Depopulating Boards - Low Grade Power Boards

Depopulating circuit boards for copper, aluminium & precious metal recovery.
First of a short series of videos about depopulating circuit boards from e-waste.
Low Grade & Power Boards from tv's & power supplies.
Next will be covering mid grade and above which should be more interesting but for new scrappers, low grade is where it all starts, mostly base metals.
Another option for power boards is to sell to scrap yards, some will buy them for around irony aluminium price or even transformer price, but completely depopulating can even out with copper & aluminium and a bonus of a few small gold bearing ic chips and silver bits.
I go on about tantalum capacitors a bit as I get many scrappers wanting to sell various capacitors that are not tanties, better grade boards are where they're most at and these days most are surface mount smd's yellow or black but there's still many resin dipped tanties, they usually have a + & long "L" on the capacitor itself, not the board, that should read "C" for capacitor.
Safety gear, tools, furnaces, ingot moulds etc that I use or recommend.. www.amazon.com...

[@judybeckner5623]

I had to watch this again Ben, when I started scraping TV boards I didn't know what to keep, resistors looked pretty so I kept them for awhile, didn't know the value of IC chips nor how to take them off boards, I kept capacitors in buckets thinking they were important etc. My point is that your information to new scraper's is very valuable and your advice is appreciated. Thanks for sharing Ben

[@BboyEklypse]

You have been one of the most helpful and knowkedgable scrappera i have came across.... you are really a blessing and personally have helped me immensely. Ty for your channel and sharing what yoou do. Seriously appreciate you a lot

[@eWasteBen]

Thanks

[@davidk8699]

Mire than one still watching at the end I am sure! Really helpful video and well done. TY

[@ernestpetzrick7741]

A great, thorough, journey through low grade/power boards. Thank you Ben.

[@dr.a006]

I tap a hammer on those large coils on the cement floor to break that ferrite ring, then pull apart. Sometimes with pliers in each hand because the wire is stiff.

[@bantalee2002]

Real nice of that guy to make you a name plaque. real nice work. I think he may have used a dremel type tool to polish it up nice.

[@judybeckner5623]

Thanks for sharing, I started out with these boards so this brought a smile to my face.

[@shaneyork300]

Thanks for putting out this vid when you did. I had been scrapping for a couple of months at the time you made this video. It helped me a lot, it's great for the beginner's out there, which in most places we need more of, to help keep this stuff out of landfills!!!

[@ianolear1000]

I'm just getting into scrapping and this video was very helpful. Didn't know to look for IC chips and crystals! Thanks for putting this up.

[@carpentryfirst3048]

-What is in the fumes(smell) that comes off these boards? -what is in the dust that is released when you pull anything off a board? Soon as you open something you can smell the circuit board. Does this worry anyone? Thanks. Awesome vids Ben!

[@kluafoz]

If I ever get down under I'd love to have a beer with ya!! Cheers from the US

[@shanecorning5222]

Thank You !!! As MORE of the old stuff "goes crazy" / brakes? Us that are willing will know what to bother with , and , what to let "THEM" mess with.

[@peteregan5122]

To save time switching between tools you could take the heat sinks off and put them in a pile to unscrew all at once later

[@zeromancer-x]

Nice plaque, good tribute to the work you do with your channel.

[@mr.g-sez]

diodes and the little glass diodes have precious metals in them. and the d-shaped parts are transistors. i keep them aswell as the diodes seperately

[@ericwazner6521]

Thanks Ben I am a new ewaste scrapper. And I love your videos and your content that you put out! You really help me understand what is what in your videos! Great stuff at least in my opinion! Keep the videos coming! And I’ll scrap you later!!😀👍🔋🧲

[@wilhathaway1987]

I broke open a decent amount of old tv chips and they were just copper inside, no gold, maybe some silver in like 1 out of every 10. So I stopped grabbing the ic chips off old tv boards.

[@TehHijack]

Turned off adblock just for you :)

[@scrapthatwithmatt9520]

TehHijack what a lad

[@dr.a006]

Thanks for opening a fly back transformer. I always wondered what was in the middle. One yard I went to bought my low grade boards as breakage. Considering they do have a bunch of aluminum and copper and other metals, it’s better than tin shred prices, only about double though. I’ll let the processing plant extract what they need and I’ll take off the easy parts and get more value with the heat sinks, transformers, silver switches, IC chips, etc.

