here's how I'd deal with them
Board #1
On this one, I'd cut off the fingers, pull out the eprom and the three pronged copper "thing" to the right of it. I'd cut off that copper winding and unwind it. That's all I'd remove from it (the two pins are not gold plated) but the whole traceway looks like it might be gold plated (where no parts are attached it's same satin gold color as the fingers where there is no green coating). I'd put it in the "think it's good" pile.





Board #2
On this one, I'd pull all the eproms, cut off the cable connectors and pull the pins, take the windings and remove the heat sinks & fan. I might also take off the relays (black boxes) and cut the silver contacts out of them and then put then in the bucket of "little copper windings". Maybe not, they are not that big.


I'd also take off all the copper "thingys" as you see here


I don't see any other gold on this board so I'd put what's left in the take what I can get pile. Something tells me this ones probably the more valuable one in reality.

Comments?

[IdahoScrapper]

I am confused as well. No idea what I am looking at. I have boards from TV's, dish receivers, treadmills, stereos, etc.

[fiat128]

I am confused as well. No idea what I am looking at. I have boards from TV's, dish receivers, treadmills, stereos, etc.

From what I can gather here and elsewhere, the boards you pull out of simple consumer electronics are usually the low value "brown board" type. I seem to be cutting up alot of stuff like alarm systems, fire suppression systems and other "stuff". Alot of the more expensive stuff seems to have some nicer boards in them.

I try to keep the gold looking stuff separate figuring I can test it at some point. I do pull the boards out of everything I dismantle though and throw them in the "Board Box" which is getting pretty big.

[newattitude]

Omg *headdesk* eproms? WTH are eproms? now I'm supposed to be pulling eproms as well??

[injunjoe]

He has pictured above boards that have many types semiconductors, some eprom (read only memory) and some timers, logic, switching, ect.

[directrecycle]

why pull off small amounts of copper and aluminum when the boards arew orth 4.00 per pound and copper is worth 2.50. Leave it on and copper is now worth 4.00. The big copper winding should be removed to be motherboard grade. Cutting small amounts of fingers off devalues the whole board by around .50 per pound. Eproms can be worth removing because they are worth 5.00-6.00 per pound. $.400 per pound for your boards is a fair price. Going to the refiner will require you to have several thousand pounds of boards to even get in the door.

[PartTimeScrapper]

Omg *headdesk* eproms? WTH are eproms? now I'm supposed to be pulling eproms as well??

Eproms just another name for IC's

[Mechanic688]

Cutting all the stuff off the boards will make them low grade boards to most buyers. Is it worth it to devalue all the boards???

[daw_green_clean]

EPROM = Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory
PROM = Programmable Read Only Memory

[Dumpster-Dee]

I'm just saving everything...every day I learn something from here and other research and so if I don't know what is is, I'm stockpiling 'til I do. No more circuit boards of any kind to the shredder from me 'til I know what the hay I'm doing. Thank you for sharing fiat and everyone.

[fiat128]

why pull off small amounts of copper and aluminum when the boards arew orth 4.00 per pound and copper is worth 2.50. Leave it on and copper is now worth 4.00. The big copper winding should be removed to be motherboard grade. Cutting small amounts of fingers off devalues the whole board by around .50 per pound. Eproms can be worth removing because they are worth 5.00-6.00 per pound. $.400 per pound for your boards is a fair price. Going to the refiner will require you to have several thousand pounds of boards to even get in the door.

Good point about copper I suppose (if these are motherboard grade but not if the are brown board grade). It's a negligable amount of copper anyway. I think pulling the large heat sinks makes sense just to get more boards in a box when I ship them.

The board fingers are at the heart of these question. Companies like Boardsort and Easycle are paying around $72 a pound for trimmed fingers. Alot of these boards weigh only a few ounces so is it better to loose 50 cents and collect the high dollar material or to leave it as is?

Same with the fingers. In watching ebay auctions the sales of fingers only seem to go for something close to $100 lb. so I have to wonder what the best way to deal with this stuff is.

I don't deal alot with Escrap. It represents a small part of what I collect but since I am now piling it up instead of throwing it in the trash I'm wondering how to process it. Considering that I have to mail it somewhere to get paid makes me think I want to concentrate the value.

As for going to a refiner, I'm not talking about a commercial refiner. I'm talking aobut the guys on the Gold Refining Forum, some of whom will process your stuff for a fee.

Does anybody know if boards like the one in the first photo are plated on the entire traceway?

Anyway, I appreciate the input. For those who are buying this stuff, how do the bulletholes affect the value? Most of the boards from the shot up computers are going to be missing stuff off of them from being shot at.

[jaydisco]

From my research I have found that grading is in the eye of the beholder. Every buyer is different, so find a buyer with prices you like and have them walk you through their grading process. As far as processing it, you might be surprised to find that there is a buyer in your area that is competitive. I was planning to ship all of my stuff thinking that would get me the best prices, then I had the idea to post a craigslist listing that I had 100lbs of e-waste ( with more to come ) and got 10 or so responses. Of those 10, I found a recycler just 4 towns away that will pay me better after considering shipping charges than the place I was going to ship my stuff to.

I considered going to a refiner with my horde ( approx 1000lbs ) but I don't know sqwat about it. I have spent the past two weeks reading and researching, and came the the decision that I would do better to turn it all to a recycler now, and take the proceeds and put them back into my business...where those dollars can grow.

This may get a little complicated, but you need to determine the real-rate of return - meaning if you will earn 1500.00 in the future by refining 1000.00 worth of scrap, then your rate of return is 50%. The problem lies in the time and resources exhausted to make that 50%. 50hrs at 10.00/hr to process and strip? Real-rate of return is 0. If you process it yourself, but your time is worth 20.00/hr, your real-rate of return is (-50%), you took a loss. Also, consider the time-value of that money. $1000 worth of scrap today has the potential future value at whatever rate you can turn it. I take $1000 today from my scrap, and I turn it into $2000 in 30days by purchasing, repairing and reselling laptops. I am not comfortable that I can double my money by refining my scrap, therefore, I am choosing to stick with what I know will make me money.

If this isn't helpful, then I thank-you for letting me get this stuff out of my brain in your thread.

Cheers!

[fiat128]

It's helpful. I have been leaning more toward leaving it alone lately and just selling it in bulk. Pin picking is time consuming and I think I could better spend that time processing my copper cable. Time is money after all. I think for now, my plan will be to get a gaylord qty together and then contact a buyer to tell me how to sort and ship it off.

[eesakiwi]

The round thing with the wire around it is a transformer of sorts. They are a ferrite or similar coil & if you bash it with a hammer it will break apart & you can stretch the wire & the rest falls off.

Like above, work out your boards weight & immediate value.
Then, work out the return from 'working' the board & its 'post worked' value.

The copper 'thingy's' are transistors, most have copper heatsinks, some don't.
I burnt a handfull off last week by threading them onto a copper wire & burning it.

Its not something I'd do again though, the copper legs fall off, lost copper, its not all copper & the actual transistor bit is really stuck to the copper heatsink & needs to be chipped off later anyway.
The resin can have glass fibre in it to bulk it up (saves resin $, glass is free) & that forms a glass fibre sponge that needs to be chipped away too, its a real breathing hazard!

I think most EPROMs, the ones that are old anyway, have a small window in the centre of the chip, thats to erase the chip, thats done with UV light.

Google each of the parts on the board, it'll tell you whats in each, like if the EPROM has gold wires in it etc.

I'd scrap the small trannys & the Ali heatsink & fan because I can get $ for it right away & to save space & then save the boards up in a sack & sell them whenever I find a escrap dealer.