Satellite Reciever Board grade?

[JJinLV]

I don't know if it's true or not ... but i read somewhere that 18 wheeler truck loads of circuit boards are shipped from the US to Canada for processing every year. It seems that it was somehow related to the copper mining industry up North. Processing the boards isn't terribly different from processing copper ore.



The copper yields are about the same per ton ?

The precious metals that are recovered are more like the icing on the cake ?

Copper yields per pound of (non-low grade) circuit board about 30%. So if someone buys telecom boards at $6/lb and clean #2 copper is around $3.60/lb then the copper content amounts to about $1.19 of that value. Often the precious metals in circuit board refining are the cake and the copper is the icing!

[hills]

That's true enough.

One would think that low grade power supply boards would have more copper per pound but very little in the way of precious metals.

I suppose the math would be different for every kind of board that you're looking to refine.

[JJinLV]

That's true enough.

One would think that low grade power supply boards would have more copper per pound but very little in the way of precious metals.

I suppose the math would be different for every kind of board that you're looking to refine.

In just the board itself the average is about the same. But the transformers, heatsinks, big capacitors, steel and such dominate the weight and reduce the /lb copper recovery.