Some Gold Tidbits and Where to Find Them,

I was tearing down some smaller misc. stuff and found a couple of gold tidbits that you might want to look out for.
These items were on low grade boards. Not much to them but for me it all adds up after awhile.
First is a small board standing upright inside some computer power supplies. I tear them down to normally pull the wire as they only pay .13 a lb for them.The gold is in the small jumper pins that fasten the small board (about 2"x2") to the main board upright.

http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/...pso5uexpmw.jpg

This lil chip comes from the laser mouse (mouses or mice?). It is mounted in the center of the small brown board inside. About the size of a dime. There's more than just a cord inside them. Enjoy,,

http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/...psegx0vsld.jpg

Sorry for the crappy pictures.

Mech.

Anything on the value of an individual pin in the first pic ? The prices for nickel pins plated with gold at 5 ppm seem to be all over the place.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scrappah

Mech.

Anything on the value of an individual pin in the first pic ? The prices for nickel pins plated with gold at 5 ppm seem to be all over the place.

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No idea yet, I just keep adding to the OMG jar. Here's a different board. I believe is another mouse board.

http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/...pshqsnfp95.jpg

http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/...psntgoqpe8.jpg

I just keep adding to the OMG jar.

Full article at Scrap Metal Forum: http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/low-g...#ixzz3Yx7y7nbH


Bucket Mech, Bucket!

;)

Sirscrapalot - Founder of the OMG IT"S GOLD!™ bucket.


PS - Your pics aren't showing for me. Just shows me a cat an says photo not found, this is in the first post. 2nd one displays just fine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mechanic688

No idea yet, I just keep adding to the OMG jar.

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In regard to the pins ... it was sort of a leading question. I've been harvesting the pins for awhile and have a couple pounds put up. It's quite labor intensive and it takes a lot of pins to add up to a pound.

My best understanding so far is that they are generally gold plated nickel. The average plating is put applied at five parts per million by weight. The older,richer, plating with that deeper color was applied at ten parts per million.

Maybe there's an error in my reasoning somewhere but when i ran the numbers yesterday it came up like this:

For every pound of pins you come up with five millionths of a pound of gold .... about .78 cents. :(

There would actually be more value recovered in nickel.

When you balance the effort it takes to make a pound against the value recovered you have to decide if the juice is worth the squeeze.

If it isn't worth doing and you decided not to do it .... that would free up your time to do something else that's more profitable.

Just a thought ... somebody that's refining pins would probably know better about the yields.

"There would actually be more value recovered in nickel."

When you think about the mother boards and the like you can't ignore the value of the copper in them. Mike

I have info to add to this thread. This IC chip came out of an old tv board (solid state) and has a gold legged transistor down in the corner also. I included a picture of the board so people know what to look for. I always look over low grade boards to see what kind of surprises await.

http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1d7hvzig.jpg

General idea of what the board looks like.
http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8xhggbxp.jpg

The small black transistor in the corner (with white dots) has gold legs.
http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/...pshgnrl6en.jpg

I finally figured out the proper setting for my camera for the people that have endured the blurry pic's.

That part in the mouse. It can be broken down a bit furthur. Its a image sensor and looks quite pretty. It has Gold wires on it, just like a LED, but about 6 or 8 of them.
Actually image sensors are great Gold wires sources.
Those camera ones, Office photocopy machines have a larger rectangle one, also very nice looking.
And computer flatbed scanners have a long strip one with over 250 Gold wires in it.

Other places I look are contacts on relays, the little block on the boards, normally blue or black.
Switches, the ones in microwave doors ( mostly Copper/Silver or Silver) and the same switches from dishwashers tend to be Gold ir Gold plated.

The little switches from behind tapedeck units for switching the FF and Rwd motors on and off. Simikar switches from other places.

Any switches from high quality electronics. The little block ones with a bunch of switchs on it are great too.
Mostly the Gold wires are exposed so I keep the strip in its black plastic casing support bar.

Is gold located on "Diabetic Meters" pcb?

I've been seeing some in diabetic meters and pedometers. Small boards but very evident gold.

It's hard to tell if it's worth the hassle. Lots of little screws and the boards weigh almost nothing. Plus, the gold looks a little white, like it's a thin plating. But once you pull off the battery, it's a very clean board.

I put the units, whole, aside, for now. There aren't many of them and they don't take up too much space.

Thank You for the information, it helped me out. : )

If you like that, tear into the tape heads of a VRC or tape camcorder, sometime. Puts the "bits" in "tidbits."