[@dereklewis9501]

Greatly appreciate this video, Thanks!

[@EuroRecycling]

That little black three pin component it is a Transistor too :) Also wanted to warn scrappers about the big capacitors (44:29)!! Sometimes they are charged! And if accidentally you touch their legs you get electrocuted!! to avoid that just short the pins with an isolated screwdriver. Be safe!

[@ottobauner9828]

The 3 pin connectors can be BJT s or mosfits. All bjt s are transistors but all mosfits are not. Your single diode mosfits are transistor. If used on the board back to back they the 2 transistors can be used as a rectifier but usually you will find they use a double diode mosfit which is nit a transitor but a dedicated rectifer used for ac to dc or dc to ac conversion

[@biggy1182]

Your a great teacher Ben...Ty for another great video!

[@bohemianmystik8602]

I wonder how much metal you lose in a years time through the metal dust that you through away from scrapping, when I training with a master jeweler we kept all the shop sweepings and sent to refiner.

[@zartan7779]

Under that white plastic Is brass pins. The board that goes on the rear of crt tube

[@phillgoodall8838]

the black half-moon 3-legged things are transistors. Moose scrapper and Original fleets both say there's silver in transistors. Don't know for sure but I save them. Otherwise very informative. Thanks Ben!

[@xlovinit]

Phill Goodall I've been saving those too. I read somewhere a while a go they were worth keeping but I can't remember why :)

[@4kays160]

cheers ben.. been wondering what to do with my boards... im a newbie so thanks heaps mate, much appreciated..

[@katrinathomas1255]

Removing those aluminum capacitors usually gets rid of the smell from my circuit board stockpile. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[@jessewilson8676]

I have done a few flybacks and that is only one of the 3 types I have seen there is the kind with multi stands of copper wrapped around the center iron post also single wire larger diameter wrapped around the center iron post. call it to much time not much to do along with a 8 lb sledge they are all embedded with plastic but the single stand ones are not to hard to separate out the copper err the easiest I have found.

[@pederlindstrom3132]

Hello Ben, Sweden here again. Those Mofset, I Went to another yard and get high grade wire price while another yard pays electric motor price for them so I have a few buckets of them 🙂

[@1betterthan]

Hi Ben just want to say Thanks for the vid, good work.

[@drmike0936]

7:30 the three legged item is a transistor it could contain gold and or silver. The more modern ones look like silver top haps and they contain gold and or silver. Its like a super fancy crystal oscillator.

[@ottobauner9828]

Not all are transistor they are either BJTs or mosfits. All bjts are transistor all mosfits are not single diode mosfits are transistors but you will also find 3 pin double diode mosfits which are rectifiers

[@gortnewton4765]

I should mention that the scrap cost is much, much lower than the prices here for salvaged, second-hand components. At 27:50, those "brown things" are polyester capacitors, the large one, about $2.50 retail at Jaycar (expensive place), other two about $1 each. Total $4.50. At 31:00 see power FET about $2 to $4 retail, but as scrap metal, about 1c to 2c. At 32:00 see the 12 or so power FETs, each about $2 to $6 each retail. They are attached to heatsinks. (see Mouser for prices). That power board prob. has about $50 of FETs. At 37:28, those black SK capacitors are quite expensive and could be around $5 to $15 each. SK 30uF, 250 VAC each at least $5 each. And those grey SK caps, about $3 each ($12 total).

[@ScrapVulture111]

Gort: Where do you sell all that stuff for those prices? How do you test them? Are you talking about brand new items retailing for that much or used stuff pulled off old circuit boards?

