Gold isn't difficult, as opposed to silver, which seems to look identical to lead. tin, solder, etc.
In what places are you most likely to find silver?
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Gold isn't difficult, as opposed to silver, which seems to look identical to lead. tin, solder, etc.
In what places are you most likely to find silver?
there is silver in the solder, in key board mylar. in some ribbon cable and mylar on hard drives and other components, also on some mylar in printers.
don't know for a fact but have read the recovery of silver in e waste is much greater then the gold.
There is also silver in all refrigeration solder joints. Most silver solder runs from 15 to 45% silver content. Just need to find someone to recover it for you.
That's cool, because I see all that silver(color) in there and can't help but wonder, am I tossing lead solder or silver here?
olddude pretty much hit the nail on the head.You just don't hear much about the silver because when people hear the word gold they get gold fever and its all they care about.
Silver melts at 1571 F
Alu. melts at 1220 F
Also tin melts around 450 F
what temp does a lighter burn at ?
bic lighter - 1,977 degrees Celsius or 3590.6 degrees Fahrenheit
https://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=o...w=1658&bih=896
At that temp it would melt them all pretty quick
Hey Bear, I have started collecting breakers to get the silver contacts. They are pretty easy to ID if you bust open a breaker they will be soldered on to the copper arms (actually sometimes steel also). I also go for motor starters and pump pressure switches. The bigger breakers/starters like 400 amp and more have several good sized silver contacts on them. I don't have a value on them yet. I do plan on doing a breaker breakdown soon.
I wish I had someone near me who was a refiner because all the refrigeration solder joints and radiator solder joints I see at the yards just go into #2 copper.
Oh, and the obvious. I just got three pounds of silver solder sticks. They tell the silver content right on the tube.
I think I recall that silver,tin, and lead are some of the most difacult to separate.
the silver in flat cable and mylar will be thin and flat. the larger round wire in flat cable is usually tin coated copper,
most servers have a white plastic/mylar runner usually attached to the bottom under the mother board, I believe these all contain silver flat runners.
I would fruther venture that the solder in chinese products contain more lead and less silver because of the lax eco standards there and the carless attitude toward their work force,
the ram that is silver colored is that really silver?
Some batteries contain silver, relays and my favorite 2nd hand stores/ auctions. As mentioned earlier concerning the breakers, seems that items requiring the most current have the larger and/or more abundent contacts. So an item with a 120 cord would contain less than a 220 v item. At this point only a visual observation no real data yet.
I make my own silver testing solution that will test, according to the color, the purity of silver and other metals such as:
.925 .800 .500 silver
German silver
Nickel
Copper
Brass
Lead
Zinc
Aluminum
Platinum
Would anyone be interested in the testing solution and a color guide if I were to put something like that together for forum members? I would only charge the cost of the actual solution, and shipping. I would be willing to do this at cost if there is enough interest.
I think of it in this way. If I can help forum members determine the type of scrap they are breaking down, they will be able to make more informed purchases which would benefit any refiner they were selling to and in the end everyone does far better.
I can't do this tomorrow, or even before Christmas, but if there is enough interest I can do it in the first part of January.
Scott
Silver contacts is my preferred refining job. I've done 100's of TOz of silver contacts.
First lets define different type of contacts.
High amp relays and motor starts with no waffle back after refining have run 82% (+-3%)
High amp waffle backed contracts are tungsten oxide with silver after refining they run 40%- 60% depending on composition.
small silver contacts small relays, range switches, old dryer switches. Thees are Cd Ag and they run about 60%-80% Ag as well.
small relays and switches that have Ag over Cu are referred as silver copper clad like today's American money.
Other types of contacts are out there as well like Pd contacts for phone switches they have a different shape like a trapezoid.
****Waffle back contacts********** look like a waffle patteren and they break/shatter not bend
Silver solder can be refined but HVAC people are hard pressed to waist any. One friend says that it is so expensive that he saves all of his scraps to remelt into bigger bars. Taking Silver solder out of HVAC joints is a waist of time.
Any other question let me know. Just don't melt your contacts they may and do contain Cd which will kill you. This is the reason the refiners don't take contacts the disposal is to high.
Eric
how about vehicles from the 60's and older, probably find a fair amount of silver coins in them =)
tell us more: maybe some photos of said contacts, and yes I would buy silver test products from you.
we need a silver guru here as I believe silver is an often over looked profit point in scrap
Yeah, I'm really glad to see this is starting to get somewhere. Along with the first question of "where to find it", wish I had added "how to distinguish it"
us silver coins 64 and earlier (junk silver), you will also find it in some later coins less than 90% silver and silver proof sets
bear: arnt you pretty up on silver ? we need a thread headed simply "silver" and you guys in the know bring us up to standards as I believe silver is over looked in several ways. As a survivalist/prepper I believe silver will be much more practical and usefull then gold if the economy goes to sh*t as I believe it will but that is another matter.
silver makes much more sence as a trade medium then gold. i.e. take that kugerand to the store for a loaf of bread and you will quickly realise what I have been saying.
