thats about $4 Australian.. for ten mins work , five tvs in a hour . thats $20 a hour.. easy money .. a days work bringing in $150 to $200 .. there is so much scrap in my hood.. im working from home from now onwards .. and I got five little helpers .. I see $$$ .. easy money.. thanks ben .. great video..
I just paused this video halfway through, looked on FB Marketplace for a free TV, contacted the seller, picked up the free TV, and took it apart just like you did here. It took me about five minutes to strip the main parts down, and now I have a lot more copper thanks to you. Great video, Mate: keep up the great work!
I used to dismantle CRTs at an old job, and out of the thousands of them I dismantled, only 2 ever shocked me. The chances of getting shocked are miniscule, you are absolutely right! This video was a trip through memory lane for me, thanks!
usually only a shock hazard if you try testing the tv to see if its working, and then dissassemble it immediately before the bleeder resistor has done its work
KEEP IT GOING BEN!!!!!! Anyone who don't get ( Screw them)! I find what you are doing to be so very rewarding and you have opened up a new wonderful world to me!!!! Thank you very much
Still better safe than sorry and check to make sure the coil and capacitors get grounded out before handling. It's simple enough to do, just wrap a bare wire around the shaft of a screwdriver, and ground the other end. Go through and tap everything metal inside the unit with the tip of the screwdriver (make sure the screwdriver has a plastic handle and you don't touch the shaft). My coworker just got zapped the other day while working on an arcade video game cabinet, so the danger is still out there. No permanent damage done, thankfully, just a pretty painful burn on his finger tip and a big goose-egg when he hit his head jerking back from the shock.
what's nice about this is the fact the copper is salvaged, rather easily. watch one of the shows on how copper is extracted from land, how it's processed, how long it takes to get very little and it's just a matter of time when it's going to be cheaper to pay for reclaimed ingots from recyclers. i do property maintenance and every time i have to go 'trash out' a house after tenants have moved, there's usually about $50 USD in plain metal scrap and 3 TVs left behind. for the TVs, (200 lbs worth) it paid about $10 but california law says you can only recycle 3 per calendar year. at one point, i had 20 TVs sitting here until i finally took them to an E-Recycler Pick Up point. between TVs, old computers, printers and various other electronic devices, i may start reclaiming gold and copper myself. thanks for the video, mate =) oh... and you should probably wear gloves too xD lol - b -
The 'screen'/tube/CRT itself is the capacitor that can hold a high voltage charge, so it is always advisable to momentarily ground the CRT's high voltage terminal before working on the unit. That's the thingy with a suction cap looking thing found on the side of the tube. Voltage can be 20kV to 50kV even if the "'auto discharge unit" is in circuit. Generally though these bleeder resistors are found in the focus supply but not in the anode of the tripler unit of the flyback. Designs of the flyback or HT unit can vary but always discharge the tube before working on.
Very good. All the laughing people make is stupid. I lived four four years scraping things. Couldn't find a job Started scrapping to buy tools I needed to start a construction company. People laughed at me if time. Screw them. Now it's all good. Past 7 years been In business in Oklahoma building Homes. But I still save scrap. Never hurts to have some money danced up for rainy days. Keep up the good work. Peace
Here in Auckland NZ we use to have the inorganic rubbish collection once a year .The streets were lined with gold lol , well almost. I used to scrap about 80 to 100 TVs and monitors a year amongst other electronics . Made some good coin and had breaking them down to a fine art .
Hey Ben, The little black caps, with the silver contacts.. They're relays! The copper spools are the solenoid coils for attracting the contacts so they touch. :) The same looking caps, a little later on, but sealed; They're probably Y-Capacitors.
I like you. Find something you like to do that also makes you money. Then, Show yourself on UA-cam having a good time making money whilst making money on the video. Finally, watch the haters comment, adding more popularity to your video. Thereby making you more money.
Some of those small spools of copper have some very nicely braided copper on them. I have been saving them for a copper jewelry project that my daughter and i have.
The main electrocution risk from old TVs isn't from the charge built up on the tube, it is from the large electrolytic capacitors in things like the power supply and the flyback circuit. Now most designs have a bleed resistor to slowly discharge these things, but they can fail or not be present, and can store a lethal amount of charge. So it is best to test each leads of the large caps with a multimeter set to the kilovolt range and referenced to the chassis and treat exposed traces and wires as a shock hazard until you do so.
Also I have with my own eyes seen a guy, an electronics repair apprentice literally thrown across the room by one of these caps in a mid 80s TV. Admittedly it had just been turned on, but it was unplugged at the time. But it is not a myth as you suggest.
Mate! Watched this from my saved list for the second time and right at the end you explain more than anything why we do stuff in our sheds!!!! Congrats mate: you’re a legend! Keep doing stuff cos it makes you happy!
eWasteBen. Sir, great recovery. Although I personally have never tried this idea, to "clean" the finished product --> mix a solution of Armor's baking soda, vinegar and water, to clean the bar. Solution amounts are unknown by me, however, you can find these proportioned amounts in youTubing "what you can do with baking powder". A lot of work performed, and a nasty cut, however, a job well-done from a "free" TV. GREAT job, indeed!
But one thing he didn't expound on was the cost to dispose of the husk of the TV, CRT and all, at a recycling center. that could negate the gain on the whole project by itself.
That discharging lead as you call it is the HT output from the fly back transformer! Its the CRT that stores that high tension voltage like a capacitor after the tv is switched off/unplugged. I know as I have been zapped by one as a kid when I accidentally chopped through the wrong cable! The charge will leak away over time and more modern TVs will have a better way of discharging them but it is incorrect to say that post 1975 tvs do not hold a charge! If it has recently ben unplugged, its madness not to discharge the crt by sliding a grounded flat screwdriver blade under the HT insulation sucker you have in your hand.
The potential for shock is not the capacitors or residual charge alone. The caps can be partially charged by the tube via static so a discharged system can become partially charged at any time unless fully disconnected as you do, or attached to ground while working on it. Any sane tech while repairing old tube style tv's will ground off the charge then attach a true ground to the tube and leave attached until work is done thus constantly grounding off any build up. Since you are totally dismantling the TV, you don't have to worry about this and hence why you have never seen it.
that pitting is caused from the slag that popped into the mold almost at the end of the pour maybe next time pour off the slag first or dip it out it will be what's on the top but very nice pour... it's about 92% pure at this point being the slag is in there
my dad used to work on these and seeing the carelessness you handled the tv scared me a bit. the main ground cord from the screen can bite ya real good.