[@gortnewton4765]

Those prices are what you'd pay for those new. About half is a good used price if tested. Testing for FETs is fairly easy, there's a low-cost component tester, that is digital and known to be reliable - I paid $11 for one on ebay - and that will test anything. I harvest from boards too, but for re-use. Everything works usually. FETs are particularly good as they are usable anywhere to drive motors, relays, switch currents, high voltages. Capacitors can be very expensive and Chinese electrolytics are garbage but Jap/USA/EU made caps are high quality. That stuff if pulled correctly from boards is very reusable, but selling it is awkward unless you want to sell on ebay and guarantee the items are tested. Transformers can be very expensive and easy to sell, but not the high-frequency transformers, only the mains-transformers, they are good. You can sell a transformer for, say $20, but the same transformer will only give you $2 of copper. Also, I have seen other harvesters (not Benny) tear apart a mains transformer which would sell for $300 if new or around $130 used, but they sell just the copper and get $5 in copper (large transformer) after spending an hour tearing down the transformer. It looks silly to me.

[@Monkeyfamilyslays]

The white round plastic piece has brass pins inside.

[@dannysearcy3373]

Confused, so the ceramic or epoxy capacitors don't contain silver and or palladium?

[@yanlzcagercekler7252]

Class 952 Blown Temperature Adjustable Digital Soldering Iron You can disassemble your electronic circuits with this tool.

[@cptrikester2671]

At 35:25 'burnt copper is illegal' How can the copper be melted if it can't be burnt first? Does this make hobby melting / making of copper ingots illegal, too?

[@kluafoz]

4:20 shoot I always toss those in the shred pile :(

[@drmike0936]

13:38 those little brownish yellow ones. I do believe those are type 1 mlcc witch contains silver and palladium

[@alanschlieper]

That giant black sealed box is actually a capacitor.

[@carolmoore3706]

I love the plark

[@savetheaspies]

You say it's not tantalum... or mlcc... but you don't tell us how you know that. Are Tatalum and mlcc's marked in some way? Is it the shape? It would be nice to know how to discern the valuable ones from the junk.

[@steveday2868]

1 /31 / 20 my yard pays 6 cents a pound for dirty aluminum and 10 cents a pound for circuit boards. So those components made with aluminum aside from the extruded aluminum heat sink i figure ill just leave them on. Thanks for the video.

[@gateke1]

lovely chunky heavy copper loaded boards nice, i c chips too :D

[@johnhunt6274]

The 3 prong voltage regulators are not just plastic copper nickel coated there is small amount of gold .

[@pameyre8053]

Great video thank you. I'm wondering if the base metal lie grade boards don't have more dollar value depopulated than high grade boards. the dollar value of the copper and aluminum weight might add up to more than the gold and silver recovery value if mid and high grade boards?

[@eWasteBen]

good question, I guess for us scrappers it might be better cash flow as copper etc requires no further processing, whereas higher grade boards are mostly about the little gold & silver. This is why many scrappers sell good boards because refiners are paying for all the metals that we can't easily recover in the backyard, so yeah, cash wise you might be right as it's instant.

[@pameyre8053]

eWaste Ben thank you. I also come from the perspective that in Ottawa Canada, where I live, there is no scrap value for ewaste if the electronic is not complete. I can get up to 30 cents a pound for complete laptops or 5 cents for crt/lcd tvs and monitors. one can remove the cpu and ram and hard drive. but taken apart boards are only shred value. to I take anything with more than 5 cents. because o love looking for the gold! I do scrap and I scrap everything I find at least once. Always excited to seea big tantalum. But also happy to see lots of heat syncs!

[@dr.a006]

Can anyone tell me what the little small thick coin size ceramic disks are in a silver switch type plastic box, part of a dial or something? They look silver coated/plated how silver looks oxidized and they have a little pin like things that contacts them on both sides. I’ve been keeping them just in case for silver recovery. Thanks!

[@kaiseredge]

Great video Ben - I know it's time consuming but those mosfets are pretty popular with hobby electronics some are pretty expensive on their own. I know I bought a few for a recent project and I couldn't get them for under $2.50 a piece, I'd imagine if you could get them off without breaking the legs someone would pay a fair bit just for a misc bag. I started taking the time saving them after having to buy them, I used to just rip them off as well.

[@eWasteBen]

True but it's a very slow process to depopulate, most things would need to be de-soldered individually, perfect if you have the time and to list items but it's very slow to sell, I have thousands of brand new IC Chips that I listed individually for half price of the next seller, only sold 1 chip in 1 year.

