What I work on at night

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Originally Posted by nebrs13

Curious what if u had like a table grinder like one could use to tell if something was alum/ss/ or ferrous would that get all the gold pin residue off faster and be more efficient like 100fold?

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If you try to use a grinder the stuff will fly everywhere, this way when they refine they should only have 2 metals to separate. The gold and the copper pin, with a grinder you would be grinding the board and solder traces also. Now you have 4 different things to separate. I don't refine but it looks like it would be simpler.
Here's a better pic of the pins;
http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/...f/100_0832.jpg

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Gotcha, so they both came from Floppy Drives, I don't know why I was thinking the other thing.

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I pull the pins from mostly floppy boards but the eye's come from CD/DVD drives, the sliding eye in the middle. Look around the sides and you'll see a little round thing glued into a hole, gold colored or legged. I just use my wire cutter and cut the housing and the laser pops out with maybe some circuit trace attached.
I separated some of the different lasers you may see while tearing them down, putting them in little groups.
The groups on the left are two toned, on the bottom is pretty much all plated. Up top are just gold legs on them. And right side are flat plates with plating.

http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/...f/100_0835.jpg

Like CT said;

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Cool! good to know im not the only compulsive scrapper around here!

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This is late nite stuff when I can't sleep. Miked might be able to relate, not sure,,,

Those pin's will possibly yield about .75-1g /lb. The laser eye's will be less maybe 1/2g /lb. or less for the full plated ones.

If you use a grinder on the pin's you will probably lose most of your gold.

Barren
Looking at the pic of those pins you may be right about the gold content. BUT, not all pins are created equal, LOL. I have a small (weight) amount of pins that I was thinking on refining, but said the heck with it; my time is worth more than that. Most of the pins I snipped I took a jewelers file to, too check them first. A lot of the pins in the pic below are from “male” serial, parallel, HD drive connectors and plated end to end, not just surface plated for contact only.
My favorite tools with pins are jeweler files, diamond grade eyepiece, hemostat (roach clip LOL) and toenail clippers.
http://imageshack.us/a/img513/9893/toolss.th.jpg

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Originally Posted by BarrenRealms007

Those pin's will possibly yield about .75-1g /lb. The laser eye's will be less maybe 1/2g /lb. or less for the full plated ones.

If yu use a grinder on the pin's you will probably loose most of your gold.

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I'm curious about this. If a pound of gold pins on average yield 1 gram of gold, I'm calculating that their value should be around 25-30 dollars based upon the current market price. However, I've seen several people on this forum reference ebay auctions where someone payed upwards of a hundred bucks for a pound of pins. If the yield is so low, why would anybody pay that much for them... or am I missing something here?

the price per pound depends on what type of gold plating it is and how much surface area there is, thats why theres a wide range of prices, it can be just a tiny contact on a pin or the entire thing can be gold plated

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Originally Posted by jghilino

the price per pound depends on what type of gold plating it is and how much surface area there is, thats why theres a wide range of prices, it can be just a tiny contact on a pin or the entire thing can be gold plated

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Ah, I see. Personally, I don't have any experience dealing with gold scrap such as this, but even if I did, I would be wary of buying any such item for sale on ebay due to the possible range of gold content.

yes correct, thats why i would sell the low grade stuff to scrap buyers that pay a base rate and sell the rest online directly or to one of my specialty escrap/gold plated buyers

Most of the buyers on Ebay pay more than what the material is worth.

thanks for the info.. also don't forgot the gold plasted laser eyes from laser printers and fax machines.

do you save the thin things circled? i have a little bag of them and have been wondering what to put them with.

edit: anybody know why my "circling and writing" on pictures from photobucket hit or miss show up? i see them fine in photobucket. the last post i made 1/2 the circling and writing showed up and the other half did not.

anyway.. i was circling the thin copper/gold colored film (ribbons?) that attach something like those lens to the board.

http://i1262.photobucket.com/albums/...psc324dca5.jpg

Brucie, are you talking about the ends with the small gold "fingers"?
I sent an envelope of them off a while back. Let you know how that ends up.
I have a whole box full of the silver mylar ribbons.

