Sorting Plugs for Gold Recovery
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- Опубліковано 18 лис 2023
- Gold pins from ewaste plugs are a lot of work to prepare for gold recovery.
I don't think i'm prepared to spend all that time so I will pass them on.
If local to Melbourne and your interested in recovering the gold, let me know.
To contact me by email: weeeben@optusnet.com.au
Keep scrapping & Have fun! - Навчання та стиль
Jason from Mount Baker Mining and Metals would run this through a horizontal mini impact crusher and liberate all the metal.
Came here to say the same thing
Exactly, I feel like this guy throws out anything thats not solid 24 k gold
I have been watching you’re videos for about 4 years now and I snow have heaps of copper stashed away for a rainy day!
Thank You for continuing to inspire me !!!
You really should think about getting a granulator it would make short work of removing all the plastic material just leaving you with a big tub of metals.
yes, maybe whatthey use for rock crushing to get gold out of it. or maybe someting easier.
@zwapz yeah that's a hammer mill but then you need a shaker table too. Most granulators use a gravity separator which don't require water.
MBMM sounds like a good channel to do a collaboration with. He does all sorts of gold recovery from rocks and debris from waste processing etc. Would be an interesting collaboration!
I agree! I want one too!
Back in the day we used to "separate" brass from mains AC plugs using a washing machine and a cannon ball, rather noisy and you tend to go through a lot of washing machines 😂 but we used machines collected for scrap 👍
A few notes:
1. Focusing solely on acquiring e-scrap without any consideration given to eventual precious metal recovery is a solid recipe for creating future problems that could have been easily avoided had you known now what you're going to know in the future after the cake is already baked.
2. All those connectors are worth recovering from, given the simplicity of stripping gold plating;
ⵊ. Tub/bucket that can hold water,
ⵊⵊ. A larger emergency catchment tub in case of failure/overflow/out-splashing of the primary container,
ⵊⵊⵊ. Pure Lye Crystals (drain cleaner),
ⵊV. Water,
V. Time.
3. I'm currently processing my first batch of e-scrap from stuff I've had for over a decade. I've found that it doesn't really matter what the item is, it usually gets processed via, "Ashing", either 'wet' or 'dry'. Dry is fire, wet is Acid. You either gotta destroy, dissolve & filter out the undesired material, or the desired material.
I'm of the mind that I'd like to destroy the lesser materials that encapsulate the precious metals whilst avoiding switching the phases of matter of, (at least), the gold.
Since most recovery techniques revolve around a handful of processes, I've taken to processing them all the same. I don't depopulate motherboards, or most any other peripheral, hd, mother, or green boards, (EXCEPT for large aluminum heatsinks, cpus, ram, pci cards), all the boards get a nice long lye bath, then a rinse & fresh bath for boards/components with still visible gold plating.
CPUs, fingers, ram, depopped BGAs, ICs, high likely gold bearing items go into a big glass pickle jar for a nice long Acetone bath. Keyboard Mylars also get their own jar for an Acetone bath. It'll separate surface foils, dissolves the board-facing side of BGAs, revealing the very intricate precious metal infrastructure of the BGA, separates the silver from mylar like a laser buttercutter & weakens the tough heatsink bond on CPUs without degrading the aluminum like Lye does.
From then, they'll get a caustic bath, before being wet ashed with sulphuric, (where I'm currently at in the process), then to be dry ashed in a campfire pyrolyzer, along with all my other boards post 2x Lye Bath, with a liquid exhaust catchment just to make sure I'm not boiling off any metals or losing micro particles in the exhaust air current. And for smell. Anything that smells that bad can't be good for you.
And finally the lump(s) of glassified carbon & metal 'pumice' from the bottom of the pyrolyzer will be given a dilute bath of an industrial condenser coil cleaning concentrate that's 70% hydrofluoric acid. The pumice nature of the pyrolyzed silicone reinforced plastic will maximize the surface area of the silicone, thus maximizing the utility of & minimizing my exposure to the hydrofluoric acid.
With the silicone eaten away by the HF, the remaining Ash material will be ready for ball milling, magnet filtering, air flow filtering, liquid density filtering, etc.
