I have quite a few of these gold plated pins that are soldered onto different types of boards, usually for charging things like radios. I will post a picture of three boards together.My question is, should I remove the pins?And sell the pins and the board separately or just leave the pins on the board and sell it under a specific category? I just want to make sure i'm making the most money from my scrap. Also, i'm sure that I probably need to remove some of the components such as capacitors, if they aren't tantulum containing for example.

Generally, depopulating will make you more money but it usually makes for a worse hourly wage. If you have the time, then you might as well. I doubt that board would be anything other than high grade peripheral (if that, make sure to remove the capacitors). Maybe Telecom low/high if cleaned up.

Best bet is to email Chris and ask him what he thinks.

Okay I will email him. Thanks!

To be clear, depopulating any boards is a complex issue and Boardsort generally discourages depopulation. Some categories on the price list are even labeled as over processed to let you know, it's not worth it. There are instances where other forum members have even done the work to weigh material before and after depopulation to get the values and end up with less money because the thing they took off was the thing making the larger board worth more.

That's not to say there's no case for depopulating, there are also members who have shared when to depopulate and how much to remove. If I remember correctly, Lostinlodos likes to depopulate the lowest grade boards and has methods to quickly remove all the components in a short amount of time. Then, I believe, he has buyers besides just Boardsort that he's able to get the most for all the different materials.

As far as these 3 boards I'm thinking high peripheral as is. I don't think think the large board will be affected by removing the pins as the gold plating is minimal. The two smaller ones, the gold appears to be on the entire pin and if you remove those I think you're looking at a possible drop to low peripheral and I don't know if you'd recover the better grade by removing anything else.

_________________
Here to learn more so I can recycle more
My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort

General yes , depopulating gets more money in the long run; but we are talking a marathon... if not all year running...

You need to know EXACTLY what you're doing and WHAT components to leave and take off to hit certain categories and price points.

DO NOT DEPOPULATE, if you are not bringing hundreds, if not thousands, of lbs of PCBs and electronics in. You will never break the threshold of making that more profit rather than selling as is.

Not all gold pins, go for gold pins.

ALWAYS, ask questions first or ask the forum. We will not steer you in the wrong direction nor will Boardsort. BS wants to pay us the highest rate because its less effort and handling for them.

Half of those gold pins , are not accepted as gold pins. Lesser value

Spence1015.
Can you further clarify on the topic of gold pins.
I am currently looking over my accumulated Gold Pins and Connectors.
I came to the sorry conclusion Connectors pay better than the Gold Pins I would remove from those same Connectors.
How did I reach that conclusion? Answer. I weighed some Connectors. Then calculated payout. Then disassembled those same Connectors. Took out the Gold Pins. Weighed those and calculated payout.
The payout for Connectors was approximately 4 times more.
Do you have any input on what I just shared? Or anybody else?

Well... I wrote out something and it disappeared...

Boo...

Generally I try to avoid pulling pins anymore, just throw it all in connector ends. If you have the time to mess with that, it would save you shipping volume though.

Boardsort also has a gun to scan the material and usually will scan pins to give you a rate for what you specifically sent. The rate on the price list should be about the minimum you could expect. What I've done in the past is try to sort pins visually by the amount of gold. Such as:
-pins that I expected to have gold but I can't see any (to be fair I haven't sent in any like this)
-pins that have gold but is minimal, pale yellow color or low percentage of surface area having gold
-pins that have heavy plating in a small area or large area covered
-pins that are fully plated that have solder or other material attached
-pins that are fully plated and clean/never used

I've also sent in oddball items that appeared gold plated for them to scan and managed to all be things Chris would buy. Yay!

One further note, it has been advised in the past, trim any gold plated thing you send in so that there's minimal material without gold. For example the OP has some pins that are plated only at the contact point for whatever came into contact with the pins, if they were removed you would want to trim the silver parts off and the gold would go in gold plated pins.

_________________
Here to learn more so I can recycle more
My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort

Ok. Thanks for the input mark141.
I see that I will request Boardsort to scan my Gold Pin submission and respond accordingly.
I agree. Pulling pins etc. I'm not going to do it myself. I did my little experiment to see the difference.
I clean all pins that I have removed. And yes. No doubt. You can easily visually see the gold difference on a pin.
My pin pulling days are over. Unless. Some extraordinary circumstances come about.
Thanks again. Mark141.

Exactly what marked141 said.

I used to pull pins out of anything and everything I sought was worth it or valuable. I wish I never started that. Pins get classed in multiple different areas. Full plating, half plating, spot plating, brass, Cu, unclean or lead/solder left on, etcetera etcetera. It depends on the thickness of plating as well; only determined by analytic radio guns or RF scanners; usually ** paying a little extra each test run to even view the elements and %. Thankfully BS has one.
It goes back to depopulating. If you're already pulling everything off PCBs and boards, go for it; but if not don't even start. Connector ends is far more efficient and better payout.

Some examples of pins that aren't worth the $5.00 lb would be like IDE/ATA pins, the pins you see here that are spot plated at the contact point, or PCIe slot pins, mostly made of manganese brass or a tin; very seldom gold plated on integrated units nowadays.