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this might have been answer before but I haven't found anything on it. does Boardsort take fans and is it worth my time to pile them up and send them in
thanks

I never sent them in but I assume, with a fair bit of realism, that like most scrap yards they’ll be motors with a minor penalty for fin weight.

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It is funny that this question came up since just last night I tackled my 55 gallon drum of computer fans (around 500 fans) that have been sitting for years. I spent several hours cutting the fan motors and fins out of the support frames to get what my yard calls sealed units. The sealed units get you 15 cents per pound here. Each larger fan with fins weighs 4 ounces. I took apart the unit and I got 1 ounce of copper so giving the price of copper at $2.50 or there about you can make some money if you have free time to unwind the copper while watching tv maybe but other than that it is not worth your time. The smaller fan took a lot longer and gave only one half an ounce of copper, not worth my time and I am retired with extra time. My plan is to unwind the big fans for copper and steel (have to save until get other larger steel items) and just sell the smaller fans for sealed units but I only had 40 pounds of sealed units with large and small fans, not much profit unless you are retired and nothing pending that you can make more money. I forgot to mention that you also get a low grade board about a quarter of an ounce.

My three cents and a pence for anyone going the extra work route.

A low end electric press costs under $100
Add $30 for a six pack of ryobi/Milwaukee router bits
Match up sizes and press. Bubye fins.

For unspooling copper a bench vise and a small thin steel rod. Put the copper spools on a rod. Rod in the vice. Electric drill set to reverse. Quarter inch router bit.
Figure 8 the end of the copper to the bit. Run the drill in reverse.

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For what it's worth, yards here take them as-is for CBM with no extra work required.
This is one of those cases where bringing a sample to a yard and asking questions can quite literally save you $ on equipment and much of your finite time.

My yard buys whole computer fans as CBM's as well.

What does CBM mean?

Copper Bearing Motors I believe

Yes, copper bearing motors.
In the scenario Mdesscrapper posed, wherein he had a 55 gallon drum of these types of fans, at least in my area, regardless of whether or not the fins are removed, it is the same payout. I believe CBM is something like .10-.15/lb.
Not much money really, but better than shred rate. You can sit there and smash them down to the winding and then unspool each one for the little bit of copper, but looking at weight to value, 50 pounds of these turns into a couple pounds of #2 copper. You're looking at a losing proposition, at least for me, doing any dissasembly, or a break even scenario being optimistic, with your time being wasted a s a result.
Of course, things are different elsewhere, your yards might not even take them as-is, or force you to break them down.

Motors in most cases.
Some yards add some close relatives and use material. Relatives being light steel transformers, brass and copper cable ends. Copper/plastic cable ends.

Every mixed material yard has a CBM class. Listed or not.

You should always verify materials with your local yard. The yard I use actually has 10 different motors categories. Each with 2-4 classes.
This is because they buy a lot of automotive and industrial scrap.
A yard that would see one refrigerator or air conditioning unit a month isn’t going to sort as much. When you by 20 cars a day sorting different motors makes sense. The average SUV has 8 or more fans.l for AC. Radiator. Dozens of copper mixed steel parts. Etc.
Since they have a deconstruction program as well they sort better before shredding mixed scrap.
Another yard I use doesn’t sort a computer fan from a full complete household box fan. :facepalm: they’re one that uses CBM for materials as they don’t by steel at all.

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