Easy way to double your money on transformers and copper yokes

Double your cash! Two easy everyday scrap items you can breakdown for extra loot.

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

Except for all the new transformers. My yard just started checking all the bigger 2 step transformers. That's what they call the ones that have the coarse winding then a fine winding. They found out their alum. on the bigger winding. Paying as alum breakage, .15 a lb.

Same around here. Some are 1/2 copper 1/2 Al. I'd be willing to bet it's still worth while to break them down, just a lot less cash / hour

Originally Posted by Hypoman

If You can do one in four minutes, thats about $18.75 an hour. Where I live, thats rich people money! Lol

Ha! I don't have any objections to making almost $20/hr with no taxes!


But rich or poor, black or white, none of us are entitled to anything.
Russell Simmons

Ha! I don't have any objections to making almost $20/hr with no taxes!

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

Except for all the new transformers. My yard just started checking all the bigger 2 step transformers. That's what they call the ones that have the coarse winding then a fine winding. They found out their alum. on the bigger winding. Paying as alum breakage, .15 a lb.

Yeah, the later made microwaves and also the 'twin cook' microwaves with a griller inside them have a Ali winding instead of Copper.
I always scratch the winding first to see what its made from. But I still get caught out....
Yesterday I knew the thicker wire winding was Ali, but didn't check the fine wire winding..
Both were Ali..
It sucks when after all that work, the value changes from $3 to 18 cents..

I can often tell by just the weight of the microwave now. Anything that's a 'woodgrain' finish is normally still all Copper.

Also, check to see if it is a 'Invertor microwave'. They only have 100gms Copper in their circuity.

Not to be the party pooper, but not all transformers are created equal. Some are overlapping and some are "e" and "i" as shown in the video

Not to be the party pooper, but not all transformers are created equal. Some are overlapping and some are "e" and "i" as shown in the video

Full article at Scrap Metal Forum: http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/scrap...#ixzz3B4r5rA2b

You are correct. I recently processed about 40 or 50 like the ones in the video. Quick and easy. I still have about 40 where the E's and I's alternate. You need a good saw for those.

Those utube videos are going to co$t u$ dollar$ as now everyone thinks they are going to make a "Scrap metal fortune".

I see it with what I do. It only takes a couple of people and suddenly your supply dries up.
That's why I often leave the Ali winding microwaves, Ali winding degausser cables there and strip out the three wires from the power cords, leaving the outer shelth and plug still in place....

All the big transformers I have seen in microwaves are the 'stacked' i's and E's sort.
The smaller ones can be stacked, or mostly interlaced, in microwaves, that's the sort that's on the control panel etc.

For the interlaced transformers, I use either the angle grinder, that costs money though, disc and copper.
Or I use a carpenters chizle and cut one end off the windings and push the rest thru.

That way, in both cases, I can put the iron cores into something steel and solid and get 'heavy metal insize' price for it.
I also do tgat with motor iron cores, eg fridge compressors.

What I'm scratching my head over is why is it presented with so much hype? Its just another bit of knowledge that is already in this forum, presented just a little more matter-of-fact. And it doesn't even represent every transformer, since, as others have noted, the E-type can have alternating layers, rendering this method of removal impossible.

And Eesa noted that if you take transformers apart in a certain manner you can keep them in a better scrap steel category than shred and make a little more off the steel. Now that is a very astute observation. With no hype.

Is this something to get this particular video youtube viewer numbers up?

Jon.

Used a hatchet to split open a couple microwave transformers. They both had all aluminum wires. But it was fun cracking them open, quick and easy.

Originally Posted by jimicrk

Oh, BTW, had a neighbor who owns a computer store tell me something the other day. He said he heard that the GPS devices on the big commercial trucks actually had a gold nugget inside them. Not a gold plated chip or any gold plated boards. He said there was a solid gold nugget in them!!!
WOOOHOOO! I'm gonna be rich!

That's the impression I get from people too, there's a "solid gold part in there" with 24k stamped on it and a jeweler will pay a thousand dollars cash for it......

Actually, while doing scrap I met a husband and wife who were dumping used computer cases.
I asked "what the were doing with the ewaste, boards and such?."

He says "We are going to get the gold out of them"
"How are you doing that?" I ask.
"Well, we get a mortor and pestle and smash the boards up into tiny peices and put them into the mortor and grind them up by hand"
I start laughing, I know its bollocks, I know they don't do that at all.
"And then we start grinding them, for hours, or arms get sooo tired, but we keep on going all day. Our arms are like this, and when its a really fine powder we put it in a crucible and heat it up in a fire"
I'm really laughing hard now....
"And because golds heaver than the other metals it drops to the bottom and we get a lump of Gold"
As he was talking about the grinding, he was doing a arm.movement, definatly not grinding, pulling my leg maybe, pulling something anyway...

So a minute later I ask his wife how they get the Gold out.
She does exactly the same story....same hand movements and all

I'm larfin so much I can hardly stand straight.

Its obvious they have both planned this for when they get asked "how do you get the Gold out?"

I actually took it as a complement, they are the only people I will actually meet/see who can do 'getting Gold out'

And its a great story for me to tell those who want to know "how to get the Gold'.....

That's funny.