PSU w/ wire - to breakdown or not

Just to let everyone know, I did do a little searching on this before posting this.

At this time, I am getting a fair amount of E-waste and am trying to figure out, based on my prices and cost to ship, if it is worth it to break them down.

I just recently sent a few pallets out and included in this load were 625 pounds of PSU w/ wire. My shipping costs, after taking out the weight of the pallets and gaylords was about 11.25 cents per pound. Buyer paid 26 cents, leaving me with 14.75 cents per pound.

Fast forward to today and I sold a bunch of wire and electronic leftovers. I got 56 cents per pound for #2 insulated, 15 cents per pound for low grade circuit boards, 15 cents a pound for transformers and 11 cents a pound for computer fans. I'm assuming light iron was about 2.5 to 3 cents per pound. I'd like to figure out, strictly on what I would get selling these (and taking into account shipping costs), which pays more. I'm wondering if anybody has recently done an analysis on 10 or 15 of these.

I know that what I can sell for is not everything. My time is worth something, so I'll have to take that into account. The other thing that I need to think about is how much does sending these with my high value E-waste help in lowering shipping costs. If sending these reduced my shipping costs by 2 cents per pound, then that was a savings on about 825 pounds of other E-waste.

A couple of months ago, I took in a bunch of computer scrap. In it was 249lbs of power supplies that I got 18 cents/lb for.

The same place is paying 16 cents/lb as of yesterday.

To tear down over 600lbs of power supplies is going to take some time. Probably more than it's worth.

How much would your buyer pay if you removed the wires and is that considered #2 insulated at your yard?

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Originally Posted by jimicrk

How much would your buyer pay if you removed the wires and is that considered #2 insulated at your yard?

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16 cents with no wire. Yes, it would be # 2 insulated at the yard I went to yesterday.

Situations vary. For myself .... i found that they weren't worth bothering with at all. It works better for me to just give them away to a couple of the local scrappers. The thing they're interested in is the copper and aluminum. We're so far off the beaten path that you really need to be hauling pickup truck loads of Cu or Al to make the trip to the nearest scrap yard worthwhile. I'm not getting that kind of volume but they are. They're a better choice for the job of dealing with power supplies.

AGW had a thread on PSU breakdowns. If you could find the thread .... there's some pretty good advise in there.

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Originally Posted by Scrappah

Situations vary. For myself .... i found that they weren't worth bothering with at all. It works better for me to just give them away to a couple of the local scrappers. The thing they're interested in is the copper and aluminum. We're so far off the beaten path that you really need to be hauling pickup truck loads of Cu or Al to make the trip to the nearest scrap yard worthwhile. I'm not getting that kind of volume but they are. They're a better choice for the job of dealing with power supplies.

AGW had a thread on PSU breakdowns. If you could find the thread .... there's some pretty good advise in there.

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I remember reading Armies thread, but got thinking when I got 56 cents for wire and 15 for the boards and transformers. the only thing below my after shipping sale price was the fan and the light iron.

It all depends on volume and the prices you are getting. I personally have found that it is not worth cutting the wire unless you are going to break it all the way down and depopulate the boards. I throw them as they are into a gaylord and ship. My time is better spent doing something else.