Ewaste?? Was it the next big thing?

Electromagnetic radiation is highly dependent on impedance, source frequency, temperature and materials composition so yes as far as PMs are concerned there is a VERY specific socket standard.



And while I don't doubt i series boards return even less metals, let me be kind of a devil's advocate here... SIPI has been taken on aggressively by other nationwide companies and let's have a moment of honesty here...I'm not real likely to believe anything SIPI says as complete truth because it's in their business interests to buy as low as possible. The i series boards could be filled with electrolytics and guess what there's two flatpacks (particularly the northbridge and two BGAs on there that tell me the board will never be "worthless". THat is excluding a land grid array with an engineering standard for it's composition and electocoatings. Even if grinding and refining cost lets say 60 cents on the pound (which it does not in a large operation). you will never ever lose money on a motherboard unless your competition is outbuying you. I also want to point out that the board has 6 to 11 layers of copper trace accounting for up to 30% of the overall "bare board" weight, do the math on that and even if you had to trash every part of the motherboard it's still going to have value.

Originally Posted by armygreywolf

Electromagnetic radiation is highly dependent on impedance, source frequency, temperature and materials composition so yes as far as PMs are concerned there is a VERY specific socket standard.

And while I don't doubt i series boards return even less metals, let me be kind of a devil's advocate here... SIPI has been taken on aggressively by other nationwide companies and let's have a moment of honesty here...I'm not real likely to believe anything SIPI says as complete truth because it's in their business interests to buy as low as possible. The i series boards could be filled with electrolytics and guess what there's two flatpacks (particularly the northbridge and two BGAs on there that tell me the board will never be "worthless". THat is excluding a land grid array with an engineering standard for it's composition and electocoatings. Even if grinding and refining cost lets say 60 cents on the pound (which it does not in a large operation). you will never ever lose money on a motherboard unless your competition is outbuying you. I also want to point out that the board has 6 to 11 layers of copper trace accounting for up to 30% of the overall "bare board" weight, do the math on that and even if you had to trash every part of the motherboard it's still going to have value.

The info regarding the i series boards come from a yard owner who does refining. I am not very inclined to trust Sipi either as my associates get butt pillaged if they don't send a representative to monitor their material in processing. However the 30% copper by weight in the board is a loss unless you have sub $ 0.80/lb processing charge in your refinery contract which is very generous and I'm jealous if you do lol. Reason being you usually only get paid 95% on your total copper plus an additional charge per Troy oz. on top of this you don't get comex spot price but about 0.20-0.30 below comex per pound. Doing all this math you'll see your paying more to have the copper processed than its ultimate value on the 1/3 of a pound or so per motherboard. I see the future heading towards depopulating motherboards and aggregating the valuable chips and refining the blank "smelter" boards out of country where operations actually do pay for them where as in the US no one will refine them. The copper is however necessary to create a "dore" which is a copper bar that contains X amount of precious metals, if there isn't enough copper the refinery gets you again because they will add copper to the mix to complete your "dore" at the charges I described before. If I remember correctly you have an interesting deal with a refinery where they give you metal back and not a bank account. All the refineries in the east side of the U.S. That I'd talk to would charge extra to give you back metals. If not for you then again, I am very jealous.

Mmarro89 all I can say is "WHEW" and thanks.Thanks for reminding me of how little I know about E-waste still! I'll keep educating myself.

"butt pillaged" has me checking my backside routinely today and hoping that thought fades!

Originally Posted by miked

I agree with that statement and we all got to read the term "butt pillaged" which was a highlight for my morning. Mike

Haha thank you gentleman, make you sure pass along due credit when you use one of my finer pieces of vocab.