You could always pulverize and pan to lower the processing volume. It at least gets rid of all of those plastics fairly quickly. A nice hammer mill and then anything that floats is trash.
*The pins don't have to be removed from the plastic to recover the gold. It's also a good idea to use the lower grade stuff as 'practice material'.*
Can you please elaborate on the methods or provide links if possible
I worked for a plumber a long time ago, it was in a jewelry factory. There was a lab where jewlery was put in vats (with acid in it I think) where the gold and silver was removed chemically and everething else ,copper, enamals whatever else was left. The liquid (acid solution) was removed containing the gold and silver. The point is , I think there is a process where all those plugs can have the gold desolved with out touchin the plastic or removing the pins. If that is possible then all the plugs have a value
That's what I was going to say. I was a member of an ewaste refining group onf FB and they just soak gold pin plugs in some solution to strip the gold. I still get the easy pins when I can and put them in a clean gold pin bin, but most gold plugs I just throw in a bucket for future solution extraction.
@@stevew.7188 Nitric and Hydrochloric acids are something like $6 per Litre each, not to mention the costs of the other materials and equipment involved in the extraction process and the value of your time to process it all. It's just not worth it for low grade gold recovery.
It is basically don't drink the koolaid
I know it’s in the us but the guy that does mbmmllc does a lot of cool stuff with his mills and recovering gold from boards and thing maybe y’all could work something out for a video🤷🏻♂️ would be pretty neat
Garage is looking great
Micro flashing is going to revolutionize precious metal recovery. They can flash plastic into graphene and what's left is all the metals
I recommend pulling out the light blue ribbon cable ends and checking a few. I found some that were unbelievable. Great video Ben.
Thanks for you're awesome videos.
Ben been watching you for years amazing informative content as allways
Much love from the UK brother
More scrap marathons and uploads 😉👍
My scrap yard in Brisbane (RMI) buys plugs including appliance plugs usually at the same price as electric motors. Ben you should ask Mahari if they buy them. 5 times the price of scrap metal. Love the videos keep up the good work.
I took a barrel full of appliance plugs to Manhari (Ben's yard) awhile back and asked the question. The best price they would give me was mixed pressing steel..
Here in Ontario Canada my yard pays brass bearing rate for stove and dryer plug ends. 55 cents vs 11 cents as shred. Maybe you can get that instead of shred price for the wastw plugs Ben.
The pins at 3:25 are one of my favourite to get 50-100% plated material from. Very easy to cut a long the plug with side cutters and remove the back half of the pin. The rest you keep falls out of the housing with ease just being tumbled around in the bucket with the rest. 👍🏼
The USB plugs are easy to process. 2pairs of pliers, bend in opposite directions and they split apart exposing the pins inside.
exactly.
Maybe this helps a bit as price reference: On German eBay mixed plug lots go for 1,50 - 3,50 EUR / kg (including shipping - about 1 EUR / kg) I assume buyers are hobbyists that go for homemade gold recovery.
While I know shipping to the states is not viable for you, Boardsort is paying USD0.80/lb (AUD2.71/kg) for mixed plug ends of all types. They definitely have value. I just sent in a couple kilos last week.
Very impressive Job on the garage
Great video my friend
I can't decide which one would be better to use to separate the pins: the regular shredder or the hammer mill? Giving that both setup would have the same (or similar) filter/separator for the plastic, I think the hammer mill might be a better option.
Ben, i think about 95% of your viewing population looks to you to know the value of most of this stuff, ( i realize you're not doing the processing,though)but i suppose it's the folks that actually process that will know actual values to any type of plug or category. I'm interested in knowing myself as well as many other scrap hoarders or hounds, so that we might know the holy grail of what to collect. Great video, great to hear from you . hadn't heard from you in a while, didn't know if something had happened. Rita Panahi with sky news is keeping us abreast of the woes of Australia and she didn't say anything about you which is great news😂!
The holy grail jin Hungary / Europe is the golden cap CPUs (like old Motorola MC68000), the ceramic CPUs (like old Intel 80486), the green CPUs (like Intel Pentium III) and all the "1st class" electronic boards, like HDD panels, mainboards, CDRom drive panels etc. with "gold" edges. Also pays the memory modules with gold contacts (SDRam...DDRx). ANd of course the very clean copper (wires).
