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 Post subject: Board cleaning
PostPosted: Mon Jan 12, 2026 6:29 pm 

Joined: Mon Oct 13, 2025 9:39 am
Posts: 6
Did I take enough off to raise the value of the board or do I need to remove the two yellow relays and the green female connector piece?


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 Post subject: Re: Board cleaning
PostPosted: Mon Jan 12, 2026 11:26 pm 
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Joined: Mon Apr 15, 2024 9:38 pm
Posts: 271
This is a tough question to give a short answer. You actually removed value by removing the transistors. The TO-202 and TO-220 packages. The tabs usually are copper. The transistors have silver. Rarely. But gold can be involved.
Ok. 2 questions. What did you originally evaluate the unclean board at? Also. What grade did you think you were taking the clean board to? You should know what you have and where you are going. BEFORE cleaning. I am guessing you are trying to go from High Peripheral to Low Telecom. Yes. Removing. "Junk". Increases value. But. It must be done with foresight. The escrap videos give many examples of removing junk to upgrade. Here is where I am coming from. Your pictured board was High Peripheral uncleaned. It is still High Peripheral cleaned. No gold pin connectors. Not quite the chip density. To jump into Low Telecom. And a further comment. It's an audio board. No Telecom there. From your forum joined date. Your new at this. I'm still new at this also. All I can tell you. Keep watching the videos on the escrap list. Go to You Tube. Read the announcements. It takes time to learn. A good post on VALUE. Is located in the E-scrap Forum General Discussions. Found under the Announcements. The Topic: Explanation of different board sort categories. Author. Jojothe junkman. It explains VALUE found in boards. It's a good video to start with.
Ok. Just giving some input.
Got to put in the time to learn the videos. Etc.
Here to learn like everybody else.


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 Post subject: Re: Board cleaning
PostPosted: Tue Jan 13, 2026 6:08 am 

Joined: Mon Oct 13, 2025 9:39 am
Posts: 6
I thought before cleaning it was a low grade peripheral that I was trying to get to high grade peripheral. I am very new to this and I’ve watched so many videos on it but it seems like I can’t really find the correct answers because some say to remove things and others say to leave them. I really don’t know what I’m doing. I really just need someone to put it in clear pictures to remove this and keep that. Also, I don’t know what to do with the items that I have removed. I currently have those items separately from other items. I have 15 more of those boards to “clean” and 16 of another type that came out of equalizers. I have over 200 other various boards that need “cleaned” from computers, power supplies, TV’s, various drives and random electronics that are just sitting because I don’t know how to properly clean them. This is my first attempt at help.


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 Post subject: Re: Board cleaning
PostPosted: Tue Jan 13, 2026 10:21 am 
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Joined: Mon Apr 15, 2024 9:38 pm
Posts: 271
To start with. Just post a few pictures of specific boards you have questions on. As a personal sidenote. Post nice. Clearly focused photos. Just the piece alone. Not with other boards in the background. Thats just me. Then learn by the suggestions you get. There are escrappers that have a wealth of experience and escrap full time. They outclass me. I'm the High School football player. Those individuals are Professional players. But I study escrap and refining. I would also suggest. Go to You Tube. And start to learn the refining process. Also. The microscrapping of escrap components. It will give you the "Big Picture" on escrapping. Removing those transistors and disc capacitors took you into the microscrapping direction. Boardsort isn't buying transistors or disc capacitors.(not to say they never will). You can sell those on ebay. Or possibility some refining business. But now. Can you see how involved and complicated things are becoming by removing too much. Boardsort keeps it simple. One can just sell an electronic board outright with some basic cleaning of junk. Your problem of being confused can only be solved one way. That is to "buckle down" and review and review and review the videos until you start to see the differences in categories. Also. Take advantage of You Tube. There are private individuals whom make videos about escrap. Highlighting selling to Boardsort in thier videos. Yes. It is time consuming. Tough and bewildering. But it will "click". And you'll see it. It's a rubik's cube learning experience of sorts. I want to mention I saw a You Tube video recently that showed individual components removed from boards.Transisitors, ICs(of many different types),various capacitors, assorted relays, assorted crystal oscillators. The typical yield of precious metal from each individual component per kilogram was covered. I am not suggesting removing components but the video really opened my eyes to VALUE. What components had VALUE on an electronic PCB.
Ok. Learn. Learn. Learn. Some people do not have time to. And wish to sell unsorted boards. That's an option. But there's a downgrade for that. You will find on the Boardsort site a video covering that situation also.
Here to learn like everybody else.


