Gold Recovery - Automated Circuit Board Depopulation

A quick video (by my standards) showing my prototype circuit board depopulator. My main goal was to speed up the depopulation of ram boards since I have a few kilograms to do.

[@edmondrivera108]

Excellent! Now I need to build one. Using hot sand is taking a long time. Simple, effective, and the parts are easy to get. Two thumbs up.

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the comment Edmond, yes, I still use pretty much exactly the same concept and have depopulated tens of kgs of Ram over the last year.

[@edmondrivera108]

You have made one of those "why didn't I think of that" videos. The simplest answer always seems the hardest to find. Thanks for the time saver!!

[@petecurtice6340]

The Sunny E Waste Corporation has a machine along these lines. so I would say you are on the right track. please keep us informed on your progress. Great job

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks, appreciate the comment!

[@Psi105]

Your trummel is already more successful than the Hoffman's super trummel

[@ninjabothandyman6063]

Wow !! This seriously is an EXCELLENT and outstanding brilliant concept come full circle into reality fully brought into being by way of that ASTONISHINGLY talented + creative + wise + insightful mind of yours good sir ! I myself especially appreciate something truthfully capable of expiditing the rather immensely time consuming--demanding task of depopulation of circuit boards !!! I'm going to think on your device, alongside too while also on the problem at hand;ultimately after some time I'll then begin building a device of my own equally, or dare I say (or even possibly try to wish and hope if I'm seriously severely lucky, perhaps one fine day my creation just might potentially be even more viable doing such a challenging difficult finiky task like depopulation) THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH FOR SHARING your amazing device, concepts, progresses & successes, and outstanding results with us all kind sir !

[@adrenalinemedia]

This type of rotating depopulation devices are manufactured in a large scale in China, you can buy them at Aliebaba etc. They are not even expensive, since it is low tech. Always consider the toxic fumes, when you upscale this kind of recovery! The heat will not only loose the components but also burn other materials like glue etc. If you introduce another 1 or 2 mesh you are even able to seperate molten tin and small SMD components from larger chips.

[@Gday_Its_Will]

you are incorrect no similar device is available on alibaba, if you make these claims then please post a link

[@russellpindar7717]

Great idea, well executed. Look forward to seeing a more "developed" version. Winner! It would also be good to cogitate on how best to utilize this idea for larger boards - possibly by cutting them into smaller units?

[@successfulengineer]

Cutting the boards up is likely what I would do, but if someone were so inclined I'm sure the basic idea could be scaled up to the size of a oil drum which should be able to do whole motherboards. Although you would likely change things like instead of removing the drum, you would have a door for loading and unloading. So far I am pretty impressed, depopulated about 4kgs of ram in half an hour last night. That would have been many hours of work using my previous method!

[@russellpindar7717]

I'm not so sure it would work on that scale. By virtue of the increased size, the forces involved would be much greater. I suspect you would just "damage" the boards rather than depopulate them. The key would be to find the max size at which the process would still work in the manner intended.

[@tacllemtacllem7679]

That is Briliant

[@timvivoda5208]

brilliant idea Tim from AUSTRALIA

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks Tim, still using the same machine with only a few minor modifications, that things has done tens of kgs of Ram and other small boards. Big boards like networking gear I still prefer selective depopulation with the air-hammer.

[@claymccormick1203]

if you are not recovering copper 45% of the weight of good boards then you have shorted yourself what could pay for everything else. if you crush the boards down to mesh 20 minus or smaller you can gravity separate the metals by density and separate the plastic and fiber along the way to get more recyclable items a shaker table works well for separating.once the aluminium and steel are remover for recycling the copper and other metals can be melted into bars and the copper can be plated out for three 9's or better high purity copper good for busbar copper worth about 9 dollars a pound then the base metals can be removed with hydrochloric acid then filter the anode slimes this will be mostly gold at this point, add a little nitric acid to this and the silver will come out as silver chlorate save acid for later processing.

[@successfulengineer]

So, the short answer is that I do this as a hobby, a gold mining hobby, if it were a business then you would certainly want to target copper mainly and the precious metals would be the 'cream'. The longer answer . . . Some back-of-the-envelope math here, if we take a typical RAM module, there is probably about $0.60 of Gold to be had. Assuming a 6.5 square inch, 8 layer board with 1oz copper thickness, where we generously assume that Copper covers 70% of the 8 layers, and then generously assuming $9 for 0.45kg of Copper, you end up with around $0.14 of Copper per RAM module. But for this $0.14 you have to do much more work that the $0.60 you get from the Gold processed efficiently. Low yield boards would probably have a better ratio of Copper to Gold, but I'm unlikely to get them to process anyway. Your comment sounds a lot like someone that has drunk the forum kool-aid and watched a few MBMM videos without having tried any of this themselves. But, feel free to upload a video of your process and prove me wrong.