Don't know if anyone has already told why you have your bar so porous so here we go: molten copper has pretty awful ability to dissolve hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen in itself (all are in the air, obviously, and get sucked into the bar when it's still liquidish) and that makes copper really bad choice for casting, as you really can't cast any details. But! If you cast it in some neutral atmoshpere (argon f.e.) or with proper (dead tight, nonporous with proper shape) mold and lots of flux (like min. 40% of total weight so it can create thick, tight layer on top) it is possible to make some nice casting. :) Great job on taking this copper out, it's pretty decent amount. Regards! Greg
The rough top surface is called reticulalation as this surface cools quicker than the core of the ingot. you can heat up a sheet of copper causing a molten puddle and blow a stream of air with a soda straw and you're able to control the texture. l use process with zinc and press wet rag paper into texture. The results are very beautiful to my eye. Thanx for the demo. Both TVs and microwave oven have always spooked me.l
you can use heated Lemon juice to get rid of the leftover borax :) im a goldsmith student and i use it to get rid of the borax after im done soldering it works perfect:) you can put it in a Chocolate fondue set with a little candle underneath:)
The suction cup like device you removed from the CRT is called the 2nd anode. That 2nd anode pulls the electrons to the shadow mask that are fired out of the electron gun in the neck of the tube. The 2nd anode has roughly 25,000 volts on it when the TV is in operation. The CRT is like a huge capacitor and that is what hold a charge of 25000 volts after the TV is turned off.
I took apart one of the really old CRTs, and when I cut two large red wires next to each other, electricity arced across them from a few seconds. It made a bright lighting arc.
eWaste Ben: Did you get that entire 1 kilo bar harvest from just one old CRT? Most people don't understand that it's not really about the monetary value of the harvest at all... it's about having fun cooking metal!
To answer your other post, plumbers leave behind scraps smaller than they think they can make use of later, not big pieces, so not much at a time, but it's a heck of a lot less work per ounce than taking apart consumer electronics. As far as buying scrap copper, I live near a major metropolitan area and there are about 30 different salvage and recycling businesses within 50 miles (most within 20mi.) that I could buy copper from. "Most" that buy it, will also sell it at a slight profit. That is in midwest USA, your location may differ. Then again I could just advertise in the local electronic newspaper classifieds (aka Craigslist in the US) and offer more than the going rate from a scapyard which is presently around USD$2.10 for grade 3 copper.
I also have many a circuit boards from old tv's. Wanting to do the same. Don't have a foundry, Crucible or mold yet. It's nice to see how other people do their scrapping of TVs and such. Hope to get a good collection copper so I can get me that Foundry mold and Crucible. Then I can do more TVs and such. I also enjoy doing that kind of thing in my spare time keeps me out of trouble keeps me busy teaches my kid how to recycle things plus I get a little extra money on the side. Great video mate.
After you pour into your mold, and while the copper is still molten, skim the surface quickly in one or two swipes and you will have a much better finish when it is cool.
Don't let this guy mislead you. A CRT that size (if in fact it held it's charge) is THE most lethal capacitor you will come across! Most can contain 10's of Joules worth of energy! You just need to properly discharge them with a grounded screw driver (grounded to flyback transformer ground or the other lead coming from the CRT tube itself) and one handed sliding the screwdriver under that big electrode boot until you hear the spark. You can ground the screwdriver with a alligator lead or some scrap wire wrapped round it. A tube that size charged up (like if you plugged it in and tried to turn it on to see if it still worked) can hold enough VA to stop your heart DEAD!
Yes, I have never heard of a high resistance discharge path for any CRT.....ALWAYS discharge CRT's before handling....I know from experience...I once got thrown back 6 feet on my ass and a bashed up hand from a arcade style CRT (Used to repair them back in the day)......white as a ghost checking my heart beat to see if it was still going, which was sorta stupid because if it wasn't I wouldn't be able to check it...;-) Feels like you got hit across the chest with a baseball bat...not fun at all. Oh and discharge them 2 or 3 times, as I have noticed they sorta build up a charge again after the 1st discharge spark....I sometimes get 3 sparks, each one less powerful, before it's dead. I hated CRT's, glad to see them going away.
Absolutely correct. I wish they would still make CRT for specialty uses. Lots of classic arcade games will no longer be able to be repaired unless you replace the monitor with a LCD.
There are also built in safety factors to drain large capacitors,yet I have worked on faulty units (maybe a similar state to a broken TV),where the caps did NOT drain until I repaired it. Good thing I checked the caps before I assumed the bleed resistors would automatically do their job. It takes 2 seconds people,always check first.
I do remember back in the 80s when I was a kid, and curious about how things worked. I tore down an old 25 inch t.v. and got bit by that damned yoke. It gave quite a jolt!
Not a myth. When I was a kid in the 90's, while attempting to repair a TV, I pulled back that little rubber discharge cap and got the zap of my life. From a TV that had been unplugged for almost a week!
be careful on old stereo amps, the older ones have huge capacitors, any they can potentially hold a charge for a long time. I was making some of props and it's easier to just stick a cap onto something that to fabricate a fake one with legit markings, etc. anyway, thrift stored an old amp, let it sit on the table for a week unplugged, thinking the charge die by then. after getting the casing off I took some heavier scissors to cut the board up to get the wires and parts I wanted. soon as i made contact it was like striking an arc with a stick welder. huge bang, arcing spark, and a chunk of steel blasted off my scissors. didn't shock me somehow at least.
Aaron Van Miller. you're very lucky you Didnt get get Electrocuted! as you probably wouldn't be around to tell the story! wow thankfully the plastic/rubber on your Scissors probably insulated it enough not to Get you. close call glad you're okay.
The pitting on the top is likely from the enamel on the magnet wire. Any time copper wire is used in windings or "spools" as you said, it has a clear plastic coating which keeps each turn from shorting out with the others.
I've heard it's extremely dangerous to pour molten copper over concrete blocks because if the molten copper touches the concrete it will explode due to a very small amount of water vapor in the block instantly vaporizing and it will send copper up to 5 feet away.
yes it is any kind of molten metal should never come into contact with water because the water can suddenly vaporize throwing molten metal all over the place in order to prevent this always preheat your mold and any scrap you put into the furnace
The zap thing is not a myth. I got zapped a few weeks ago scrapping a CRT TV (about 15 years old model). The discharge came when I touched *the back of the board*, exactly where the biggest capacitor was on the other side. It made a noise too. Nothing serious, or painfull but surelly an unexpected scare. A few minutes later I tested the same spot with a screwdriver and there was a second discharge.