[@kaiseredge]

eWaste Ben i agree with you completely if you get the one person who wants them they will sell, but like you said it takes time and sometimes that makes it a lot easier to scrap. I scrap and also have a passion for circuit building, so for me I take the time depending on what it is. but you are right Ben a lot of stuff will sit for a long time due to the huge selection of cheap new chinese components.

[@eWasteBen]

yeah it's hard to sell many components when we are in competition with ebayers in china. china has almost free postage so you can buy a $5 item straight up, here I sell the same $5 item but need to charge $5 postage

[@phillgoodall8838]

at 3:49 wow. Learn something new every day eh!

[@rw9866]

The video was a big help thank you.

[@bingers1585]

Are the 3 prong IC chips the ones that you have in top right hand corner drawer (from the heat sinks) worth pulling off and saving them?

[@lonewolfgeoff]

love the brutal treatment of them mosfets on the tv psu lol seriously tho... cool! never realised how much crap was on those tv psu's! i was more interested in fixing em and the tv! lol i never knew the flyback transformer was so... basic! bloody hell!

[@ag10876]

As always Great Video!

[@calvincollum4720]

Ben you do a great job. You should be concerned about breaking IC chips. They often contain gallium arsenide. Its an arsenic compound. Just looking out for you. :)

[@stevea1712]

GaAs semiconductors are quite uncommon in typical electronics and are usually only found in specialized applications as it is a lot more expensive than regular silicon. Aside from that, the GaAs isn't a compound that can absorbed into your body and poison you because it is an "arsenic compound." The GaAs is actually the semiconductor material itself (the glass like "chip" material) instead of the far more common silicon semiconductor. tl;dr saying gallium arsenide is dangerous because it's an arsenic compound is like saying table salt is dangerous because it's a chlorine compound. Not trying to be rude, just stopping the spread of misinformation.

[@demchynski22]

should i sell the boards as is or depopulate them which is more profit for me bec i dont know much bout boards i accumulate lots

[@gateke1]

34:00 lovely coils!

[@marcusmckenzie9528]

you are no doubt aware of this but other people may not be, might be worth checking your extruded aluminium heatsinks as they often have steel rods in them that attach the heatsiunks to the boards... sometimes they are easy to remove, sometimes quite difficult, but they can be really annoying if you are trying to sell them to scrap yards and you get pulled up for not having had removed those little steel rods still attached to the extruded aluminium heatsinks

[@eWasteBen]

yeah sometimes they break off leaving a little inside, hard to pick up even using a strong magnet unless they went over every one all over

[@shoppy00]

The capacitor juce is just called electrolyte. About capacitors verses relays, if it says xxx uF, yyy V, zzz degree C, surely a capacitor, if it has a small schematic and more then 2 connectors, surely a relay.

[@pierreqiu8147]

Can I depopulate the whole board by soaking it all in HCI

[@LordZonaxe]

Thanks Ben that was informative. But what was inside that fuse off the ups?

[@ernestpetzrick7741]

I heard from another scrapper that the little black top hats with the flat side have gold in them. What do you think? I've not opened one yet.

[@eWasteBen]

As with many of these things they can contain precious metals, depends on the manufacturer. If you crush a few up you'll find a copper plate, sometimes looks like silver and sometimes looks like gold. I haven't put much time into them but I might update the video to add them, thanks.

[@yatagarasu1495]

@3:00 Bens confession Dude is doing a lot of crystal(s)

[@eWasteBen]

Yeah, and I recover with acid

[@yatagarasu1495]

eWaste Ben good one mate is there any gold or silver refining episode in the making or another street scrapping vid?:)

[@robertgerber2533]

Are there buyers for all these individual components or do you have to process them yourself?

[@jorgenuevonuevonuevo1426]

Muy buen trabajo amigo y gran idea reciclar es ahorro y aparte de ello puedes hacer experimentos electrónicos y proyectos saludos discuto de tu video .

[@volodimirkun]

Rubycon capacitors have SOME resell value in them. I know people making nice money recycling those.

[@robertgerber2533]

So the board with most everything removed goes as steel?

