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Hey, trying to get things sorted for shipment. Here is an image that I am just playing with to get the process down. Is this a slot processor??

Couple of questions: 1) Am I supposed to remove all wrapped toroids and transformers from Periph and better class boards? 2) As I am trying to learn to process gold, silver, and etc on my own for the future, what are the drawbacks to removing things such as Tantalum caps, crystal oscillators, etc (or maybe 1/4 to half of them leaving the rest for you all??) ? Thanks for your guidance. A vet trying to make a little extra money but not at your expense either....

when you remove items, they downgrade the board fast. In all honesty, in most cases you are better served trying to hunt down more material then to spend the extra hours for an extra dollar or two.

to give you an example... I can tear down a computer to boards and components in 10 mins and get about $8-10 in value. I could then spend another 35 mins tearing apart heat sinks, copper coils, ferrite coils, aluminum, gold pins for an extra additional $1-2. So over the course of 12 computers, I can work for 2 hours and make $100ish or i can spend 12 hours to make $130. for me, I would rather spend that time hunting down the next large lot of computers. It is VERY easy in this hobby to want to squeeze every little bit of money out of every single board and i see a lot of people do it but at the cost of spending excessive time doing it.

Also, when it comes to refining material, its really not worth it from the stand point of what a home refiner can process. I refine VERY little of my material because in almost all cases the cost benefit is just not there to justify the extra costs. You have to consider material, time, waste treatment, safety gear, lab supplies, etc... it all adds up fast.
I no longer trim my gold fingers off cards because I lose too much value when the board gets downgraded. Now, if you do it for the educational value, then have at (just do it safely). If you just want some gold, then buy some with the check you get from Boardsort :P

oh, and no, you don't have to remove the toroids/transformers.

Okay, appreciate it. As far as the refining goes, I pretty much have the stuff for Gold, not sure I wanna deal with Nitric so I will stick with A/P and Bonide. I have all the safety gear minus a fume hood which I can build from the stuff I have laying around already if I put my mind to it. I can strip down a board pretty quickly with my small air chisel in the catch box I made if I choose to do that. I do have some nice pieces that I am going to process myself just for the curiosity of it (I live in the country so the fumes if any will not be a problem for any neighbors). My problem is finding the 'large lots' of computers. I am pretty much restricted to 'dumpster diving' at our local drop off site for e-waste but am going to make my rounds at some businesses in the future for 'free pickup'. I have about 14 pounds of LG sockets, same for small/metal sockets, 4 (2+ pds each) teleco boards, and lots of periph. However, shipping from Mississippi is costly. That is why I was trying to maximize my possible yield from what I have and can get.... thank you for your input. I am looking to gain as much knowledge as possible.

Yes the first picture is a slot processor

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hey Lost...i was wondering what kind of price you get for the ferrite?..that stuff is in almost any kind of electronics..moniters..printers..tv's...if i saved a whole year it would be a decent amount...thanks

Ferrite as the generic term; 6c - 50c in general per lb.
actual ferrite the composition is 8c. Iron graphite is around 3-6 per lb
Hematite is the most expensive of the non alloy interference rings and as a broken mess (chips powder etc) it will fetch up to $1 per lb and still in ring form a jewelry shop will pay up to a few dollar per ring! Though 50-75c per ring depending on size is what I usually get for them.


Most common blends:
Iron under 10c
Aluminium around 30c
Manganese mid 20s
Nickel $1.25-$1.50
Cobalt $2-2.50

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Lostinlodos how do you tell the difference in the ferrite rings? Normally don't tear down power supplies, but I have a ton (literally!) of large power supplies. The smallest is 11 pounds and goes up to 25 pounds. They were out of cisco catalyst 4500/6500 series if that helps.

Outside of having your own test equipment; experience.

Hematite I know off hand, cobalt always has a slight magnetic field on it's own. I keep a small tiny steel ball and if it pulls the ball into cobalt recovery it goes.

The rest I'd rarely have enough in one shot to justify keeping it separately so it all goes in my light iron shred bin.
Basically anything that doesn't pull my little ball and isn't hematite goes in steel shred.

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If you slice the wire at the shell most yards will buy them as CBM which ranges from 20-40 cents. Wire is worth more so I cut it.
Only time I break down power supplies are server cubes; with the massive gold wedge pins. The gold value makes it worth the time, and the al canister capacitors get me Al compressor rate plus massive heatsincs that are Al or Cu
Every thing else is a bonus.

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