All these silly fucks in the comments thinking that he did this for profit... He's a hobbyist. Some people like to do shit just for fun. You should try it out sometime, doing something just for fun, even if it costs you money. It's quite exhilarating.
Very good information , he makes it clear about how to dispose of the TV after removing the copper and aluminum . .... Be responsible not Fulcher by leaving a carcass out on the side of the road . He also waits to get enough copper to take in to scrap yard and loose copper wire as well... Maybe a small amount but it all ads up after 20 - 30 TV's
For anyone interested in doing this, make sure all the copper salvaged is clean as you dont want to be standing in a toxic cloud of nasty stuff. Notably the laquer on copper in transformers really isnt good for you so as reccomended just chuck them in your transformer bin. The square things with the silver contacts are relays btw. One last thing I would like to add is a capacitor is basically a reserve of power for a sudden demand, in order to make sure you dont get shocked you shortcircuit the leads with a screwdirver or something. Some more powerful devices like amps can definitly kill you so making sure a cap is discharged is good practice. Thanks for your videjo well done!
I love videos like this. It's a dream of me to melt some copper and make bars like you do. I have a small bin I collect copper I separated from electronics before I through them out or gifts from friends. One day I'll make my own bars.
you can look at it mainly 3 ways.. 1. for the fun of it/hobby/recycling/etc 2. for the money you "made" - ~$5.00. or you can also look at it like the money you "saved" ..say you wanted to collect(copper is a finite resource), Invest(copper in a finite resource), or machine/cast/make something out of copper in any way; that small ingot would be over $30 many places. In that case you are making $30 an hr--$60/hr if you tried..even more if copper becomes worth 10, 100, or even 1,000, times more money in the future than it is worth today.
I commend you on providing a instructional video of this sort, but you might also advise your viewers to invest in a pair of leather gloves to prevent them from having their hands cut up as occurred to you in the video
roughed up hands build character :p I used to work building/repairing stuff in the shop and they were always beat up. Now all my work is on the computer so I have smooth baby hands. Seeing his bleeding wounds makes me want to get out to the garage and screw around just to rough my hands up again.
I have a few old tvs that need striping. A utility knife strips that wire fast, just use the point of the razor and with moderate pressure run the tip on the cable insulation with the cable on a secure surface(benchtop), it strips in seconds, long lengths too.
Stripping degaussing straps is much quicker against your leg, using a fairly blunt knife. Wear old jeans etc. That braided flat cable is often made of nickel, much more valuable than copper; check if it is suspiciously hard to cut. Happy Christmas.
Josh you obviously arent an electronic tech making such a false statement..... a CRT holds a charge for a long time especially if the pull down circuit is faulty.
Wow I you joy at the end. What a beautiful beautiful bar of copper! I have watched many UA-cam postings but I haven't enjoyed an more than I enjoyed this one. Makes me want to go find an old tv, get one of those smelters. I really identify with the laughter you feel at the end. Thank Q, Thank Q.
why did you grind off the blob of gold? I totally agree that's a beautiful bar... stamp that nicely and you have yourself a thing worth more than you put into it... pass it down right on... I watched the whole thing. I scrap tvs but I haven't made bars yet... looking forward to my first one... might mention the name of that smelter and try to get some ad revenue from the company. Cheers for the great video, I rarely comment on them.
lot of work for $15... not if your breaking down 10-20 at once. you make a tv day. thats $2-3 per board too. your never going to do one, this is just what you can expect.
Yeah that's right, glad there's some out there that understand :) you get them at the same time your picking up scrap so it's not just tv's. stack them up and in a couple weeks you scrap 'em all out in one go, that also gives the tv's time to discharge in case one was recently plugged in too. By the time you've picked up 20 tv's you've probably picked up half a tonne of scrap steel and other metals as well as electronics for gold recovery, people commenting here are singling out 1 tv and not looking at the big picture.
It is true, there used to be a local guy that would go around in an old 1970's ford pick up and collect all sorts of scrap. I kid you not, a few years later i seen the same guy scrapping, pulling a trailer(full of scrap) from a Cadillac Escalade. Definitely money once you add it all up!
Huh? Nothing makes it unrecoverable, nor buried forever. It's just not cost effective yet to mine the dumps for those metals, but some day it will be, so we're lucky to have kept them all in one place, yes? Besides, it came out of the ground so where else is it going, shot into outer space? The main thing is, not to let harmful materials get into the water supply, which unfortunately includes the lead from solder used back in the CRT TV era.
There's at least 2kg of lead in an average crt glass, solder makes little difference in comparison. LCD TV's are worse, same as fluorencent lights & smoke alarms, all contain Mercury. Landfills will never be mined, they build housing estates on them if you look at history.
Solder makes a large difference. The lead in the CRT glass is mostly trapped in it, while the solder on the PCB has a high surface area of exposure. There is a trivial level of mercury in remotely modern fluorescent lights including fluorescent backlit TVs. You might find 5 mg per, which is only a toxic level if you have direct exposure, are standing right on top of it at point of release. Odds are that you end up exposed to more mercury from naturally occurring sources than that from a landfill that makes it all the way back to you. What is your reasoning to assume that landfills will never be mined? Most do not have housing on them, are instead located away from private homes as much as possible, and these same sites continue to grow as much as the available fill space on the property allows. It makes sense that they will be mined once other sources become more expensive, not so much for aluminum or glass as for copper and the rarer metals and other non-degradable materials like plastic. I don't mean in 20 years but perhaps in 100.
