Just for clarification...
These aren't ONLY gold plated ends visibly, correct?
For instance....USB, printers, IDE cables are gold tipped ends as well?
What about Male or Female? Both gold tipped, or just one or the other?
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Just for clarification...
These aren't ONLY gold plated ends visibly, correct?
For instance....USB, printers, IDE cables are gold tipped ends as well?
What about Male or Female? Both gold tipped, or just one or the other?
USB, printer and IDE cables are normally gold plated. I have found some IDE cables in the past that are not gold plated. I have never seen a USB end that is not gold plated but I am sure that they exist somewhere. When it comes to male or female it really depends on the kind of end you are talking about.
I usually check my IDE cables. I just bust them a little bit on the end to make sure that they are gold plated.
We need to get some pictures of the types of ends that are good. If any buyers see this, please educate us a bit with some samples.
Im sure it doesnt matter maleor female ends as long as they are gold plated. I clip the wires of my ribbon cables too and throw the connectors in the bucket.
As a buyer myself it is rather difficult for a complete education course on this topic because it depends on who the buyer sells the material too. Some buyers do not want phone cord or ethernet cord ends but my buyer does take them.Quote:
Originally Posted by parrothead
We generally accept any kind of cable end that is gold plated and honestly it can be difficult to determine sometimes if something is gold plated or not, especially in the IDE cables like I mentioned above.
Its hard to explain...an not to easy to show...but rule of thumb...if it looks gold..it will pass as gold cord end...phone cord ends are no good but cat5 are good.Quote:
Originally Posted by ComputerScrapper
Some buyers will not buy the IDE ends. We will not buy them because we do not have the time to check them, so if we can see "yellow" its good. USB cable ends are good as 99% are all gold plated.
Take note to trim them GOOD tho...if you leave to much wire on it..the price of the ends will drop big time as the ends will need to be cleaned up at some point or time due to the fact that there will be more "trash" in the refining costs. Trim them as close to the end as you can.
Out of all the elements of e-scrap I think gold ends are probably the most difficult to explain. We get multiple questions on them each day and many times there is no easy answer to the whole thing. I tell most people to avoid keyboard and mouse connections because they are rarely gold plated. Your older style printer cables are almost always gold and when you get into higher end computers, like for the gamers, you will even find gold plated ends on power supply cables but those are pretty rare.
I honestly do wish that there was an iron clad list that could be provided but there are so many factors that have to be considered.
P.S.- Power cords are not gold plated, they are brass....I usually add this to all communications when dealing with customer questions. The brass gets a little dull in color and can resemble gold in poor lighting situations. I can't count the number of times that I have received a package with hundreds of power cord ends just to tell the customer that they have sent the wrong stuff. I still buy them but for no where near the price of gold ends. Our local yard buys them as dirty brass so they are worth a little bit of money.
I have had the power cord ends as well in my gold end box...but as he said....there really no list that can be posted...its something you have to check...it only take a sec or two to check them.
but brass looks like gold and vice versa. To me anyways. The computer cable ends I've seen look the same color as where the memory sticks and cards plug into the motherboards and those are not gold as I've been told by e-waste folks so you can see where the confusion comes from. I just assumed the ends were brass like any other plug end. *shrugs*
rocket science to some maybe but not to others.
Who told you that. I thaught all pci,isa,agp,ram,ide slots on motherboards where gold plated? I could be wrong but that was my understanding. Why bother gold plating the cards that go into that slot and not the slot itself?Quote:
Originally Posted by newattitude
I don't recall who told me that and I was saving them because I thought they were too. You're right I would think, gold on the ends should plug into gold plated slots right? I dunno, some of this stuff is confusing.
ata sockets,, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._mainboard.jpg
ata connector,, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...070127_002.jpg
printer cable ends,, http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/pub...RrjSGod1xi-5Is
usb cable ends,, http://img.labnol.org/di/USB_cables.png
ide flat ribbon cable,, https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/i...lAoNoQ_Yt2fCaI
I hope this clears some of it up.
Thanks Mech.
Just a little more, Round IDE Cable,, http://www.cablesdirect.com/prodimages/IDEU-1ASV_LR.jpg
Memory Board,, http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/pub...Q3j5XIGUNUnYIo
Dont forget about the monitor cables too.
http://i54.tinypic.com/1zgfigy.jpg
http://i54.tinypic.com/2dqnl79.jpg
What about ribbons that are pulled from printers? What are they made of?
THANK YOU Mechanic! So, if it looks yellow colored its gold coated/tipped and not brass then.
It can be a little confusing but the gold ends seem to have a lighter color to them than the brass ends. Look at one of those cables and compare side by side to, say a phone cord end or a computer power cord. Here is another that I forgot to add,,, If your talking about the ribbon inside of a printer, I think that will be silver plated inside the ribbon, but I'm not 100% on that.
CAT 5 CABLE END
http://www.bestlinknetware.com/products/100521GY.jpg
As a rule of thumb,,,--- Gold will conect to Gold ,,,,,On your flat ribbon cable ends 99.9% of them will only be spot plated only where the Gold connects to Gold ..
For your power supply cords and such ;;; I heat up around 5 gl. water on the ol turkey cooker , to less than boil and heat the ends (use safety here) using long tongs I reach in get a plug and use pliers to pull out the BRASS ends. Yuo don't have to use a turkey cooker you can do small amounts on you stove top....
hope this helps
Good idea. I usually put a pair of channel locks on the rubber and use dikes to pull the brass out. Fairly easy.. I'll grip the brass, then sort of bend it over the side and it pulls the copper out with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by trashmaster
thansk for this post! I feel like I am just starting to get a grasp on the whole topic colecting and sorting e-waste, cord ends I would have to say have been the most diffuclt to really understand ( go figure something as simple as a cord end causing o much confusion!) honestly I have been pulling brass from power cords but throwing most pc/IT ends in the trash, I had no clue! not untill recently have I started throwing them in a bucket, hopefuly I will get a good enough understanding soon so that I can seporate tese correctly.
