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 Post subject: board cleaning
PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 4:10 pm 

Joined: Fri May 20, 2016 9:39 pm
Posts: 4
hi guys, stuy here. has anyone ever tried or heard of cleanig stuff with phosphuric acid, like gold fingers or silver stuff? thanks


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 Post subject: Re: board cleaning
PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 8:15 pm 

Joined: Fri Jan 31, 2014 12:53 pm
Posts: 467
in what regards? do you mean cleaning as in making things shiny and new looking? or do you mean as in stripping the gold or other precious metals from the printed circuit boards?


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 Post subject: Re: board cleaning
PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 8:47 am 
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Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 6:57 pm
Posts: 9751
Location: Low DOS
Exactly. What are you intending to do by 'cleaning'?
Clean distilled peanut oil is the best way to clean a board of dirt rust and grime.
Ask for it at a large independent computer shop. It's expensive though.

Silver calcite is the fastest way to strip a board but is extremely toxic and requires a licence. And is even more expensive. Not something you want to be investigating unless you are a major refiner: ... in which you wouldn't be asking if you were. Even the gold refiners forum guys don't mess with that. It's not doable at a household level.

Melting gold? Nitric or hydrochloric acid work best. Just remember the youtube videos cut out the 4-6 month wait.
Without pets or kids it's doable safely. Large 5 gallon bin from HOME DEPOT (not Lowes) hdpe. (Lowes uses pp). $5 --the Homer bucket.
3 gallons hydrochloric acid $30
6 month wait $free
Filtered out gold... id say priceless but realty $875-900/ounce


That is still dangerous on so many levels though and I WILL NOT walk you through it. Head over to the gold refiners forums and register if you want help on that stuff. I send my material to boardsort because it's easier.


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 Post subject: Re: board cleaning
PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 9:56 am 

Joined: Fri May 20, 2016 9:39 pm
Posts: 4
thank you for those who answered. yes it was helpfull


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 Post subject: Re: board cleaning
PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 11:21 am 
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Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 6:57 pm
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Location: Low DOS
Something to keep in mind. 5 lbs of CLEAN cut gold fingers, meaning no green at all. Will get you aprox 1/10th ounce of gold.
That's in the best of circumstances, using a percolator and high voltage low amperage power in the mix. Dropping some motherboards in a vat of acid and walking away is going to get you a massive mess and a few grams after a few months.

The most per bucket is 10lbs per 4 gallons hcl.
Drop that weight very fast for anything more populated than gold fingers (eg peripheral cards).
And that's just looking at gold.
Yes you can make thousands, or more, in your own garage. But in reality most people never get set up correctly to do so. those that do cash out after a year and take a vacation never to do it again.

If your going to do it, DO IT, buy books, take courses, learn and study. Get the licenses you need. But do it all the way. Read about all the other metals (and minerals) . Not just copper platinum and iridium but..
A bare empty never used 1 lb brown board is worth 15-30¢
The same board fully and completely processed will yeald apx ¼lb of tercium power from the polymer fibreglass. At $20 per lb. that's $5 for a 15 cent board. While recovering that alone yourself would cost more than it's worth (copper and nickel too in these cases) doing so as just a step in refining many boards for other materials is a very nice yeald.
But here we're moving into commercial grade refining. Alas you can now understand why empty breadboard blanks cost $10 at the store any why they are worth money recycling.

It's nothing you're going to be after but recovering copper nickel silver etc tungsten, carbon, palladium, magnesium...! Those are all just one extra step in the gold recovery process; add a bit if this and reduce a bit of that to recover other metals and minerals along the process.

If you keep trying and don't give up and learn as you go and invest what you need to and have the patience to keep it up and and and.
Yes you can make money. Lots of money. But it's not an afterthought activity.


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 Post subject: Re: board cleaning
PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 1:10 pm 

Joined: Fri Jan 31, 2014 12:53 pm
Posts: 467
clean-cut gold fingers average about 1.8g/lb... Its actually a simple and relatively easy process, but caution must still be taken since you need to use hydrochloric acid to facilitate the copper II chloride etchant.

That being said, it still doesn't pay to trim the fingers off most cards. When you trim the fingers you will downgrade the boards to peripheral. The loss of money resulting from this devaluation is greater than the amount of gold you will recover.... I know because I used to do this back when the pricing structure was different.

THAT being said.... if you have a desire to learn about gold refining, it could be worth the experience. Gold fingers are a very good entry level project once you have put in some time and effort learning. Goldrefiningforum.com is a wonderful resource for all things refining.

Be forwarned though, they do not suffer newcomers that do not mind themselves.


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 Post subject: Re: board cleaning
PostPosted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 1:17 pm 

Joined: Fri Jan 31, 2014 12:53 pm
Posts: 467
I forgot to mention that whole board refining is NOT for the small scale refiner... there are too many base metals and other factors that make wet refining impossible to do at a profit on such a small scale. EVERY home refiner makes their money from picking of specific components and refining only the higest yielding items (like fingers).

Do not bother trying to do whole boards... It involves some extremely complex chemistry knowledge that would challenge even the most seasoned of refiners.

The big boys use pyrometallurgical techniques that are only efficient on large scales.


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