in 100 years they won't need precious metals, they can already make it synthetically. Yes I know landfill has 50x more PM's then ore per tonne but yeah, there's enough to supply the needs we have now, most populated cities will need that land for housing, but it might be different over there, trump might get you all nuked anyway
sir that is not true its not a myth i done a test and 4 out of 5 tvs held a charge for and average of 13-16 minutes all newer crts actually one of them were the exact tv you took apart also capacitors will hold a lethal charge depending on the voltage ive blown chunks outta a screw driver shorting 240vac caps be careful
Instead of scraping the insulation off the braided copper with the knife you can either use a utility knife with a new blade or have a sharp tip on your knife to first put one end of insulated braided copper wire into a medium sized bench vise(well anchored) then starting at the vise end of the wire,.wear gloves and stick the tip of the blade through the insulation and run the blade down through the course of the wire to the end. the insulation comes off in one piece with nothing but copper tossed into the bin. Excellent video Ben well thought out,step by step. Yeah,.depending on which state you live in the U.S, you may have problems with getting rid of a gutted Television. Every scrap yard I checked at in my area asks for at least $20.00 for a disposal fee.. but i hadn't given it a thought,that St. Vincent or Good Will takes them, I will check that out. If there are any American scrappers reading this,.i would like to know what your experiences are with disposing them,.what do you do with the scrapped out TV's?
bantalee2002 our town is supposed to have a ewaste center at the dump for monitors and tvs but i havent taken anything to it the one time i brought a tv they told me to put it with the rest of household junk.
John Dowe Off the top of my head, in ZA rands - the copper would be worth a few cents. The relay would be in the region of R30. So it's worth about 6000 times more ,when new. Sell it second hand for half that price, and you would make more money off 5 or 6 relays than the whole damn KG of copper would fetch! You could sell on flea bay, or craigslist or wherever you want. Plenty of electronics enthusiasts out there...
I once scrapped about 70 crt monitors. Got them from a storage locker auction for $50. I first tried selling them on ebay. This was only about 4 years ago so I was surprised there were takers. Thing is. They are expensive to ship and many broke(minorly) in shipping. After scrapping them all and selling the copper, aluminum and tin that was easily extracted, I sold the circuit boards to a company online for about $110. All-in-all, I made a little over $200 from scrapping but it took a lot of time. Though I did keep all the ferrite rings which you find wires coiled through. I just though they were cool. I've found recently that you can sell them and I've estimated my collection by sold prices on ebay at around $1000.
when you are on fix income every penny helps i scrap every thing i can been doing tv for about a year .i take it to scrap metal dealer and get any where from 150$ to 300$ depends on if i take aluminum off can's are another good metal good one man .
You missed the aluminum heat sinks, they are very high grade and snap off ,with a small clip/screw to knock off. And The transformers are extremely easy to remove ,and the majority come apart easy., The ones that aren't still sell as electric motors in the "States" , Great video.. most of them bore me to sleep ,I watched yours front to back. ;)
G'day Ben, thanks for the vid. Just an FYI, those copper spools found all over the PSU Board (19:38) are called 'Inductors' and the rectangular plastic covered ones (24:52) are 'Relays'. There are vids on UA-cam with good descriptions. You got a great result in the end. This home foundry stuff is really interesting, it's something I didn't think could be done that easily until recently. If I had watched this when all the CRT's lined the street a few years back (remember the Gov's $1000 GFC bonus) I would have loved to give it a try. Have a good one
thats about $4 Australian.. for ten mins work , five tvs in a hour . thats $20 a hour.. easy money .. a days work bringing in $150 to $200 .. there is so much scrap in my hood.. im working from home from now onwards .. and I got five little helpers .. I see $$$ .. easy money.. thanks ben .. great video..
I just paused this video halfway through, looked on FB Marketplace for a free TV, contacted the seller, picked up the free TV, and took it apart just like you did here. It took me about five minutes to strip the main parts down, and now I have a lot more copper thanks to you. Great video, Mate: keep up the great work!
We need more people like Ben to clean up the environment.
I take it to the next level. I get stuff and I fix the stuff not scrap it
I used to dismantle CRTs at an old job, and out of the thousands of them I dismantled, only 2 ever shocked me. The chances of getting shocked are miniscule, you are absolutely right! This video was a trip through memory lane for me, thanks!
usually only a shock hazard if you try testing the tv to see if its working, and then dissassemble it immediately before the bleeder resistor has done its work
KEEP IT GOING BEN!!!!!!
Anyone who don't get ( Screw them)!
I find what you are doing to be so very rewarding and you have opened up a new wonderful world to me!!!!
Thank you very much
Still better safe than sorry and check to make sure the coil and capacitors get grounded out before handling. It's simple enough to do, just wrap a bare wire around the shaft of a screwdriver, and ground the other end. Go through and tap everything metal inside the unit with the tip of the screwdriver (make sure the screwdriver has a plastic handle and you don't touch the shaft). My coworker just got zapped the other day while working on an arcade video game cabinet, so the danger is still out there. No permanent damage done, thankfully, just a pretty painful burn on his finger tip and a big goose-egg when he hit his head jerking back from the shock.
Bloody beauty, the neighbours have 3 TVs! And they're not home!
I'm off to get me some copper!!
I doubt that they would care if you took their trashed TVs.
Trashed??
Mr Bandog hahaha...in the house right😉😂😂😂😂
this made me lol for real. a big red beard large man chuckling like santa haha
Good job reclaiming used metals. we need more people like you.
Wow, ton of negative comments. don't like it, don't do it. I thought it was cool.
what's nice about this is the fact the copper is salvaged, rather easily. watch one of the shows on how copper is extracted from land, how it's processed, how long it takes to get very little and it's just a matter of time when it's going to be cheaper to pay for reclaimed ingots from recyclers.
i do property maintenance and every time i have to go 'trash out' a house after tenants have moved, there's usually about $50 USD in plain metal scrap and 3 TVs left behind. for the TVs, (200 lbs worth) it paid about $10 but california law says you can only recycle 3 per calendar year. at one point, i had 20 TVs sitting here until i finally took them to an E-Recycler Pick Up point.
between TVs, old computers, printers and various other electronic devices, i may start reclaiming gold and copper myself.
thanks for the video, mate =)
oh... and you should probably wear gloves too xD lol
- b -
The 'screen'/tube/CRT itself is the capacitor that can hold a high voltage charge, so it is always advisable to momentarily ground the CRT's high voltage terminal before working on the unit. That's the thingy with a suction cap looking thing found on the side of the tube. Voltage can be 20kV to 50kV even if the "'auto discharge unit" is in circuit. Generally though these bleeder resistors are found in the focus supply but not in the anode of the tripler unit of the flyback. Designs of the flyback or HT unit can vary but always discharge the tube before working on.
Very good.
All the laughing people make is stupid.
I lived four four years scraping things. Couldn't find a job
Started scrapping to buy tools I needed to start a construction company.