[@claymccormick1203]

mount baker mining certainly shows that you can get at the gold without pulling individual components off the boards as to not having done it, i have 13 kilos of hand picked pins and at least 20 of chips and 5 gallon buckets of board chips and while i have not found a small to medium hammer mill i will be building one as to the 14 cent versus 60 how much did you spend on acid to get the 60 i am not trying to ruin your hobby am trying to get fellow enthusiasts to help create a more complete approach and to make more money and if possible by doing less work. by grinding the boards to sand it is very easy to separate the metals by density if you can work more boars in less time you will see more gold silver platinum and palladium and the copper can pay the bills or at least some of them for the rest and i plan on making videos. so good luck with what you are doing and think about grinding and shaker table.

[@successfulengineer]

Yes, as I said, nothing special about what you are suggesting, this is 100% how it is done industrially. The devil you will find is in the details, I have tried running electrolytic refining cells, in practice it is much harder than you think. Melting large amounts of Copper is not trivial either, I have watched two close friends try this and fail. As to how much money I spend on acid to get the 60c of Gold out of a RAM module, the answer is a tiny amount, I turn a kg of RAM chips into a few tablespoons of concentrate before I touch it with acid. A good estimate would probably be $1 of chemicals for every $25 of Gold, not counting the cost of labware which is amortized over quite a lot of Gold. I would encourage you to have a go with the crushing, shaker table, melting, electrolytic refining, conventional refining process, do a video and get in contact with me. I would love to see it working on small scale!

[@claymccormick1203]

it is all about the dollars that is how you keep score and yes i will give it a go some of this i think you have no choice but to go big will try to get by with small i think i can get most of a shaker table out of my junk box plus some nonstandard use of a router.still working on how to hammer mill and with waste oil and 2 burners i think melting the copper is duable i have a variac of adequate amperage and bridge rectifier so a couple of motor caps should see a electroplating rig set up have to find some copper sulfate.

[@travismiller5548]

@@claymccormick1203 a little late here, but one tip i have for you is a source for copper sulphate- it's used as a disinfectant for cattle hooves- a 50# bag of crystal cost me $50 USD at a farm and garden store

[@FollowMe2aMillion]

Very impressive. Would love to see a video on items you go after and those you leave alone. That chip you pointed out I wouldve thrown in my bin.

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Mike, that exact video (with a twist) is on my 'things to do' list for the near future.

[@davidbryan4455]

“Hey guys” lol... thanks for the link buddy, sorry to hear your having so much trouble getting my mail bag. 😞

[@OwlTech333]

throw in some silver contact plates with the silver contacts on, I think it will work for them as well

[@matthewhannan5454]

Great invention my friend..

[@shaneyork300]

With just the view videos I've seen, I think you could make some serious money on inventions alone. Not to mention some other business opportunities! Have a GREAT Day!!!

[@timvivoda5208]

I'm doing the same .I've got 7 to 10 tones of computers and tvs to rip apart .damm what have I got into any profit will be going to psychiatry help .

[@Fortitudoo]

dude brilliant im making one

[@geraldposey1496]

a door on the side of the rotating drum to load it like a bingo callers cage

[@successfulengineer]

Definitely, loading and unloading was the most painful part of this little machine. Sliding door arrangement would make life much easier!

[@simplifygardening]

great idea. i have 14 kilo of ram boards to depopulate. wonder how it would handle a mother board

[@successfulengineer]

I haven't considered whether this setup would be suitable to depopulate through-hole components, but in theory it would be OK for IDE connectors and such. I mostly do ram and hard drive boards, so I am intending to keep the drum size roughly the same and just cut or break larger boards up. I depopulated about 4kg of ram in 30 minutes last night, that would usually be hours of work, so I am very pleased with myself.

[@unclebobsbees4899]

A small blower AKA hair dryer would get the flame hotter. A blue flame, with little to no yellow color, is the hottest and most efficient. With a flame at this temperature you could get the time down to 2 minutes.

[@luketien928]

Wow! Excellent idea, also showcases how handy you are. I was wondering, why have you decided not to use coal/charcoal for heat? Aside from some ash (no biggie since you’re doing it almost outside and could just blow it all out, hehe), coal/charcoal just beneath would have the added benefit of incinerating the chips for you right then and there, for easier crushing/powdering for gold recovery, right?