[@randyheaven1962]

Lots of small pieces of copper in alot of the smaller ones, hint the little round ones with black tops have copper.

[@GlennMcGrewII]

Are the voltage switches on computer power supplies worth salvaging or sell them for scrap as what?

[@zartan7779]

In the flyback the silver colored clip on the ferite is stainless steel most times . At least I'm my experience

[@eWasteBen]

yes your right, almost always stainless steel.

[@shaneyork300]

james gamble I'm glad I went through the comments this time. The last I made a comment without looking through the comment section was the Hip replacement item Ben received on a house pick up. Ben replied back (which I thought was very cool since he's got 40,000+ subs) and told me yeah that's what others also said. I then looked at the comments and I stopped counting after a dozen comments like mine were posted a year earlier, a little embarrassing!! To get to my main point. I started watching been over a year ago and have been a loyal fan ever since. I also do a lot of crt's I've been pitching the flyback transformers in with steel probably close to 100 times before I came across a tv that wasn't one of the big name brands like Sony. In fact if I remember it had a name I've never seen. But on the flyback transformer the little bar on ferrite was COPPER, I cut into it to check. Ever since then I've been pulling off all of the stainless steel ones! Thank you James for your comment!!! And especially Ben for his GREAT VIDEOS!!!

[@ScrapVulture111]

Get it Ben!!

[@madduck692002]

Hey Ben. M.O.S.F.E.T. Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor. Here endeth the lesson!

[@stevea1712]

Odds are that blue relay actually is brass like you suspected. The cheapo chinese relays forgo the silver contacts to reduce cost. No cheap TV board like that would have gold contact relays on it ;) Fun video.

[@shaneyork300]

Steve A I agree the chinese have probably figured out a way to make a new car for less than $500! I agree that if that blue component is chinese made it probably is brass. But as a circuit board that particular one has to many IC chips to be chinese made not to mention some other components that could've been left out. As a cuircut board it's much better than a lot of the labeled made in china ones I've come across. I'm leaning toward gold plating. In the year that was assembled & how little plating is. It's probably $.00,001 of gold used anyway. The Chinese wouldn't spend that much but just about any other county might. I really don't know, I'm mainly thinking out loud. Not trying to step on any toes! But I'm in same mindset regarding Chinese made products. I hope the world leaders besides China steps up and starts making things to last again!! BETTER QUALITY!!!!

[@MrShekoexile]

@@shaneyork300 in my experience, Chinese manufacturers are able to produce for whichever price point the customer asks for. In other words, if the Made in China product doesn't work properly, or at all, look to the American supplying the engineering diagrams and specifications.

[@jordankennedy3298]

I thought the little blue capacitors have trace amounts of silver.

[@ernestpetzrick7741]

I just noticed your tantalums were mixed. I thought you kept your black and mustard tantalums separate? I know there's no difference really, but thought that was your MO. Very nice name plate.

[@eWasteBen]

I do sort them, when picking I just use a small tray, then sort when they go into the main tubs.

[@ernestpetzrick7741]

thanks - I sort them as well. Not sure why, just seems like the right thing to do.

[@eWasteBen]

lol, yes that's what we do, even if we don't know why :) at the moment smd tantalum cap's are US$20 lb so not too bad, you have Mark in Florida who buys them. But tantalum is one of those metals that can rise in value overnight so a great speculative item to stack

[@raymondcote6669]

Good on opening a fly back

[@DarrenJenkins]

What is Bills KZbin channel?

[@frankcrenshaw158]

Thanks for the intel Ben

[@patrickwynkoop2218]

What about the tiny mlccs that are on them

[@cyrustakem7993]

ferrite is kind of "expensive" you can probably reset the ferrite donuts to hobbyists for transformers, isolation chokes etc

[@nathand450]

Hi ben, im at glenroy scrapin for fun with my kids, bit pocket money for em. what rough price should i get for these boards at scrap yards here per kg?(you often talk pounds) do they just go with all power boards from lcds etc or seperate? got stack crt's(50+) and same other power boards, not sure time rip apart, I'm depopulating higher grades for chips etc

[@eWasteBen]

I'm putting up a couple of videos about the very subject, pricing boards, part 1 up in a few hours

[@nathand450]

Cool, I'll stay tuned! Cheers mate

[@EuroRecycling]

On that blue relay box, can you test if the contacts are really gold?