People laughed at me if time. Screw them. Now it's all good. Past 7 years been In business in Oklahoma building Homes. But I still save scrap. Never hurts to have some money danced up for rainy days.
Keep up the good work.
Peace
TheSKINNMAN hey, which part...I live in OKC....I'm still scrapping for fun.
at the very least, as recycling isnt important or a main way people keep getting more consumables.
forget about any landfill issue 😘😇
Here in Auckland NZ we use to have the inorganic rubbish collection once a year .The streets were lined with gold lol , well almost. I used to scrap about 80 to 100 TVs and monitors a year amongst other electronics . Made some good coin and had breaking them down to a fine art .
I love how excited you are after the pour, cool vid Ben, thanks
Hey Ben,
The little black caps, with the silver contacts.. They're relays! The copper spools are the solenoid coils for attracting the contacts so they touch. :)
The same looking caps, a little later on, but sealed; They're probably Y-Capacitors.
I like you.
Find something you like to do that also makes you money.
Then, Show yourself on UA-cam having a good time making money whilst making money on the video.
Finally, watch the haters comment, adding more popularity to your video. Thereby making you more money.
Some of those small spools of copper have some very nicely braided copper on them. I have been saving them for a copper jewelry project that my daughter and i have.
The main electrocution risk from old TVs isn't from the charge built up on the tube, it is from the large electrolytic capacitors in things like the power supply and the flyback circuit. Now most designs have a bleed resistor to slowly discharge these things, but they can fail or not be present, and can store a lethal amount of charge. So it is best to test each leads of the large caps with a multimeter set to the kilovolt range and referenced to the chassis and treat exposed traces and wires as a shock hazard until you do so.
Also I have with my own eyes seen a guy, an electronics repair apprentice literally thrown across the room by one of these caps in a mid 80s TV. Admittedly it had just been turned on, but it was unplugged at the time. But it is not a myth as you suggest.
Mate! Watched this from my saved list for the second time and right at the end you explain more than anything why we do stuff in our sheds!!!!
Congrats mate: you’re a legend!
Keep doing stuff cos it makes you happy!
Nice bro. I love pouring copper and brass. I use waste motor oil here.
That top part, was due to slag. It's normal.
eWasteBen.
Sir, great recovery.
Although I personally have never tried this idea, to "clean" the finished product --> mix a solution of Armor's baking soda, vinegar and water, to clean the bar. Solution amounts are unknown by me, however, you can find these proportioned amounts in youTubing "what you can do with baking powder".
A lot of work performed, and a nasty cut, however, a job well-done from a "free" TV.
GREAT job, indeed!
But one thing he didn't expound on was the cost to dispose of the husk of the TV, CRT and all, at a recycling center. that could negate the gain on the whole project by itself.
Its usually free to recycle >_> at least it is in my town.
That discharging lead as you call it is the HT output from the fly back transformer! Its the CRT that stores that high tension voltage like a capacitor after the tv is switched off/unplugged. I know as I have been zapped by one as a kid when I accidentally chopped through the wrong cable! The charge will leak away over time and more modern TVs will have a better way of discharging them but it is incorrect to say that post 1975 tvs do not hold a charge! If it has recently ben unplugged, its madness not to discharge the crt by sliding a grounded flat screwdriver blade under the HT insulation sucker you have in your hand.
He's a prime candidate for the Darwin awards with his misinformation and bullshit descriptions of items. Automatic discharge, what absolute crap !
The potential for shock is not the capacitors or residual charge alone. The caps can be partially charged by the tube via static so a discharged system can become partially charged at any time unless fully disconnected as you do, or attached to ground while working on it. Any sane tech while repairing old tube style tv's will ground off the charge then attach a true ground to the tube and leave attached until work is done thus constantly grounding off any build up.
Since you are totally dismantling the TV, you don't have to worry about this and hence why you have never seen it.
that pitting is caused from the slag that popped into the mold almost at the end of the pour maybe next time pour off the slag first or dip it out it will be what's on the top but very nice pour... it's about 92% pure at this point being the slag is in there
my dad used to work on these and seeing the carelessness you handled the tv scared me a bit. the main ground cord from the screen can bite ya real good.
joseph robinson I've been scrapping TVs for ages and never got shocked. Just have to be cautious and remember it's a possibility.
Don't know if anyone has already told why you have your bar so porous so here we go: molten copper has pretty awful ability to dissolve hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen in itself (all are in the air, obviously, and get sucked into the bar when it's still liquidish) and that makes copper really bad choice for casting, as you really can't cast any details. But! If you cast it in some neutral atmoshpere (argon f.e.) or with proper (dead tight, nonporous with proper shape) mold and lots of flux (like min. 40% of total weight so it can create thick, tight layer on top) it is possible to make some nice casting. :) Great job on taking this copper out, it's pretty decent amount. Regards! Greg
I agree Greg. It is like MIG/TIG welding that uses a inert gas to seal the area from contaminates found within the air.
Lee George
Yup, just like that type of welding.
Some companies are also casting copper in a vacuum, but it's too expensive for a mere mortal.
The rough top surface is called reticulalation as this surface cools quicker than the core of the ingot. you can heat up a sheet of copper causing a molten puddle and blow a stream of air with a soda straw and you're able to control the texture. l use process with zinc and press wet rag paper into texture. The results are very beautiful to my eye. Thanx for the demo. Both TVs and microwave oven have always spooked me.l
you can use heated Lemon juice to get rid of the leftover borax :) im a goldsmith student and i use it to get rid of the borax after im done soldering it works perfect:) you can put it in a Chocolate fondue set with a little candle underneath:)
The suction cup like device you removed from the CRT is called the 2nd anode. That 2nd anode pulls the electrons to the shadow mask that are fired out of the electron gun in the neck of the tube. The 2nd anode has roughly 25,000 volts on it when the TV is in operation. The CRT is like a huge capacitor and that is what hold a charge of 25000 volts after the TV is turned off.
"If you pick it up, it's your responsibility." Good on ya bro.
I took apart one of the really old CRTs, and when I cut two large red wires next to each other, electricity arced across them from a few seconds. It made a bright lighting arc.