Same here, but when my old arthritic hands get sore I can use another suggestion which I will try the boiling thing, I never thought of that. Would make it easier to soften the rubber and pull the ends out easier.Quote:
Originally Posted by rca987
Are the pins in PC power supply (internal) connectors brass? It's hard to tell by looking at em if they're tin coated copper or some sort of brass.
Like the other post suggested, they will be whatever the other end that plugged in was, usually brass.
What about female monitor cable ends like this:Quote:
Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper
Gold or no gold?
http://www.image-tmart.com/images/C/...-Dual-2-01.gif
gold
So, I'm still confused on one thing, are the plugs on the telephone wire gold or not? I've been searching and found this thread but still no definite answer but this thread did help with some ends that I've been throwing away but will start saving now. Thanks for all the info on this thread.
Why throw any of them away? If nothing else their dirty brass at the yard I would think.Quote:
Originally Posted by happyscraper
Got this from a phone site;Quote:
Modular plugs are made in three basic sizes:
The smallest plug, known as 4-position, 2-conductor (or 2 wire), is used for handset cords. A "position" is a groove molded into the plastic that could contain a little bit of gold-plated wire to make contact with wires inside the jack.
Actually, I have come to believe that the ends of circuit boards, and also some of the connectors between two or more circuit boards are indeed gold. So, who told you that they weren't? It seems to me that some gold (electronics, precious metals) refiners are willing indeed to buy them as such, so who told you that they weren't?Quote:
Originally Posted by newattitude
Of course some of the scrap that you mentioned only contain a very small amount of actual gold (they often are no-where close to 24-karat).
:lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Mealane8
I have seen the 'TV power cords with Gold clips on them" too. Its a subject that has come up a few times.Quote:
Originally Posted by easyrecycle
They do LOOK like Gold, not like Brass at all, a deeper 'Gold' colour than Brass has. After saving a bunch (5 pairs?) I decided to scrap them as Brass instead.
Its the two pins on the end of the (NZ) 240V AC cord where its attached to the CRT TV's board, after its gone thru the Off/On switch.
Quote:
Originally Posted by eesakiwi
A usual rule of thumb with connectors is.
If it has power no data then the connector will be brass,copper or another type of metal.
If the connector pass's data 1's and 0's then it will be gold.
It's not 100% but i have found it about 98% accurate.
eesakiwi, I give a good glance at every brown board before I throw it in the pile as I have found those gold legged transistors and some big round pins where a 2 pin plug plugs into it. The pins are as big as a pencil lead and about 1/2" tall. Those go in my misc. gold jar. The transistors will have some multi-color stripes on the back of them.
Those are some nice close up pic's, pretty self explanatory.
I have some pretty gold connectors, auction ends in about 40min.
Im asking $5 an ounce for mine, though. Probably won't get it today....there is always tomorrow:)
High Grade Telecom Gold Connectors 94 1 grams Very Nice | eBay
Hi,
I got question about ATA connector. Some i have found are all yellow, so all gold plated i assume. But what about ones that are not all golden.
Back side is all white, pulled one out and theres small tip one side golden. Are those still good for gold recovery? And what type metal white one is?
Hi, and thanks for contacting me!
As for your question about ATA (such as IDE) cables:
You said:
"Hi, I got question about ATA connector. Some i have found are all yellow, so all gold plated i assume. But what about the ones that are not all golden. Back side is all white, pulled one out and theres small tip one side golden. Are those still good for gold recovery? And what type metal white one is?"
Okay, to answer your questions:
(Just so you know, I probably haven't stripped more than a few dozen IDE cables in my time...)
The "pins" found in IDE cables can vary a lot in type from one connector to another. The type you refer to as completely yellow, I believe are indeed entirely gold-plated. The gold plating used on computer "pin" connectors (computer pins) I believe to generally be about 22-24 karat gold. However, of course, there isn't much on them. The metal they are plated onto is often steel; but copper or aluminum may also often be used!
Check them with a magnet. Also, if the materials is entirely "white" or "silver-ish" it most likely is either steel, aluminum or some other non-ferrous material. So, do you have a strong magnet? If so, use it to test the pins to determine what is the base metal used in the pin connectors--stainless steel may be used, and therefore a very strong magnet should be best!
As for the partially-plated pins (with only a small portion covered with gold-plating) they are still worth recovering. I often remove the main portion from the gold-plated part, so as to reduce shipping costs when I send them to a refiner.
Gold plated pins can go as high as $50 or higher per pound, but the refiner I have been selling them to has bought them from me at about $30 a pound: this is certainly not bad, as some refiners will only offer $5-$10 a pound!
Also, the wiring used in these ATA cables can either be (as I am aware of so-far) copper-plated steel, tinned, nickel or silver-plated copper, or just plain copper wire.
The wire from these cables probably isn't worth your time to strip. However, you may be able to sell it for up to about .60 per pound (this is the price I got for insulated copper number two where I live, the last time I sold it) as insulated copper number two.
Thanks so much for your time!
how about the houseing of a usb cable ? is it stainless steel , anyone know
Test it the same way you test other materials you suspect are SS. Does it stick to a magnet does it make "small" sparks when you hit it with a grinder? "Small" as compared to steel.
If you are going to get involved in scraping you need to learn this test and lots of other things. Read the old threads to educate yourself. You will learn things you didn't know you should know. You will make more money sooner, you will be glad you did do the studying. If you doubt me read this thread first:
http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/gener...formation.html
73, Mike