When you get enough of them you could have someone refine them for you to see what comes out of them. There is some good refiners over on the "other" forum but it takes time to get to know them.

Tonights snippins.
I just don't get enough chips to send into a buyer to make it worth it so this is my new plan of attack for green fiber chips.
Gold dust snippins and the rest goes into my IC bucket. LOL
http://imageshack.us/a/img832/3061/golddusts.jpg
BTW: that was an AMD Athlon 2400+ (1.8 GHZ)

Funny, I do that exact same thing while watching T.V. at night. Or when I have a little free time. I carry around a small case with some needle nose pliers, A husky HD-74501 precision set (this rocks by the way) and a Klein D209-5C (basically small dykes, these are also a great tool). It’s true the floppy boards are not worth shipping so you might as well do something with the pins. Also the internal CD-ROM mechanism is often cast Alum which I'm sure most metals folks would notice. There are also some small I.C. type chips often in a clear square like container; you can often times see the small gold circuits inside them. And last of all sometimes (its not often) there are even small Ceramic I.C. chips on those as well. I add them in my Ceramic CPU stash.

Note. You will not get rich doing this.... It’s really just something to do when you have a little time and want to keep your hands busy. it can be fun to watch that pile of pins grow as well.

Gold plated pins can contain .5 grams up to 3+ grams per LB, but with like everything else it comes down to quality and floppy pins are as a general rule of thumb on the lower end.

The ends are where the gold is correct? the inside of that ribbon thing is what copper? You cut the end (goldfingers?) off and do what w/ the rest of the ribbon.. is it trash?

are they the same thing that connects the boards to the lcd screen.. these? http://i1262.photobucket.com/albums/...pscfe59b13.jpg Do all of these, and both ends, have gold? What about inside the plastic black screen of the lcd that these connect into? ive never seen anybody talk about removing gold from inside that sandwiched black screen?


on a side note, now i can see where i made the circle on the picture i posted days ago? Could you guys always see drawings?

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Originally Posted by Mechanic688

Brucie, are you talking about the ends with the small gold "fingers"?
I sent an envelope of them off a while back. Let you know how that ends up.
I have a whole box full of the silver mylar ribbons.

When you get enough of them you could have someone refine them for you to see what comes out of them. There is some good refiners over on the "other" forum but it takes time to get to know them.

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Brucie, are you talking about the ends with the small gold "fingers"?
I sent an envelope of them off a while back. Let you know how that ends up.

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Here is an example of what I sent off to be refined, hope to hear something any day now. Sometimes what your looking at doesn't carry as much value as you would like for it to be. What's the old saying, "your blinded by all the gold"??
http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/...f/100_0799.jpg

http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/...ps524b0d8f.jpg

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Originally Posted by Pnutfarmer

I have a few pounds of the laser heads. Is it worth much to knock out those eyes? I think they are actually diodes.

Don't forget to take out the neodymium magnets on each side of the floating eye. Those are great and very powerful for being only 1/4 inch squares.

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Hehehe,pulled a set out last night. Powerful. :)

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Originally Posted by Abuilder

Tonights snippins.
I just don't get enough chips to send into a buyer to make it worth it so this is my new plan of attack for green fiber chips.
Gold dust snippins and the rest goes into my IC bucket. LOL
http://imageshack.us/a/img832/3061/golddusts.jpg
BTW: that was an AMD Athlon 2400+ (1.8 GHZ)

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Hey now that's something I would never have thought of. Fingernail clippers for harvesting CPU pins. Tools are where you find them eh. :) lb

Interesting. Wonder if a hangnail clipper would be any more effective, being it's offset.

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Originally Posted by Abuilder

Tonights snippins.
I just don't get enough chips to send into a buyer to make it worth it so this is my new plan of attack for green fiber chips.
Gold dust snippins and the rest goes into my IC bucket. LOL
http://imageshack.us/a/img832/3061/golddusts.jpg
BTW: that was an AMD Athlon 2400+ (1.8 GHZ)

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how do you sell the cpu after the pins are removed?

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Originally Posted by jghilino

how do you sell the cpu after the pins are removed?

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Could you just throw it in with the pinless??