Man, @ewasteben i love this channel. I binge watch this stuff and seeing how excited you get over the copper bar made my day. Legend
eWaste Ben: Did you get that entire 1 kilo bar harvest from just one old CRT? Most people don't understand that it's not really about the monetary value of the harvest at all... it's about having fun cooking metal!
yeah one tv, yeah many are missing the point, you can't just go out and buy copper at scrap value to play with
To answer your other post, plumbers leave behind scraps smaller than they think they can make use of later, not big pieces, so not much at a time, but it's a heck of a lot less work per ounce than taking apart consumer electronics.
As far as buying scrap copper, I live near a major metropolitan area and there are about 30 different salvage and recycling businesses within 50 miles (most within 20mi.) that I could buy copper from. "Most" that buy it, will also sell it at a slight profit. That is in midwest USA, your location may differ. Then again I could just advertise in the local electronic newspaper classifieds (aka Craigslist in the US) and offer more than the going rate from a scapyard which is presently around USD$2.10 for grade 3 copper.
I also have many a circuit boards from old tv's. Wanting to do the same. Don't have a foundry, Crucible or mold yet. It's nice to see how other people do their scrapping of TVs and such. Hope to get a good collection copper so I can get me that Foundry mold and Crucible. Then I can do more TVs and such. I also enjoy doing that kind of thing in my spare time keeps me out of trouble keeps me busy teaches my kid how to recycle things plus I get a little extra money on the side. Great video mate.
After you pour into your mold, and while the copper is still molten, skim the surface quickly in one or two swipes and you will have a much better finish when it is cool.
Seen quite a few videos of people melting stuff. I love how you don't forget the environment. Good luck with what you do :)
Don't let this guy mislead you. A CRT that size (if in fact it held it's charge) is THE most lethal capacitor you will come across! Most can contain 10's of Joules worth of energy! You just need to properly discharge them with a grounded screw driver (grounded to flyback transformer ground or the other lead coming from the CRT tube itself) and one handed sliding the screwdriver under that big electrode boot until you hear the spark. You can ground the screwdriver with a alligator lead or some scrap wire wrapped round it. A tube that size charged up (like if you plugged it in and tried to turn it on to see if it still worked) can hold enough VA to stop your heart DEAD!
Yes, I have never heard of a high resistance discharge path for any CRT.....ALWAYS discharge CRT's before handling....I know from experience...I once got thrown back 6 feet on my ass and a bashed up hand from a arcade style CRT (Used to repair them back in the day)......white as a ghost checking my heart beat to see if it was still going, which was sorta stupid because if it wasn't I wouldn't be able to check it...;-) Feels like you got hit across the chest with a baseball bat...not fun at all. Oh and discharge them 2 or 3 times, as I have noticed they sorta build up a charge again after the 1st discharge spark....I sometimes get 3 sparks, each one less powerful, before it's dead. I hated CRT's, glad to see them going away.
Absolutely correct.
Absolutely correct. I wish they would still make CRT for specialty uses. Lots of classic arcade games will no longer be able to be repaired unless you replace the monitor with a LCD.
Wonderful point, very sensible.
Depends how long time ago tv was turned off. Charge need time to disappear. CRT need at least few days to loose charge.
Awesome! Value doesn't matter. Keep doin what you love and lovin what you do.
It isn't about the money . It is most likely an excuse for time to get away from the wife and kids . LOL Us guys need our peace and quiet time .
There are also built in safety factors to drain large capacitors,yet I have worked on faulty units (maybe a similar state to a broken TV),where the caps did NOT drain until I repaired it. Good thing I checked the caps before I assumed the bleed resistors would automatically do their job. It takes 2 seconds people,always check first.
The pits on top are from all the impurities collected by the Borax.
I do remember back in the 80s when I was a kid, and curious about how things worked. I tore down an old 25 inch t.v. and got bit by that damned yoke. It gave quite a jolt!
Not a myth. When I was a kid in the 90's, while attempting to repair a TV, I pulled back that little rubber discharge cap and got the zap of my life. From a TV that had been unplugged for almost a week!
ComputerNoises yes some capacitors don't have bleed resistors and will hold a charge until you end up being the bleeder
I was the bleeder. I felt the shock from my fingertips to my shoulder
What a great artist you are!!!!!!!! Love your enthusiasm
be careful on old stereo amps, the older ones have huge capacitors, any they can potentially hold a charge for a long time. I was making some of props and it's easier to just stick a cap onto something that to fabricate a fake one with legit markings, etc. anyway, thrift stored an old amp, let it sit on the table for a week unplugged, thinking the charge die by then. after getting the casing off I took some heavier scissors to cut the board up to get the wires and parts I wanted. soon as i made contact it was like striking an arc with a stick welder. huge bang, arcing spark, and a chunk of steel blasted off my scissors. didn't shock me somehow at least.
Aaron Van Miller. you're very lucky you Didnt get get Electrocuted! as you probably wouldn't be around to tell the story! wow thankfully the plastic/rubber on your Scissors probably insulated it enough not to Get you. close call glad you're okay.
The pitting on the top is likely from the enamel on the magnet wire. Any time copper wire is used in windings or "spools" as you said, it has a clear plastic coating which keeps each turn from shorting out with the others.
I've heard it's extremely dangerous to pour molten copper over concrete blocks because if the molten copper touches the concrete it will explode due to a very small amount of water vapor in the block instantly vaporizing and it will send copper up to 5 feet away.
James Wallace It's the same with all metals.
lol I just watched that king of random video just now also
ua-cam.com/video/l2FuvKTyRMQ/v-deo.html#action=share
yes it is any kind of molten metal should never come into contact with water because the water can suddenly vaporize throwing molten metal all over the place in order to prevent this always preheat your mold and any scrap you put into the furnace
The zap thing is not a myth. I got zapped a few weeks ago scrapping a CRT TV (about 15 years old model). The discharge came when I touched *the back of the board*, exactly where the biggest capacitor was on the other side. It made a noise too. Nothing serious, or painfull but surelly an unexpected scare. A few minutes later I tested the same spot with a screwdriver and there was a second discharge.
He was talking about the picture tube, not capacitors. Capacitors are a whole different way to get lit up haha
All these silly fucks in the comments thinking that he did this for profit... He's a hobbyist. Some people like to do shit just for fun. You should try it out sometime, doing something just for fun, even if it costs you money. It's quite exhilarating.
Also great for getting metal for people who like forging copper makes awesome accent inlays
Indeed Aaron, indeed. :)
> It's quite exhilarating.
not if you poor it isnt, then hobbies are stressfull.
