Kmt16200 wrote:
Best case scenario.....
As is-
20lb of peripheral at 1.20/lb = 24$
Stripping ic chips
3 lbs of ic chips at 3.50/lb = $10.50
And
17 lbs of mid grade at .20/lb = $3.40
==$13.90
That will put you 10$ in the red. And like I said that's best case scenario. If you can get 3 lbs of ic chips off 20 lbs of peripherals I will eat my hat. More likely that weight will be much less.
KMT is correct... I have talked to Bruce before about taking things like MLCC's and Tant. Caps. In short, he doesn't do this because he does not want to promote stripping of components from boards he is already getting.
A long while ago, they used to payout a much higher rate for PCI cards that had the fingers cut off (trimmed finger cards). It was high enough that a profit could be made by refining the fingers and sending in the cards as trimmed finger cards... This cut into profits, so the price was dropped. It is no longer advantageous to refine the fingers on the side, so now I don't cut the fingers anymore. It would be the same for Tantalum caps and MLCC's.
you could try to find a third party to buy individual components, but the amount you would gain from the selling the components will be offset by the drastically reduced price of boards you send in. Only in some pretty extreme cases does it pay enough to make stripping a board worthwhile.