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 Post subject: Re: Board cleaning
PostPosted: Tue Jan 13, 2026 11:36 am 

Joined: Sat Nov 29, 2014 9:44 pm
Posts: 1664
Location: I'm right here :D
Generally speaking you don't want to remove anything except items with zero value and steel. ~~Edit: I realized after posting, that's not to say there aren't other things you should remove, just if you're unsure, start with those things.

Zero value (doesn't necessarily mean nobody would buy it but Boardsort doesn't) is things like, batteries, plastic, glass, mercury, etc.

Steel is less than 10¢ a pound where I'm at and normally adds a lot of weight to a board bringing the value down.

Anything else is a judgement call really based on how much time you have to process how many boards. If you have a lot of time maybe you remove aluminum from lower grade boards if you can sell it for more than the value of low and mid grades. Or you pull gold plated pins from connector ends. Or you strip insulation off copper wire...etc etc

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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


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 Post subject: Re: Board cleaning
PostPosted: Tue Jan 13, 2026 12:34 pm 

Joined: Mon Oct 13, 2025 9:39 am
Posts: 6
I’ve been scrapping for about 6 months now, I know what most of what my scrap yard will pay for the different materials. I’m just now getting into escrap because I’m starting to get older medical equipment, old computers, servers, monitors, TV’s and stuff like that. I will learn as much of it as I can, and I’ll continue to get better at it. Thank you for the advice. I recently got a scintillation counter, and the boards on it look very promising. I don’t have any pictures on my phone, but I will post one of them next to see what I leave on and what I take off.


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 Post subject: Re: Board cleaning
PostPosted: Tue Jan 13, 2026 12:47 pm 

Joined: Mon Oct 13, 2025 9:39 am
Posts: 6
So what I’m getting is, I just need to remove all the capacitors and the lights and that’s clean enough to send in?


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 Post subject: Re: Board cleaning
PostPosted: Tue Jan 13, 2026 1:06 pm 
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Joined: Mon Apr 15, 2024 9:38 pm
Posts: 271
That's not how I see it. That board was High Peripheral without ANY cleaning. Review the High Peripheral video again. The lights are LEDs. Those are solid state. No reason to remove them. My point. If they were glass light bulbs. Yes. Remove them. Which you do not have. Anyway. Do not send any glass in. For example. Glass fuses. Remove them. Just for future reference. Read mark141 response again. You are just starting out as you say. Takes time. Think of the millions of electronic circuit boards produced through the years. And now we are trying to encapulsate a value for an individual PCB in a simple forum post. We have guidelines to evaluate. But. Learning does not happen overnight.
Here to learn like everybody else.


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 Post subject: Re: Board cleaning
PostPosted: Tue Jan 13, 2026 1:23 pm 

Joined: Sat Nov 29, 2014 9:44 pm
Posts: 1664
Location: I'm right here :D
Grissom78 wrote:
So what I’m getting is, I just need to remove all the capacitors...


Capacitors don't necessarily need to be pulled.
If you're trying to make the board fit a better paying category it'll be dependent on the size and quantity of the capacitors compared to what else is on the board (whether the capacitors are actually lowering the grade).

If you're able to sell sell the capacitors to someone who pays more than 50¢/lb (current low/mid grade price) then yeah, pull them.

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My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort


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