No, you see, complaining about things UA-cam is their hobby. You should be more respectful.
ri, i know its my hobby when im bored.
Very good information , he makes it clear about how to dispose of the TV after removing the copper and aluminum . .... Be responsible not Fulcher by leaving a carcass out on the side of the road . He also waits to get enough copper to take in to scrap yard and loose copper wire as well... Maybe a small amount but it all ads up after 20 - 30 TV's
Your suppose to skim off the dross off the top before you pour into the mold.
GatorKeith you're
For anyone interested in doing this, make sure all the copper salvaged is clean as you dont want to be standing in a toxic cloud of nasty stuff. Notably the laquer on copper in transformers really isnt good for you so as reccomended just chuck them in your transformer bin. The square things with the silver contacts are relays btw. One last thing I would like to add is a capacitor is basically a reserve of power for a sudden demand, in order to make sure you dont get shocked you shortcircuit the leads with a screwdirver or something. Some more powerful devices like amps can definitly kill you so making sure a cap is discharged is good practice. Thanks for your videjo well done!
Caps hold voltage NOT current......
How did I imply they hold current? I made the point to inform that messing around in a just disconnected device can be dangerous
2.2lbs ben. great pour mate
UK Here We Grow just get a job as an electrician..... I just scrapped copper and aluminum from work givin to me and got 377 dollars
UK Here We Grow it’s a small bench top smelter but it does the job.
I've made up to 5 pound bars. It's a great feeling. I used to keep one in my car to play with while driving to work.
You know, a box cutter works great for stripping large gauge wire ;) One slice down the middle...peel it like a banana.
I love videos like this. It's a dream of me to melt some copper and make bars like you do. I have a small bin I collect copper I separated from electronics before I through them out or gifts from friends. One day I'll make my own bars.
It's not the copper it's the views on the tube that's where the $$ is at
Your so good at this. Looks cool fun see the end product. You like to tinker with things. Same here
2.27 pounds x $2.54 = $5.77 Not bad for just taking some time out to scrap a free TV.
Minus the cost of the borax and the electricity to run the furnace.
you can look at it mainly 3 ways..
1. for the fun of it/hobby/recycling/etc
2. for the money you "made" - ~$5.00.
or you can also look at it like
the money you "saved" ..say you wanted to collect(copper is a finite resource), Invest(copper in a finite resource), or machine/cast/make something out of copper in any way; that small ingot would be over $30 many places. In that case you are making $30 an hr--$60/hr if you tried..even more if copper becomes worth 10, 100, or even 1,000, times more money in the future than it is worth today.
Excellent looking bar you got there, looks nice and even
The slag. That ugly crattered looking part is where the slag settled after the pour.
I love that mold and the bars it produces! Maybe something for me. Beautiful bar mate!
I like you're nirvana hat rock on man
survivorman jordan 8m (k
eWaste Ben took the rest of the Sony to the eWaste bin. Glad to see all that copper going to good use.
Those two "black caps" with copper coils inside them are called relays. And are worth more on Ebay than their weight in copper.
I definitely want to try this out. It'll be funny to show up to the recycle place with nothing but copper bars lol
I commend you on providing a instructional video of this sort, but you might also advise your viewers to invest in a pair of leather gloves to prevent them from having their hands cut up as occurred to you in the video
roughed up hands build character :p I used to work building/repairing stuff in the shop and they were always beat up. Now all my work is on the computer so I have smooth baby hands. Seeing his bleeding wounds makes me want to get out to the garage and screw around just to rough my hands up again.
I have a few old tvs that need striping. A utility knife strips that wire fast, just use the point of the razor and with moderate pressure run the tip on the cable insulation with the cable on a secure surface(benchtop), it strips in seconds, long lengths too.
"That's not a knife...that's a knife."
you have such a nice set up I'm not sure how old this video it but it is inspiring me to make my fires hotter to do copper
You on speed?
Flux imparts a lot of air bubbles into the copper. Now that you have a clean bar, re-melt it without flux, and your cast will come out even better.
Great video very informative!! Great tip though: invest in some gloves!
that was a great video and it did turn out nice in the end. like they say one man's trash is another man's treasure.
What is the name of that smelter you used?
link is in the description
Stripping degaussing straps is much quicker against your leg, using a fairly blunt knife. Wear old jeans etc. That braided flat cable is often made of nickel, much more valuable than copper; check if it is suspiciously hard to cut. Happy Christmas.
I had a early 2000 model TV that was Sony that knocked me over a couch when I took it apart do be careful
RIP
You should of unplugged it first my dude! xD
Either it was still plugged in or you shorted a capacitor with your body. It won't have been the CRT.
it holds a charge
Josh you obviously arent an electronic tech making such a false statement..... a CRT holds a charge for a long time especially if the pull down circuit is faulty.
Wow I you joy at the end. What a beautiful beautiful bar of copper! I have watched many UA-cam postings but I haven't enjoyed an more than I enjoyed this one. Makes me want to go find an old tv, get one of those smelters. I really identify with the laughter you feel at the end. Thank Q, Thank Q.
How much do you get for the iron in all that blood?
I never knew there were literal spools of copper like that, pretty neat!
You and that bar of copper should get a room lol..
why did you grind off the blob of gold? I totally agree that's a beautiful bar... stamp that nicely and you have yourself a thing worth more than you put into it... pass it down right on... I watched the whole thing. I scrap tvs but I haven't made bars yet... looking forward to my first one... might mention the name of that smelter and try to get some ad revenue from the company. Cheers for the great video, I rarely comment on them.
lot of work for $15... not if your breaking down 10-20 at once. you make a tv day. thats $2-3 per board too.
your never going to do one, this is just what you can expect.
Yeah that's right, glad there's some out there that understand :) you get them at the same time your picking up scrap so it's not just tv's. stack them up and in a couple weeks you scrap 'em all out in one go, that also gives the tv's time to discharge in case one was recently plugged in too.
By the time you've picked up 20 tv's you've probably picked up half a tonne of scrap steel and other metals as well as electronics for gold recovery, people commenting here are singling out 1 tv and not looking at the big picture.
It is true, there used to be a local guy that would go around in an old 1970's ford pick up and collect all sorts of scrap. I kid you not, a few years later i seen the same guy scrapping, pulling a trailer(full of scrap) from a Cadillac Escalade. Definitely money once you add it all up!
definitely a nice bar, you should stack as many as you can especially since you got the copper for free. Awesome hobby.