[@TehHijack]

collect a few of them and melt them down and test for gold using a gold testing solution.

[@wgrillojr]

I wish you showed only what you look for to depopulate the board, explained what it was, and what metal made it worth taking off. The explanation of the stuff not worth extracting confused me with what was worth it. Just my 2¢. Thanks for the knowledge for sure though.

[@charlesmurphy1510]

Ferrite by definition is iron.

[@xlovinit]

Do any UK viewers know if there is anywhere in the UK that buys boards?

[@lonewolfgeoff]

cool, that was interesting 😊 (btw its a mosfet not a fosmet 😉)

[@rookierollhunter8652]

Are flat packs and IC chips the same?

[@eWasteBen]

pretty much yes but I like to keep them seperate for now.

[@nydianegron7519]

the part that holds the extruded aluminium (amopset) is this how you spell it

[@eWasteBen]

Mosfet

[@nydianegron7519]

Thanks

[@aaronwest2511]

Why is burnt illegal?

[@VelserHerrie]

Aaron West it's illegal to burn wire because of health and environmental damage.

[@gbobzburner8687]

people burn the insulation off of wire as a quick way to "strip" the wire for copper.

[@aaronwest2511]

Ok, thanks!

[@gortnewton4765]

PVC when burning is highly toxic, it's really nasty. Don't burn it. Don't mess around with any PVC stuff, that's the insulation. It is benign when in normal use and does no harm. PVC is poly-vinyl-chloride.

[@stevesachau5150]

when is a cuircuit board sake to throw away

[@michaelbrumfitt]

Xlovinit just google selling circuit boards in the uk

[@nexus07121]

i have seen online buyers pay up to 0,50€/kg for power boards, and my scrap yard just pays for example 0,40€/kg for dirty aluminium . so i just sell them as is / complete. Whats your opinion on that?

[@eWasteBen]

Perfect, if you factor in wear & tear of your fingers from cutting and breaking, selling complete lets you get on with getting more scrap or processing higher value boards, only thing I would do in your case is pluck the main IC Chip before selling as is.

[@VelserHerrie]

nexus07121 could you post a few buyers?

[@nexus07121]

There are some e-waste companies in Germany, but its just worth shipping to them if you have other things to sell and live nearby. Which country are you from Kevin VH?

[@VelserHerrie]

nexus07121 I live in the Netherlands. (Near Amsterdam) My scrapyard paid 28 eurocents for boards, so I just turn in the lowgrade boards completely stripped of alu, copper and other stuff. The rest of the boards I save up in bins.

[@nexus07121]

One buyer with very good prices in Germany is called comet-trade .Maybe its worth shipping to them for you. From Germany you can ship with Hermes delievery service up to 25kg in a 40x40x40cm box for just 5,89€ to them!

[@kuigalaxy5226]

Is Phosphite idk how to spell it worth money?

[@eWasteBen]

it's a metal salt, a chemical, it's cheap

[@kuigalaxy5226]

Holly man you replied, dang I thought it was worth something cause it has a weird texture to it. Thanks tho

[@eWasteBen]

you don't mean ferrite do you? what did it come from?

[@kuigalaxy5226]

A tv motor thing that's on the circuit board and I have a lot but from other stuff

[@eWasteBen]

oh ok, it's ferrite, kinda like a ceramic metal, it sell as scrap steel so not worth a lot but it adds up.

[@davidblakely2627]

i always desolder everthing than reuse the parts in other stuff

[@devinhoneycutt2801]

Do you have a job outside of this?

[@EmeraldEnchantments]

Love your channel but looks like 2 $ an hours work.

[@quentinbaker2928]

More doing less yapping

[@jayray-vi5oi]

Thank you for your nice video your informative but you talk too much I like watching you please shorten the talking down and show us more you're very good at what you do Less Talk More work thank you

[@raymondcote6669]

Depopulating boards You are wasting time ben . You can use pliers or scrapers while talking. You used up 12 minutes with just talk and removed 6 parts

[@DominicUbble]

He's also trying ti teach