Silver is in all electronics the problem is the concentration. In gold the plating is worth 50+ dollars a gram in silver its worth 1 dollar a gram. If you have silver in concentration than its worth the effort but plating is worth nothing. This is why contacts and solder are what is discussed. Solder verges on not being an option with the amount of chemicals and some of the other metals that are included with it. Some Al plated with Ag is profitable this is mostly found in HAM type radios. Some capacitors have silver some Ta cap and silver mica the look like brown dog bones. AgO batteries have silver they have a marking in the 3** series 301-399 its on the battery hearing aide, watch, medical device, camera flash just for some ideas on where to look
Silver plate on pins and flatware HVAC solder joints should be sold as #2 or they can sometimes be reclaimed in the refining process. If you have tonnage you might get paid for it at the refinery.
Eric
I recently tore down a 1985 VHS recorder and it had a TV tuner(i posted pictures in the thread). Under the tuner bars it looked like maybe silver
[QUOTE=oldtoothlessbassmaster;115022]bic lighter - 1,977 degrees Celsius or 3590.6 degrees Fahrenheit
I pulled the plastic strip of wires out of a flat bed scanner today & bared out a single strand of silver looking metal. It also looked like Ali.
I melted it with a BIC lighter & it went red hot, then drooped as it melted.
Afterwards the metal seemed a little 'blacker', sorta like silver does when it gets tarnished.
So I tested doing that on some Ali from a AC condensor (tinsel type). It heated the tinsel, without changing its colour, then it melted.
In all? Great quick test. Results are not 100% until I actually test the metal for silver in the first place. But it looks promising....
I did that same thing recently in a similar way, with a ribbon cable from 1982, thinking if any would be silver it was older ones, but those wires basically evaporated. I don't recall how long the lighter was under it, I wasn't timing, and the wires were extremely tiny, as in angel hair, but according to the temp specs stated in earlier posts, the lighter would pretty much melt any of it in time
Are there ways to visually determine which silver colored components are most likely silver, or of more suitable silver content?
Some relatively harmless spray from a mister, or a special type light (or maybe both used together) could certainly be helpful in this, if either exists
try putting bleach on what you suspect of being silver, it should tarnish if it is silver, i just read this on another site so i could be wrong.
my test kit just got delivered friday but i hardly got a chance to run some tests with the silver test acid
ebay item # 110885266053
i dug out a few silver point contacts from breakers and disconnect boxes, and i gotta remember where i put that silver plated stash of fuses that i found out might actually have a 99.9% pure silver element inside
Full Line catalog - COOPER Bussmann - (Version JPG) - Page n° 10 - PDF Catalogue | Technical Documentation | Brochure
How do you mean circuit board? If you are not sure about part then clip it off and test. Circuit board will not have silver directly plated on itself. Even keyboards mylar silver is not silvery white metallic silver but rather grey silver paste printed on it.
If you want to find out if your solder is tin/lead or tin/silver solder then silver solder is bit brittle than lead. Generally new electronics do not have tin/lead solder anymore.
I refer to circuit board as those having all the little pins sticking out the back, how will you rub paper on that. I don't recall referencing anything newer than an 82 and an 85 as examples, and they were both in earlier posts, and other threads. Particularly a 1982 TI PED board, and a 1985 VHS TV tuner board, both thoroughly pictured in the other referenced threads. Some particular boards in question include these
It ain't giving me the add photo link so I'll just add the link
http://upsimple.com/uploads/anonymou...897a7_2100.jpg
http://upsimple.com/uploads/anonymou...3128b_4403.jpg
There silver in these... I get these tubs often, .. anywhere from 1percent to 5 percent, this particular brand is anywhere from 2 percent on up.
it also depends on batch and model.. so.. this pic I'm putting up is just a example.
http://i1307.photobucket.com/albums/...d/DSCF0470.jpg
dont forget thermal compound, the silver colored paste has very high silver content
From what I’ve read so far it doesn’t look like there is an easy, non chemical way, to test if contacts and such are silver. A suggestion for buyers is to figure out which components have a high percentage of being silver that are both shippable and refinable. The buyer could then discount his price he pays per pound based on the amount of nonsilver mixed with silver.
For example, if you told us that transistors have a high percentage of being silver, I would much rather send them to you at a discounted price than test each one chemically.
I pasted that number into google search and added ebay, took me right to it. That guy claims to be selling 2000 of those a DAY! And wow, have you ever seen such a string of keywords? Check out that list near the bottom, hurt my eyes just glancing through it, haha!
Also checked out those fuses, them things weigh from 4 to 36 pounds apiece, wow!
My thoughts entirely, OldDude. But judging from my experience, it won't be enough to title it merely "Silver", or merely put it in the Electronics category. This title should specifically state all parameters of the question, such as "Silver: Where to Find it, And How to Distinguish it, In Electrical Boards and Components, With Photos Whenever Possible" Else they will find themselves as I have here, in the middle of a mountain of silverish waste, with a tiny bottle of solution
There have been many excellent questions, answers, and solutions, offered in this thread, but much has also been lost, or covered up and forgotten, in this now very lengthy process