Found Silver & Tantalum - Page 2

This is a close up of the "Pizza Board". With the 37 PMT's, cards, non-soldered IC's, and the two soldered silver/tantalum capacitors, now removed. I'm guessing this would sell as a "Riser" board? All of the contacts for the cards and IC's are gold plated.

That's what I would put it at, although "riser" boards are usually connected via a slot of their own to a larger board. IE a PCI riser board would extend more pci slots out of one slot parallel to the motherboard. Your board is what I would call a backplane. I could be wrong, it's late and I'm tired. Palletizing TVs isn't a late night activity.

This a picture of a nice populated board, that came out of a keyboard. Made in England in 1988, the board is called a keyboard interface. Has fourteen epoxy "drop" type capacitors, that I will not be removing. There is ten non soldered IC's that I will remove, have already removed one of them (had gold plated top and pins). This board has gold plated pins on all of the connections and jumpers as well.

Just wanted to update a little more info on that last board (keyboard processor). Removed the nine removable IC's and the board weighs a little over a pound. Have seven of these boards and one keyboard that I haven't scraped yet.

Thanks for the thread. Its one that I know I'll keep going back to in my quest for the ever illusive tant . which thanks to this thread its not so hard to spot.
Cudos big Burt!

Im a definate newbie and with all that i have looked into this tantalum cap is like chasing your shadow in the sun untill ya get a hand on it. I have seen a few drops here and there on various mid and low grade material but the really good ones seem to be most present on telecom gear of sorts. I scraped a wave form thinggey the other day. Sorry for not getting pics but pulled 10 of the wet TA caps and found every wire connector to be gold plated. Ill fish for the parts to list the correct part number. Thanks again this one keep going and going and going. Dang TA

Originally Posted by Blue414

Im a definate newbie and with all that i have looked into this tantalum cap is like chasing your shadow in the sun untill ya get a hand on it. I have seen a few drops here and there on various mid and low grade material but the really good ones seem to be most present on telecom gear of sorts. I scraped a wave form thinggey the other day. Sorry for not getting pics but pulled 10 of the wet TA caps and found every wire connector to be gold plated. Ill fish for the parts to list the correct part number. Thanks again this one keep going and going and going. Dang TA

If you look at scrapping as if you are a prospector it helps to put things into prospective.
Ewaste allows us ,modern day prospectors, to mine for more than one metal.
Tants have good value and are worth removing. Save them up. In my opinion tantalum is just going to steadily rise in value, because its such a rare metal.

Junkfreak - Exactly tantalum is a rare and strategic metal. The United States for the most part has no known deposits that are commercially available. No tantalum has been mined in this country since 1959. Tantalum capacitor recycling is the best source for tantalum in this country. The electronic industry uses about 40% of all tantalum used and tantalum capacitors is what uses the largest portion of that 40%. With Africa supplying 20% (about) of the worlds needed tantalum. With the continued unrest in Africa and the uncertainties that this causes to the supply chain, there is even more demand for recycled tantalum capacitors

A little update on my tantalum capacitor education and to make some cash at the same time. Iv'e been going through my boxes of circuit boards one thing I'm realizing is that I know a lot more now than I did when I started this "scrap" thing, over four years ago now. I'm finding a lot of tantalum capacitors that I just passed on when I wasn't even thinking about nothing but "gold fever". I first started this thread having no tantalum capacitor "bucket" and there is still no bucket for them, with tantalum capacitors you have to think small. Grams turn to ounces, ounces to pounds and pounds to dollars (hopefully).

With the axial lead "type" tantalum capacitors there's basically two groups, solid and wet electrolytes types. With each of these there are several series of further classifications and about a half dozen companies that make them. I have found more of the solid type than the wet type. I have only found 3/4 of a pound of the wet ones, but they have the silver case and worth the most. Have over three pounds of the solid type though. The 150D made by Sprague (now Vishay) is by far the type I have found the most of. Probably because the circuit boards I'm looking at were made between 1974 and 1989. The 150D is easy to spot as there is a nipple on the anode (+) side of the capacitor. This nipple is located in the center, where the lead exits the can, it's actually the weld spot where the tantalum wire exits the can and is welded to a nickel wire that forms the "nipple". With these types the case (can) is very magnetic as are both lead wires as they are made out of nickel. There are other Sprague capacitors that are in this same series, these will be marked M39003 or CS13B, both are military specification versions of the 150D. Sprague also marks their capacitors with a 2 inside a circle. There is also three other companies that I have found that are made to the same specifications or very similar. All have the same nipple at the anode, made with a tantalum case, nickel leads and same case sizes. These are the KEMET series T110, Cornell Dublier TAS series and Siemens CS13B. Hope this helps some of you that are looking for the tantalum capacitors. I'll post some pictures later of the different ones.

This board had three axial through hole hermetically sealed tantalum capacitors (TC's thank you olddude). The TC's on this board were made by Sprague and are the 150D series TC's and had date codes 7939 (39th week 1979). These capacitors have a solid tantalum electrolyte and have tinned nickel leads. So both anode (+) and cathode (-) leads will be magnetic. The 150D anode side of the case is also very magnetic, with no magnetic pull on the cathode side of the case. The 150D has four case code sizes (A, B, R, S), will have a case diameter 0.135 to 0.351 inches with the A-case being the smallest size and the S-case largest. Lengths vary from 0.286 to 0.785 inches, these are fairly large considering most tantalum capacitors are much smaller. This board had three R-case code capacitors, that weighed 2.7 to 2.9 grams each. Sprague's military equivalent of the 150D is the M39003 in the CSR13 style. On this board and other PCB's I have found Sprague TC's marked 150D, M39003 and CSR13.

Far as I can determine you will find these metal axial TC's on industrial, aerospace and military boards. This particular board with all the gold plating is defiantly not on any consumer electronics.

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Grams to Pounds & Pennies to Dollars

This is only some of what I have pulled from circuit boards in last three weeks. Obviously the coins didn't come from a circuit board, they were scrap finds. The coins did come from the only piano I scrapped out earlier this year, it was 100+ years old. I scrapped it for the wood, the coins were pleasant surprise, I knew it was a good day when the first coin was WWII war nickel.

The majority of what I removed was not soldered, but "pulled" DIP's & Ag plated transistors. I really like the Texas Instruments red LED's, with Ag plated pins. The Burr - Brown A/D Converters are nice too, I already had a dozen or more, will add a few more to gold bucket.

All of that is bonus stuff, this thread is about tantalum capacitors. These were either cut or genitally pulled from boards ranging from low grade to very high grade. There was no noticeable devaluation of boards, I will in full disclosure notify my buyer what was pulled from any board I sell. With the boards I removed tantalum capacitors from, the most weight was just a little over a ounce. With the SMD's and epoxy coated dipped capacitors (gum drops) the weights averaged from 1 to 3 grams. The high grade boards with tantalum capacitors removed will still have lots of gold plated fingers, pins, sockets and the usual good PCB STUFF.

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Going back to hunting for silver, gold, tantalum and old copper is nice too!

Originally Posted by BRASSCATCHER

This thread should be made into a sticky!!!! Good work Burt and thanks for the education.

I second that!