Processing sealed units Instructional.

I learned how to do this by looking at some of FreonJoe's stuff and Idahoscrapper. I'm not the first one to use a plasma on these and I'm sure I won't be the first. Since many of you are probably out of work right now Here is an instructional video about how to take apart Ac compressors. If you play the market right you should be able to buy cheap right now and hold on to the copper till prices go back up. I don't have enough room to store nothing and right now the prices I'm getting I would loose money buying these things for more than 5 cents/pound right now but those of you that can store boxes of copper may be able to make out big on these if you start up now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa4g-Qw-cWk

Does the return match the time and effort?

If you know what you're doing than yes. I used to make $20 an hour or more tearing them up. right now the math doesn't work in my favor. But if your able to get them for the right price than yes. absolutely. before I left for europe a year or so ago I was paying 20 cents per pound for them. then when they were torn apart they were worth on average 26 to 28 cents per pound.

Thank you for taking the time to make the video.

There are probably a couple of things. It's not the best time for any kind of scrapping. It's just the economics of it. It's a thin margin business during the best of times. It's easy for any kind of scrapping to slide into the unprofitable activity category when things aren't so good. The other thing is that it's a fair amount of money invested in equipment to do it this way. If it were used just for this one purpose .... the ROI would be quite a ways off. If you were already geared up then this wouldn't be an issue.

It's guesswork on copper values. Prices are down at the moment. It appears that there's a fair amount of copper sitting in storage in the warehouses at the moment. The economy is going to have to restart to draw down some of those reserves.

Maybe a year or two before we start to see a rise ?

If you are idling right now ... it might not be a bad investment of your time to put some copper up for later. If you're looking for some quick cash to buy the groceries then maybe not so good ?

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Originally Posted by hills

If you are idling right now ... it might not be a bad investment of your time to put some copper up for later. If you're looking for some quick cash to buy the groceries then maybe not so good ?

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yes. that is pretty much what I was trying to get at. If someone has room for storage maybe now would be a good time to get into it if they can afford to hold it for when prices go back up. unfortunately i'm not one of those people. I just had a few sitting in my truck bed I needed to get rid of. The yard I went to today said they would sell theirs for 17 cents a pound right now. But torn apart with prices the way they are at the moment I can only get 11 cents a pound out of them. So Id have to buy for 6 cents a pound to make quick cash. But if someone were to hold onto the material till prices go back up they could potentially make out better on them. especially if they get a full trailer load of copper saved up. then they could really be making something.

Theoretically speaking, maybe consider sourcing them in a different way ? Heaven knows, they're common enough in this area. You can pick them up for little or nothing. I tried my hand at a few just for the experience. It's true, without the plasma cutter you do spend more on angle grinder wheels than you make from the copper.

It depends on what you've got for storage space too i suppose. You probably wouldn't want to store the steel or the cu/al windings. A trailer load of copper would be good to have for later on though.

yes. right now i just relocated to ohio. so i just got some storage unit that i rent out that has my welding trailer and other tools in it.

The fencing plyers are a nice touch and something I had not thought of. The embarrassing part is I grew up with those in my hand and never thought to use them. Much easier than the way I have been doing it. Thanks.

your welcome

Oi worked out that i was paying 50 cents in 9 inch cutting disc per fridge compressor
& i was using the new disc to cut one end of the Copper loops off to get the wire out of the Iron stator.
Its most efficient if once the 9 inch disc is worn down to 7 inch, or plus just a tiny bit, to put that disc into a 7 inch grinder.
Its all to do with the M/minute at the outer edge of the disc.

NEVER put a oversized disc into a grinder, OR use a grinder without its guard.

Make sure you have the correct mounting flanges for your disc, flat or a cupped centre, and internal dia, mostly 7/8ths (22mm)

You can use a worn disc in a smaller grinder as long as the disc is no bigger in dia than what the grinders ment to use.
So a 9 inch disc worn down to 7 inch will go into a 7 inch grinder.
Worn down to 5 inch, will go into a 5 inch grinder
Worn down to 4 1/2 will go into a 4 1/2 grinder.

A 7 inch disc in a 9 inch grinder is inefficient because the surface speed of the outside dia, cutting face, is travelling too slow & it will break the grit off.

The grit should grind the metal away, once the individual grit has got dull, it heats up & expands & that bit chips off as dust, exposing new sharp grit to do the grinding again.

Too slow a mm/M and the grit wont get hot enough to expand & the whole bit of grit breaks off & you get a brown dust instead of fine grit/steel finings.

And dont grind anywhere near cars or window glass, the sparks will melt into or attach to glass, ruining it immediately.

It sounds like you might have picked up that last lesson the hard way.

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Originally Posted by ScrapmanIndustries

It sounds like you might have picked up that last lesson the hard way.

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Yep, not me though. My fathers car windscreen developed lots of little rust spots.

When they were picked at ( after they had eaten the windscreen wiper blades ) they left little chip sized craters.
I can spot them from metres ( yards ) away now. The sparks look like they melt into the glass too.