Processing the Antminer S9 Hashboards , or, "Why do it the easy way when you can always spend a lot of time and energy finding a more difficult way"
If you peruse the board regularly, you may have noticed my quandary that I managed to turn into a dilemma, simply by overthinking and excessive verbalization.
I admit that I was buffaloed and cowed by my own rhetoric and surmisitorations (help, I couldn't find the end of surmise) when I realized I had about 1800 S9 Hash boards from Antminer crypto mining machines. Each board weighs two pounds with the 120 aluminum heat sinks, 60 each side, each extruded aluminum about the size of a dice (die). With the heatsinks on, they class as midgrade, @ 50 cents per pound, but Chris says if the heatsinks are removed, they upgrade to $1.50 per pound.
The problem for me is i am 605 miles from Cleveland Ohio, and the volume occupied by this many boards along with the material I already had plus about a thousand pounds of power supplys means renting a larger truck or trailer for delivery.
All this talking hasn't gotten the heatsinks removed from the hashboards. I first tried giving the heatsinks a little love tap(easy now Dave, don't damage the board by hitting it too hard. Turns out the gentle taps just tear the stuff underneath the heatsink, exposing the copper layer underside of the small gold plating and chips.,
When I was a young, I was a young know-it-all: now I am just an old forgot-a-lot, so I asked advice...heat guns, chizel (yeah, the way I mistreat tools, a chisel becomes a chizel-edge.). I heated and froze the boards, too hot to handle and too cold to touch. A heat gun did make some of them fall off, but others to stick even tighter. I even took a butcher knife and placed it along a row, smacked the knife with a hammer, and managed to knock some loose, but it "ruirnt" the knife's cutting edge (what is the sharp edge called?)
So I gave up and resigned myself to delivering the boards intact at the midgrade price, rather than cleaning and selling the voluminous aluminum heatsinks locally...all 192,000.
Today was a sprinkly damp day aftert a long dry spell, so I was working outside rearranging clutter before cold weather his my southside. My partner in this venture seemed to think the second week in December would be a suitable day to head north, so I decided to give the hashboards one more old "dropoutofcollege try".
Now I don't claim to be a psychic mindreader, but sometimes I can read my own mine, and tell myself some things I have forgotten.
Way back in '71, I was a skinny 150 pounder working at a rock quarry. A college kid, son of one of the bigwigs was working for the summer. He strutted his athletic weightlifter build, showing his disdain for us lesser males.
The soft drink cans had just come out with the plastic rings bundling them. We would take the plastic holders, fold them so all six rings were folded into one circle. Then, placing the ring of plastic behind our head, and holding it with both hands, we would break it.
One day, Mr. Atlas was again telling us how powerful he was, so we challenged him to break the plastic. Sure enough, he stretched, flexed, took deep breaths, and did everything proper for lifting weights, and slowly, slowy applied force. the plastic stretched a bit, and as you know, the soft pliable plastic, when stretched becomes rigid and tough. He could not break it. Skinny me, I nonchalantly whipped my hands behind my head and with a quick snap, broke it, all because of the sudden force that didn't give the plastic time to slow down and stiffen.
I discovered "Eureka" without having to get into the bathtub, and I was calculating gold for Davy's pocket and not the kings crown.
Don't try to tap gently or push the heatsinks loose. Whack them with a bigger hammer. Let the force and quickness of the blow pop them loose.
I just had time to do a few before darkness creeped up around me. I managed to whack 11 boards in 15 minutes, without being organized for production.
I do have a large vise mounted at waist high work level, with the jaws opened only wide enough that I can slide a board in, which will steady the board without having to wast time tightening and loosening th jaws. Tomorrow, I intend to try using a large heavy hoe (minus the handle) to try to remove and entire row with one blow, rather than several hammer blows.
I aain't Paul Harvey, but now you know The Boring story

Wouldn't it be nice if you could contact the manufacturer and they could give you the "magic"answer to removing heatsinks from thier products. The only problem is. It probably would not have been cost effective to repair a faulty PCB. When I worked in the amusement industry. We had a product called BLAST. It was a contact cleaner. Problem was. It would "Craze". "Dissolve". What have you. Certain plastics. The most common mistake was to clean the Joystick switch assembly on a game with BLAST. The plastic joystick housing shattered like glass. Here's my point. Meowpher the 10th. Think about it. A simple chemical dip. And all the heatsinks fall off. Now that is. Jimmy the Cricket stuff. But. In my electronic manufacturing days. I would clean freshly wave soldered PCBs in a Freon Bath. One would suspend the lot of PCBs in the Freon Steam(gas). Freon boils at a very low temperature. They would be stripped and drip clean. Think. Can. Could this be done on Antminer Boards? Soaked in a solution that specifically dissolves the heat sink compound. Yes. When you wish upon a star. But. This is high tech. We study and dissect stars.