A great reminder of how much unrecoverable scrap and precious metals is burred forever into landfills every day.
Huh? Nothing makes it unrecoverable, nor buried forever. It's just not cost effective yet to mine the dumps for those metals, but some day it will be, so we're lucky to have kept them all in one place, yes? Besides, it came out of the ground so where else is it going, shot into outer space?
The main thing is, not to let harmful materials get into the water supply, which unfortunately includes the lead from solder used back in the CRT TV era.
There's at least 2kg of lead in an average crt glass, solder makes little difference in comparison.
LCD TV's are worse, same as fluorencent lights & smoke alarms, all contain Mercury.
Landfills will never be mined, they build housing estates on them if you look at history.
Solder makes a large difference. The lead in the CRT glass is mostly trapped in it, while the solder on the PCB has a high surface area of exposure.
There is a trivial level of mercury in remotely modern fluorescent lights including fluorescent backlit TVs. You might find 5 mg per, which is only a toxic level if you have direct exposure, are standing right on top of it at point of release. Odds are that you end up exposed to more mercury from naturally occurring sources than that from a landfill that makes it all the way back to you.
What is your reasoning to assume that landfills will never be mined? Most do not have housing on them, are instead located away from private homes as much as possible, and these same sites continue to grow as much as the available fill space on the property allows.
It makes sense that they will be mined once other sources become more expensive, not so much for aluminum or glass as for copper and the rarer metals and other non-degradable materials like plastic. I don't mean in 20 years but perhaps in 100.
in 100 years they won't need precious metals, they can already make it synthetically.
Yes I know landfill has 50x more PM's then ore per tonne but yeah, there's enough to supply the needs we have now, most populated cities will need that land for housing, but it might be different over there, trump might get you all nuked anyway
Making something synthetically still requires the constituent materials. It could easily cost more.
the craters you're seeing is from the escaping gasses actually. just a quick google search for degassing copper will provide you with you want.
sir that is not true its not a myth i done a test and 4 out of 5 tvs held a charge for and average of 13-16 minutes all newer crts actually one of them were the exact tv you took apart also capacitors will hold a lethal charge depending on the voltage ive blown chunks outta a screw driver shorting 240vac caps be careful
great reply it makes me happy knowing there is educated people in the world take care my friend. :)
:) platinum
Instead of scraping the insulation off the braided copper with the knife you can either use a utility knife with a new blade or have a sharp tip on your knife to first put one end of insulated braided copper wire into a medium sized bench vise(well anchored) then starting at the vise end of the wire,.wear gloves and stick the tip of the blade through the insulation and run the blade down through the course of the wire to the end. the insulation comes off in one piece with nothing but copper tossed into the bin. Excellent video Ben well thought out,step by step.
Yeah,.depending on which state you live in the U.S, you may have problems with getting rid of a gutted Television. Every scrap yard I checked at in my area asks for at least $20.00 for a disposal fee.. but i hadn't given it a thought,that St. Vincent or Good Will takes them, I will check that out.
If there are any American scrappers reading this,.i would like to know what your experiences are with disposing them,.what do you do with the scrapped out TV's?
bantalee2002 our town is supposed to have a ewaste center at the dump for monitors and tvs but i havent taken anything to it the one time i brought a tv they told me to put it with the rest of household junk.
Band Aids for hands and fingers offset profit..lol
Fantastic video Ben. Thanks! It's refreshing to find someone that enjoys their hobby.
The relay you destroyed @ 24:50 is worth more money than the copper inside it is worth - a lot more.
how much & how do u figure and how would you even sell it
John Dowe Off the top of my head, in ZA rands - the copper would be worth a few cents. The relay would be in the region of R30. So it's worth about 6000 times more ,when new. Sell it second hand for half that price, and you would make more money off 5 or 6 relays than the whole damn KG of copper would fetch! You could sell on flea bay, or craigslist or wherever you want. Plenty of electronics enthusiasts out there...
That's just a random relay, who knows how good the contacts still are.
nrdesign1991 True. But plenty of relays have transparent covers...
Ant Mallett
the cover is not related to the contacts
I once scrapped about 70 crt monitors. Got them from a storage locker auction for $50.
I first tried selling them on ebay. This was only about 4 years ago so I was surprised there were takers.
Thing is. They are expensive to ship and many broke(minorly) in shipping.
After scrapping them all and selling the copper, aluminum and tin that was easily extracted, I sold the circuit boards to a company online for about $110.
All-in-all, I made a little over $200 from scrapping but it took a lot of time.
Though I did keep all the ferrite rings which you find wires coiled through. I just though they were cool.
I've found recently that you can sell them and I've estimated my collection by sold prices on ebay at around $1000.
Mrcastleskeep damn
get that dude a bandaid
Amazing how much copper you got from that old tv!
All that for $5?
if you actually any skill you can turn around and forge it into a knife and resell it for 100 as a novety
Actually when you look at copper ingots on ebay, they sell for well more than the market price of copper. Not so with silver and gold ingots.
Duff, that usually also takes into account time and effort put into making the ingots, as well as shipping
Not to mention the 400 bucks for that furnace. 5 dollars worth of copper seems like a waste of time
when you are on fix income every penny helps i scrap every thing i can been doing tv for about a year .i take it to scrap metal dealer and get any where from 150$ to 300$ depends on if i take aluminum off can's are another good metal
good one man .
Beautiful!!
You missed the aluminum heat sinks, they are very high grade and snap off ,with a small clip/screw to knock off. And The transformers are extremely easy to remove ,and the majority come apart easy., The ones that aren't still sell as electric motors in the "States" , Great video.. most of them bore me to sleep ,I watched yours front to back. ;)
Tristan H. I got real excited over the furnace and i appreciate our host admiration of the copper bar. Neat !
Always seems to be plenty of blood by the end of the video on these "recycling" projects.
G'day Ben, thanks for the vid.
Just an FYI, those copper spools found all over the PSU Board (19:38) are called 'Inductors' and the rectangular plastic covered ones (24:52) are 'Relays'. There are vids on UA-cam with good descriptions.
You got a great result in the end. This home foundry stuff is really interesting, it's something I didn't think could be done that easily until recently. If I had watched this when all the CRT's lined the street a few years back (remember the Gov's $1000 GFC bonus) I would have loved to give it a try.
Have a good one