escrap questions

Originally Posted by KZBell

Isn't the whole thing copper? I turned one in today in the #2 bucket.

I dont think so. Underneath it, is all silver. I know the pic might not be that great (crappy android cameras), but it is all aluminum, and then on top in the middle is the chunk of copper.

I know there is white copper, but only time I have seen that is in cable lines.

So, I have been curious, since my time here, I have read from many of you on how much ewaste you send in.

So, out of curiosity, how do you guys decide when it is time to cash in? I realize that the market is one key factor.

But do you base it on how many computers you break down, say every 30, you cash in?

Or do you base it on lbs. Say, every 50 lbs you cash in?

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

So, I have been curious, since my time here, I have read from many of you on how much ewaste you send in.
So, out of curiosity, how do you guys decide when it is time to cash in? I realize that the market is one key factor.
But do you base it on how many computers you break down, say every 30, you cash in?
Or do you base it on lbs. Say, every 50 lbs you cash in?

I base mine on if I need money at the time for bills or maybe to buy another load. I try to sell a couple of hundred pounds at a time to make it worthwhile.

I thought I was going to ship every month or so when I first started about 5 months ago. My first delivery was scrap from about 120 towers and servers. My 2nd month I thought I mastered my skill and doubled my frst month. So I thought Id keep that pace. But for whatever reason I ended up stockpiling and skipped a month. Then the prices dropped and in a way I'm glad they did. It gave me time to rethink my game and that's what led me to this forum. Since then I've learned to resell before I scrap and I've built a strong network of four guys who battle it out for my my "good" towers and LCD monitors. I've now sold over 10 towers for $50. Its safe to say I sell about 35 percent of all my towers for $20 to $40. In about 2 months time i have sold a total of 54 towers and 68 monitors. Now that prices have gone up a bit I'm now making arrangements to deliver over 4000 lbs. This wasn't the original plan but it's where I'm at today. I choose to drive my stuff to my buyer so I can spend some time learning from him. So to answer your question, since I basically have the space and storage containers to hold 4000 pounds I wait till I have that quantity. I was able to accumulate that in 2 months after selling what I could.

Originally Posted by Dunemaul

I like to cash in every week or 2 if possible. But thats usually when im getting around 1000-2000 lbs i flipping out cause im running out of space. Today alone filled my garage glad i got a pickup scheduled for next week. AND im finally getting paid the same day for all my Escrap is a Christmas miracle.

Well it will definitely take more time and networking to reach those weights, but that is pretty good. Who do you generally sell to?

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

I base mine on if I need money at the time for bills or maybe to buy another load. I try to sell a couple of hundred pounds at a time to make it worthwhile.

That is exactly how I am. I have scrap metal stock piled at my in laws. Waiting for the prices to rebound which will be very soon around here!

Originally Posted by Scrapcrazy

I thought I was going to ship every month or so when I first started about 5 months ago. My first delivery was scrap from about 120 towers and servers. My 2nd month I thought I mastered my skill and doubled my frst month. So I thought Id keep that pace. But for whatever reason I ended up stockpiling and skipped a month. Then the prices dropped and in a way I'm glad they did. It gave me time to rethink my game and that's what led me to this forum. Since then I've learned to resell before I scrap and I've built a strong network of four guys who battle it out for my my "good" towers and LCD monitors. I've now sold over 10 towers for $50. Its safe to say I sell about 35 percent of all my towers for $20 to $40. In about 2 months time i have sold a total of 54 towers and 68 monitors. Now that prices have gone up a bit I'm now making arrangements to deliver over 4000 lbs. This wasn't the original plan but it's where I'm at today. I choose to drive my stuff to my buyer so I can spend some time learning from him. So to answer your question, since I basically have the space and storage containers to hold 4000 pounds I wait till I have that quantity. I was able to accumulate that in 2 months after selling what I could.

I have been seeing more and more people doing like you described. Selling some of the towers to guys for far more than scrap prices.

What kind of guys do you sell to? Computer repair?

I am going to be start working on building my network of those kinds of buyers.

Multiple people on the forum suggested I try to sell before scrap. I was hesitant cause I didn't know too much about computers bedsides tearing them apart. Then I simply posted "lots of misc. Computer parts" on Craigslist. The next day I had a guy over drooling over my piles. He was a refurbisher. He basically begged me not to break any more down till I called him. Since then I've met a few more guys. All refurbishers. They tend to be interested in all of my stuff less than 4 hrs old and almost all my lap tops. I have multiple hospitals I get computers from and they seem to get rid of a lot of newer stuff. Im working with a 600 bed hospital right now, by years end they will have replaced all their older towers, leaving me over 800. One of my refurbishers takes scrap from his other guys he buys towers from as a "favor" and gives me all of it. In return I give him a tower or two. It works out great.
Another thing I do is place all of my empty towers on Craigslist as computer scrap metal for free. I do this with hopes of meeting another refurbisher who is looking for empty towers, hopefully he'll want to buy. At a minimum, I meet people who say they'll swap me a few full towers for my next load of empty 50. This is my source of networking.

So, in a few days, I will be able to test all my hard drives, and cd/dvd drives as well.

However, I was thinking about my video cards, sound cards, ethernet cards, etc. How do you test all of those?

Also, if I scrap them, is it better to remove the metal brackets that you plug your monitor and other stuff into?

Regarding the first post - for the Quantum hard disk drives usually their size is always on the main label and again it's shown on the sticker next to connector pins. On this label the size is 2.1 GB

I have several PCI cards from all the scrap PC's

I was curious to know what the possibility of them selling for on ebay, if I list them there, and make it clear it is for gold recovery only, as I dont know if any of them work or not.