Catwhisker, we are stardust. We wish upon a falling star, but I won't even get upon my roof and drag a magnet thru the gutter, even though I would collect stardust/microscopic meterorites. If this were an ongoing project with future hashboards on the event horizon of a black hole, investing in a tank of chemicals might be effective. But with the limited number available, with no expectation of ever acquiring more, the expense is unjustified since any there is no great difference in the final sale value. The time I spend cleaning them of aluminum is a greater loss than the increase in value, but with the more compact transportation savings, it about evens out. Even if a chemical solution would work, I would still be regulated by cleaning each one individually, since I don't have reason to set up a "disassembly line". Just for fun, I may grab a can or Wart Freeze off just to see if -35 F will make them drop off. I noticed that a few pop off when I toss them around. If my old plastic barreled farm feed/concrete mixer hadn't stripped gears, I would try tumbling them....... Pardon the interruption. Since I am single, with no superego (also known as "wife" to impose restrictions on my Id, I threw four in the clothes dryer and let them tumble like tumble weeds in the wind for about 30 seconds. Didn't work on short trial; Only 30 sinks removed out of 480. But every failure is a learning experience. I think I discovered the perfect percussion sound track for a "light metal" album . The real gold may be in a gold or platinum album::: " an aluminium albuminium for listening when you are board." [pssst: give it a try in your dryer...I dare you. snickersnicker]
Thanks for the help in hashing out the hashboard problem . As George Ed Smith famously would have said, if he existed, "Don't give up the chips"

To start off. Your sense of humour is golden.
I started this solvent solution to remove those aluminum heatsinks from the chip dies. So. I am familar with xylene. From my manufacturing days. A wicked solvent. In my particular situation. I used Methanol. Propanol. Acetone. Xylene had its application. I know this suggestion would be tedious. But. Using a wooden handle copper bristle brush. You could apply xylene along the point where the heatsink meets the die. See what happens. My other Jimmy the Cricket thought. Set up an explosion proof ultrasonic cleaner filled with xylene. Note. There are other products. Toulene. Clearene. But equally dangerous. So. After the building fire. Revoked fire insurance. Local firemen giving you some hard looks. Possible fines and jail time. And then the EPA. Then! Maybe! You will take the lostinlodos post. Suggesting to you. Just go for aluminum shred. But. I am for your effort. I am currently studying. Buying a junk hashboard. And seeing. What does it require to effectively separate those heatsinks from the die?

The problem is the volume of different paste and glues used to attach sheet sinks. Organics and most aluminium are easy to remove with nothing more than heat.
But I promise you that anything designed to remove heat from super hot devices, such as these dedicated processing units, is going to be using a chemical metal paste. These boards run very hot hotter than most consumer heat guns.
The alternative in this case is what was suggested before; freeze them then use a high-end heat gun on the frozen heat sinks and something protective to twist them off so you don’t burn your fingers.

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Lostinlodos. I have to agree with putting the thermal stress test to the hash boards to the maximun. Got to be an industrial grade heat gun then to cold. Or vice versa. Hah. I used to assemble laboratory furnances. Not ovens. Furnances. So how hot you want those hash boards. Ok. Enough of that. But. I agree. Stress that thermal paste/glue to the max. If it has started to harden. All the better. But. I am curious about a chemical solution. I may look further into it. Thermal stress should do the job.

*Waits patiently with fire extinguisher*

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

I am not a fan of the heat treatment. The fire department cruises my country road slowly in front of my house when I boil eggs. Fortunately, by the time they arrive after a passing motorist informs them of smoke coming from indoors, I have managed to douse my "eggie al carbonaro" which are blackened crisp all the way thru, under water and the smoke no longer pours from the poorman's abode.
Heat might have been a ffeassabble method had I bought the pass thru pizza oven (conveyer and 8 or ten foot oven? )for 25 bucks at auction a few months ago, but I had stopped eating pasta to lose weight.
But I a always interested in trying new ways of doing something so long as it keeps me from actually working. So, into the 20 quart stock pot goes four hashboards for a complimentary hot water bath. If that makes the sinks fall off and sink, then time to set up the old hog scaling barrels. That won't happen, as by the time I get that built, I will have cleaned the entire 1500 boards using the old "Dave Dowhackado" method...I believe I can do the whole batch between dawn and dusk....dawn today and dusk sometime in January.
We/I recovered the initial cost with the sale of the extruded aluminum housing, plus about $300, and still have the hashboards and about 90 pounds of control boards...@$5 pound if High perf, or still another $200 or so if Low perf. We could just abandon the ton or more of midgrade (as is)hashboards and not go hungry.
Since it is deer hunting season, I will not be out in the woods hunting rocks, so I will have time to clean the boards.
Also, since it is "Dear Season" and lots of unattached does will be roaming the shopping malls looking for a Dear, a wise old dude like me, who is definitely not a trophy buck, will not be out spending dough, the scent of which is a proven doe attractant.
If I haven't convinced you to flee from cleaning hashboards, let me remind you of how long it takes to pick up 120 small heatsinks, multiplied by the number of boards. I will either set up the vise/cleaning table in a box or pickup truck bedliner to confine the sinks as they are knocked loose, or else process in the ole hay barn, which has a trap door opening into the basement/stall area. That way, I can just sweep the sinks into the opening and into the containers below.

Good luck anyway you get it done. Ant miner boards are on my "approach with caution" list.

The easiest way I’ve found to deal with such cases is to
Need
thermal gloves,
2 lock-grip wrenches,
Small commercial paint scraper (remove the steel edge from it)
Industrial heat gun (1800-2200• f)
Freezer that goes to or below zero (-10 or less is best)

Freeze the boards for a few hours minimum
Preheat your heat gun to specified range
Place the metal scraper edge in a lock wrench. This is your torque twister
Put on your gloves
Take a board out of the freezer by locking into the other wrench.

Heat the sinks as close as you can without creating smoke from melting the board.

Jam the scraper into the fins and twist.
For finless sinks shove the scraper between the cap and the chip.

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