Put the ethernet cable ends in direct sunlight. They soften up quite a bit. I put my side cutters straight across the plug, cut halfway in, and then cut at a 90 degree angle under the pins scooping them out. THe plastic stays on the plug as it's quite tough.
Valuable lesson...Thank You. 💰💲💰💲💰💲💰
Nice video very informative thanks
I don't really take the pins out of vga plugs myself, but if you have a good clipper you can cut just below the metal part and cut off almost the whole blue block.
Myself I save all of these there great for practice and you do get some gold thanks for sharing this with us six stars brother
Considering how they shred/granulate/chemically treat circuit boards to separate, recover and refine precious metals, a board buyer should buy them from you and throw them in the mix. I mean, what’s the difference when processed in bulk?? There’s cumulative value in the gold, copper, steel when all is said and done.
Hey Man of God I hope you have a blessed year and that you make Jesus Lord over your life PS when we get to I was told the streets we walk on are made of gold but stand and the presents of the Lord I don't think we'll be able to look away from God
I smash the cat 5 plugs and the gold plated contacts with a jewlers pliers. They are good for gold recovery but you need lots of them. A shredder is the best way that will yake you a few minutes lol
Saved me some time, mate:)) 👍
Hi Ben, I use the same PCB buyer as Everyday Sollers. They buy the VGA/DVI plugs and also any plug/connector/pins containing gold, although it's just a little more than the price of scrap metal. Hopefully your board buyer can help you with yours or you can find a local buyer for them 👍
Some scrapyards are taking plug ends now. You should look into that.
Step 1 would be to go talk to your board buyer. Will they buy them??? If not could you throw it in with your mid grade boards. Since they are usually attached to the boards anyways.
Last comment I promise. I no longer pull low-grade pins either but don't give away what you already have loose. Put all your low-grade pins together for a sulfuric cell as I found it quite enjoyable when I was refining. Once you figure out the cell you can process a pound in an hour. Personally, I think you already have it figured out pretty well with what to keep and what to get rid of. Have a good one Ben.
Man, those phone jacks & data cable connectors. It's really not so impossible as you say. I get those gold tipped pieces out of there without much trouble. I use the those hand-shears like the ones you use for chopping off the plugs from extension cords etc. They come right out.
The sata cable ends worked ok in my small mill, far better than some of the others.
The old blue bakelight 50 pin telco connectors ma bell used were some of the best
A simple impact mill run by an angle grinder (or similar) would seem like a good way to separate metal from plastic in all of these plugs.
My scrapyard pays double scrap steel price for plugs so see if your yard or a yard near you buys them
Does your board buyer have a category for gold connector ends/plugs?? Maybe they do so your able to unload it to them
Me personally I think the space would be better utilized for copper storage or work space.
Great video Ben , Glad you tried it and not me 😅
Ben, if I lived on the same piece of earth as you, I would take the 1st two types. I have found an easy way to get both of them removed.
I go for the memory sticks more money than the plugs Ben, Great Video Ben Keep Bringing The Video's Dude God Bless You And Your Family 🙏🙏👍👍
Looks like you're sitting on a gold mine mate. Great video. Good day.
An obstacle is what you see when you take your eye off of the goal.
Long time no see! How'd that garage turn out? Is that why you dug out the connector bins to downsize?
For pins you should use a sulphuric acid stripping cell.
You should try to get the sponsorship of one of those audio books websites. I bet you could listen a book or two while sorting this kinda stuff.
