These prices terrible or is it just me?

Ohh ... man ... totally agree. The manufacturers have done a very good job of doing more with less. Gotta hand it to em'.

I was reading a study that was done sometime back around 1998. Globally, we were dumping hundreds of tons of recoverable gold into landfills every year when these electronics hit end of life. I guess they took a hint and did something about it because by year 2000 there was a significant reduction in the amount of PM's being used in manufacturing.



Long term ... this doesn't bode well for the Ewaste industry. I can see why so many guys have gone under in the past three or four years. It's getting harder and harder to turn a profit with every new generation of tech that comes out.

I think i'm seeing about 1/3 to 1/4 the volume i saw a few years ago. I would be in real trouble if i had to make a living at this.

Originally Posted by hills

I think i'm seeing about 1/3 to 1/4 the volume i saw a few years ago. I would be in real trouble if i had to make a living at this.

With the way the board sizes are decreasing I could see the scrap electronics prices going through the floor while the per pound prices on boards increases. What I'm finding is that the newer boards are smaller, but the components are more closely packed leading to a higher yield of chips and components per pound of boards.

It's amazing to see the speed at which these boards are decreasing. The company I work for has been in the process of re-designing some of its older circuit boards for the past few months. These boards used to have all through hole components and were typically 4"x4". After they were re-designed we turned everything into surface mount components and were able to reduce the size of the board down to 2"x2" as well as drastically decrease the price.