mls26cwru wrote:
honestly, what makes the determination is the guy who does the sorting at the dock. :p Just depends what he thinks. There is no hard and fast rule...
Exactly. Telco isn't so much a class for boardsort as it is a catch grade for stuff that's better than base classes but doesn't make another class on it's own.
In this case drive controllers not up to the hdd grade. But better than cd/dvd.
Video game and computer cartridges... dont quite make gold or silver ram (too much board) so they go telco.
Older computer and telephonic boards with rom banks... no gold caps so they go telco.
It's a "grade" that no one is quite sure on, even boardsort.
From my understanding it's also their toughest class to move down the line.
Other recyclers call this class high grade, mid-grade high, and pcb#1 variably among others.
Rule of thumb? If you had 100 lbs of "telco" boards and completely dissected and cleared every board bare... and sold each individual component class to the refiner separately they would (in bulk) have a higher vale for the components than the populated telco boards.
Then again that's true for most classes of pcbs.