One option for getting the pins out of all the VGA and stuff that would be real simple would be to get a table mounted scroll, saw and just buzz it off flush with the connector so you’d wind up basically with the pins and the outer round shielding that you would scrap But you’d be able to get all the pins out real fast with that or a band saw which would be quicker but I would think the table mounted scroll saw would be a lot easier to work with
Ben, maybe you can buy some kind of mill. You could separate the plastic from the pins yourself. Look around.😊
I have pulled apart all those kinds of plugs and gotten the pins out but I only get small amounts of e-waste for a hobby. Some of them are really ridiculously hard to get into but I view it as a fun challenge. Once the pins are out, there's often just a small area with gold so I closely trim the plated parts off and toss them in a jar. I did recover some gold once. Muriatic acid and hydrogen peroxide in a 2 liter Coke jug. I threw in some pins and some fingers. Leave the cap loosely in place so it doesn't explode and put it outside, away from chickens for a few weeks until the base metals are gone. That mixture throws off chlorine gas, which turns into hydrochloric acid in your lungs so run away. Seriously. Anyway, I did get some gold that I was able to catch in coffee filters. A lot of it just super fine powder that blows away if you're not careful. How much? Probably not enough to weigh. Then you have to treat the waste liquid to make it safe to dispose of.
Silver will neutralize the Acid, then recover silver out of liquid with copper.
So many vga and after 4 yrs still nice
Let me process it, Ben😊
Lol just keep the good ones, put the rest in scrap steel, although your buyer should buy them
It would be cool to see you or someone else get the gold from a bin of yours
It will be difficult recovering those pins if they arent the same karat. You have to use a analyzer to measure the purity.
Too bad it costs so much to ship stuff, I would enjoy getting your discarded plugs. I'm retired and just a hobbyist in the USA and it's theraputic for me to tinker and take those plugs apart for the pins.
i get to send all my gold pin plugs to my board buyer. i don't know if yours will buy them or if its worth it for you but its a thought
That’s a lot of gold plated pins and connectors! You should definitely get more than scrap steel value from an industrial or hobby refiner given all the time spent to remove and sort them. Consider it gold bearing “ore” and hang on to them or liquidate them for cash.
I really believe you need to rethink how to refine the gold. I believe if you do it would open more opportunities for you. I would suggest that you atlest have a thought about a ball mill destroying it all to very very small pieces and separating the rubber and plastic with water. Then smelting the left over metal with lead or bismuth and a few nails to oxidizes the base metals. Less waste less chemicals. I would suggest just watching a few of mbmm (mount Baker mining and metals) video he does use fairly large equipment but i don't believe you'd have to do it to that scale and use means more on your range of stuff the crush hell maybe see if some one in the area would crush it and separate it for you for a fee
A good ball mill and/or shredder is the best way. Please don't put them with scrap steel! If you put them in a ball mill you don't have to do anything, just wait when it is processed. There are also cage-drums that are heated and turned, that automatically sort out the pins. Or maybe sell it to some amateurs who will be very happy to process them.
In holland you can sel these computer plugs i get a good price for them about 1.80 euro per kilo definetly worth sepperating and not throw into scrap steel
don't throw them into scrap metal just have like little buckets for usb ethernet and other plugs and save them, im sure someone in Australia would take them or ask your board buyer if they take them. here in the uk we only get a few pence for them but money is money better have it then not. also it takes only a few seconds to throw them into a bucket even a mixed bucket
Turning it all into gold is quite a bit of money, my friend
You could steep them in an acid that does not attack plastics, but does attack metals like gold and copper even, It would take years for the solution to etch out all of the gold and seep inbetween layers,
I dont know if an acid like that exists though, hydrogen peroxide mixed with some other stuff? Idk,
a chemist might know,
you might try with several little samples first,
but the likelyhood of an acid attacking some type of junk plastic in those connectors is probably something to test.
Yes ben
i think you'd be right about older connectors having a thicker gold plating. Gold thickness is usually in the range of a few microns or under, and the amount depends on the applications. There's also really cheap gold plating called "gold flash" which has a minuscule thickness in comparison and aren't worth anything in recovery. I'd stay away from anything recent, commonplace, consumer-grade, and easily replaceable and made to remain plugged in for a long time, like screen cable connectors or USB cables: it's easy to replace by a user if there's a fault, so it's made to be cheap and just "good enough to work". I'd expect however that server grade connectors and industrial grade (or uncommon/custom-made connectors), scientific or even military grade would have the greater plating thickness required by the manufacturer as a precaution to decrease equipment faults and downtime which could be costly. I've heard that some military heavy use connectors can have cadmium plating (not too common nowadays, but careful).