From my ezperience selling them on ebay you make more money sending them to a buyer. Lets just take ewasted pricing of $4.10 a pound. AFter you figure the average of 15% in fees for final value fees and paypal fees you would have to sell the same 1 pound of pci cards for $4.71 to get the same price. Personaly only things ive seen sell for good enuff money on a regualr basis is pins and gold fingers. ANything else your taking a gamble you dont need to take.

Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

From my ezperience selling them on ebay you make more money sending them to a buyer. Lets just take ewasted pricing of $4.10 a pound. AFter you figure the average of 15% in fees for final value fees and paypal fees you would have to sell the same 1 pound of pci cards for $4.71 to get the same price. Personaly only things ive seen sell for good enuff money on a regualr basis is pins and gold fingers. ANything else your taking a gamble you dont need to take.

What are the pins? Only thing I have seen "pins" on is the CPU chips.

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

What are the pins? Only thing I have seen "pins" on is the CPU chips.

LOL really? Go to ebay and type in gold plated pins and that will show you what they are.

Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

LOL really? Go to ebay and type in gold plated pins and that will show you what they are.

Well I did that, but that brought up so many different options, that it was mind boggling lol

I am sure, that I get it though.

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

Well I did that, but that brought up so many different options, that it was mind boggling lol
I am sure, that I get it though.

See the pins?

2 I have confirmed that 2 of the desktops from the 8 do fully work.

I got 1 issue, and 1 question.

For the issue: Neither my keyboard or mouse will work with either PC. They dont light up or anything. They are USB.

For the question. Is there a way to erase the hard drive, as they haven't been erased, without removing the hard drive from the PC, and taking the chance on messing something up?

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

2 I have confirmed that 2 of the desktops from the 8 do fully work.

I got 1 issue, and 1 question.

For the issue: Neither my keyboard or mouse will work with either PC. They dont light up or anything. They are USB.

For the question. Is there a way to erase the hard drive, as they haven't been erased, without removing the hard drive from the PC, and taking the chance on messing something up?

A lot of times you have to have the keyboard (and mouse) plugged in before you fire the computer up or it may not recognize it.
There is a way to reformat the H.D. in the computer. Now on mine here I went to the start menu, went up to computer clicked, right clicked on the C drive (which is my main H.D.) and in the menu there is a function that says "format".

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

A lot of times you have to have the keyboard (and mouse) plugged in before you fire the computer up or it may not recognize it.
There is a way to reformat the H.D. in the computer. Now on mine here I went to the start menu, went up to computer clicked, right clicked on the C drive (which is my main H.D.) and in the menu there is a function that says "format".

I did that. I have had it happen before on other computers, where I would also just restart the PC, and then they would work to, but that isn't working on either one.

They are not old computers either. They have XP and both are compatible with VISTA according to their stickers, so I am at a loss. PC's and accessories I have a variety of, but as far as keyboards and mice, not really.

I will try again sometime today and see. I would like to get them fixed, so I can resell them!


Not to sound ignorant, but by doing your suggestion on the reformat, does that totally format the drive, or is it the same as installing a fresh copy of windows, and it leaving a file with all the old content?

Thanks for the info on it.

Okay ladies and gentlemen, I have some great news for my company!

For those of you, who have been following or a part of my "Email Marketing" thread: http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/elect...marketing.html it is working better and better!

While on yellowpages.com, and searching for "pc repair", a few companies kept showing up, that I knew was a bit bigger than a simple mom and pop place. Now, since there is a few members near me that belong to this forum, and since they are my direct competition, then I won't mention names. However, they are a pretty big company, and I am surprised I even heard back from them.

Anyways, the President of the company, is in search of someone closer to them to dispose of all their electronic/computer equipment. Best part of it is, they are not looking to be paid for any of it!

She wants me to send her more information on my pricing for pickup and disposal, as well as destruction method, etc.

The destruction methods, I have covered, but I never thought what to charge anyone for pickup, disposal, and destruction.

So here is the question. For those of you who deal with commercial clients who give you large quantities to pickup, disposa, and destroy confidential data, what kind of prices do you throw out there?

Great thing is, their computer is about 10 minutes from me, so my pricing can afford to be extremely low! In fact, I was thinking of charging them nothing for pickup and disposal, and just charging them for destruction. None the less, I am not sure what to charge.

Other thing is, they of course want me to provide them a COD, which I can do (have to recreate it, as I accidently deleted it a while back)....however, if I charge them for it, do you guys charge and get paid on completion of pickup, or do you get paid after providing them the COD?

Not sure if I am missing something or not. I finally got one of the 2 PCs that I know that works, to accept my keyboard and mouse.

So, I am trying to format the hard drive on it, so I can maybe sell it. I already have someone interested in a PC for his kids.

Anyways, I tried doing the suggestion of just "right clicking and click format" on the C drive. No good.

Now I am trying to use Disk Wipe and it is telling me that it cannot lock it and it cannot format it. WTH!

Is there a way to lock? I mean these hard drives to not come out easily or not easy for me.

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

Not sure if I am missing something or not. I finally got one of the 2 PCs that I know that works, to accept my keyboard and mouse.

So, I am trying to format the hard drive on it, so I can maybe sell it. I already have someone interested in a PC for his kids.

Anyways, I tried doing the suggestion of just "right clicking and click format" on the C drive. No good.

Now I am trying to use Disk Wipe and it is telling me that it cannot lock it and it cannot format it. WTH!

Is there a way to lock? I mean these hard drives to not come out easily or not easy for me.

Luckily, I managed to get the hard drive out. But there should be an easier way of formatting without having to remove the hard drive physically.