My buyer will pay £1 per kilo here in the UK for any gold bearing plug, e.g. USB, VGA, RJ45, literally any connector as long as it contains gold.
Our scrap yards in the US have a category called copper content. Also, your board buyer may be interested in the whole lot as a package.
Maybe on your little plugs, put a small handful in water. Bring to boil. For about ten minutes. Wear gloves. Remove items you want at this point.
you could use ECO-GOLDEX for the Crappy-Ones and than throw them in METAL ...
Hello everyone, I'm from Poland❤👍♻️
What do you plan on doing with them. My son trying to learn gold recovery if you wanna get rid of those or sell them.
Super!
You should keep every gold recovery piece because the new ewaste it's poor for gold recovery. And it is no needed to much space to keep it. Good video!
I'll take anything you want to throw out Ben.
I'm located in Melbourne.
Cheers.
Need to watch some of Sreetips videos on gold recovery.
Take it to a pro. like e-waste there is also gold waste. you have enough to do, take it all to a gold recovery center. the yield is usually 50 50.
you need some one with a ball mill and shaker table
If I was rich I'd buy you a shredder and shaker table just for the videos you'd make with it.
I figure part of that stuff can be crushed or shredded in order to separate metal from plastics
I think I've seen folks use Cyanide on this kind of material. You don;t have to dissolve all the metals then and do not have to separate the plastic. cCrushing them and separate the metals on a shaker table also might be an option.
Reach out to BigStackD, he smelts metals see if he wants to expand to precious metals and do a collab video maybe??
Just to let you know, my scrap yard buys CAT5 cables. I'm in the USA, but it's something that you might look into. If someone already said something similar...sorry I haven't read the comments yet
Gold recovery and refining is different animal and complicated and toxic and more you name it. You have enough volume to get in touch with electronic refinery near you. They accept every parts contained PM including PCBs, CPUs, contacts etc.
i cant bear to watch your channel want all of it to use lol
A lot of the plugs, I'd just put in a bucket and leave in acid for a few weeks. It will clean the pins out of the plastic.
Right, vintage stuff is the best. If you look closer you will see it is not gold coated copper pins. But gold plated silver. Not on all but certainly the 1981 to 1986 stock have a look brother.
Eco-goldex should dissolve those pins.
why don't u make filament for 3dprinting from all that plastic? and get gold from pins?
I wonder if you can put those complete plugs in aqua regia, might skip a number of steps.
It would take way too much acid to dissolve all of the base metals and the volume of waste you would create will be ridiculous. Even if the acid was free the waste treatment would eat up more than the profit you could get.
@@bencapobianco2045 i was thinking more along the lines of the aqua regia dissolving the gold along with some of the underlying support, not the whole thing, then it should be easier to clean up.
@@dasraiser someone may have better luck than me because when I tried this and this is what I learned…. It would eat through a small spot in the gold then dissolve the base metal before the rest of the gold. Because the electromotive properties of gold make it less reactive than most base metals so they all have to be in solution before the gold can dissolved. And the gold that was dissolved will immediately precipitate back out of solution until the base metals are gone.
Hope this helps your understanding.
I've seen a few on UA-cam and the local ones here do.
With the gold prices being where it is now, with the amount of stuff you've got I would imagine you could get several ounces if not a whole kg of gold! Let's just say you invested $2000 in a furnace, fume hood ...one ounce of gold would pay for that and before the bottom drops out for the price of gold, we aren't getting any younger Ben! Git the gold man!
wow, so much Stuff
You should check out the company Board sort.
If i wasn't on the other side of the earth id definitely have taken your hand off for your plugs lol
Sreetips channel had done videos on gold recovery from ewaste
Fortunately I can bring in all these kinds of 'gold' plugs for a good price!
There is no gold in the USB, only 4 cobber cabels. Reme,ner to smash the CPUs to get all the gold out. I have done that some times. Got some good gold from it. The best is the hammer mill, to get the plastic off. The different accics, to get the gold loose and to get the gold to dirt-gold. So yes, done that some times.
haha did any one else at first think they saw a bucket of Lego's