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks! The aim at this point was definitely to avoid actually burning the ICs, you really want to pyrolize them (in a mostly sealed container) before incineration, otherwise they give off huge amounts of toxic smoke. But, no reason you couldn't use coal or any other heat source to get the job done! Thanks for you comment :)

[@user-kt5hg3hy2y]

WANT one of this. It's funny...just a couple of days ago I loaded some ram sticks on top of the barbeque.

[@successfulengineer]

Yep, I always used to use a toaster oven for depopulation. I managed to depopulate about 4kg of ram boards last night in 30 minutes, usually that would be many hours of work. I was quite surprised about how well this crude setup actually worked.

[@user-kt5hg3hy2y]

Agreed. I like it. Looks like it works really good. It will probably also work on removing pins from green fiber CPUs.

[@OwlTech333]

nice

[@donatellodonati4525]

very nice idea super

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks for the comment mate

[@Robonza]

I wonder if you had a shaker with a screen whether you could shake the solder off the chips in a single process?

[@successfulengineer]

Yeah, always a good idea to get as much solder off the chips as possible early on. This system actually works quite well because it looks like as the chips fall and hit the bottom, a bit of the molten solder gets flung off. Ultimately I can't see myself getting away from chemicals to completely remove the solder.

[@Robonza]

I was thinking if you reran the chips at high speed as a 2nd stage most of the solder would centrifuge out.

[@canice001]

Use a second can with smaller holes to allow the solder to melt through. This should leave the chips behind and then all you have falling/melting off is the solder.

[@pierreqiu8147]

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

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Pierre, yes, technically that will work, the biggest problem is that you end up with a very large amount of poisonous waste acid. I would strongly recommend you look into mechanical ways of depopulating boards.

[@indeedItdoes]

Cool

[@successfulengineer]

Thanks, appreciate the comment. Love you videos.

[@lunamayer1082]

can you make a video of the device

[@khookhoo2956]

Is it any different with your other video that just put all the boards in the oven and * cook* it..?

[@successfulengineer]

Kepong JUSTICE Kepong JUSTICE hi there, same basic idea using heat to melt the solder, but much faster for small boards like ram

[@xenaguy01]

4:15 The right term is, "burner."

[@darkavenger2011]

Can the components be reused?

[@edwardhughes352]

Nice JOb.

[@The_Gallowglass]

Now do it in a 55 gallon drum :D:D:D

[@successfulengineer]

Yep, I have seen some scaled up versions of this idea where they run full sized server boards!

[@chrismorin4678]

Awesome setup!!! Now I have to go make myself one! ..... just thinking, you mentioned going electric .... using an electric clothes dryer element zig-zagging across the upper back half of the propane cylinder might work?!?! and for anyone out there thinking of making one who don't have a nice power supply like yours to control the motor speed, I was just thinking, the geared motor from an old microwave turn-table would probably work great right! Keep up the great work!!!

[@successfulengineer]

Hi Chris, the only risk with the clothes dryer element setup would be isolating it electrically. I think it would still be better to build an electric setup similar to a supercharged hairdryer, where the heating element is contained inside something and the air blown through it. The benefit of electric is you could easily control the output temperature. I think a microwave turntable is probably about the speed you want, and those little motors should have reasonable torque, once again you just want to make it electrically safe. Appreciate the comment, good luck and be safe.

[@TechCellfish]

Is it not faster and cleaner with an electric or hydraulic hammer drill with a chisel on?

[@successfulengineer]

i prefer a air hammer for selective depopulation of larger boards, but for ram I have never found anything faster or cleaner than this method.

[@travismiller5548]

this is a very fast method you've shared! a good alternative which i have never seen any other scrappers use is an Xacto knife -not a utility knife or box cutter- to remove chips. it's my preferred method for removing chips with tiny legs, by just cutting the legs on one side of the chip, and prying it upward. the other side's legs yield easily after a wiggling the chip back and forth. obviously my method works poorly on thicker legged chips... i have been unable to find an air hammer i'm satisfied with yet. i bought a few cheapo ones from the usual suspects and found that they worked well... for about 4 minutes. after that they wouldn't hit for shit. the manuals say to grease the cylinder every other time you blink... but i can't seem to find one that is serviceable without total disassembly, and the aid of a vise and/or arbor press. apologies for blithering on a bit, and thanks for all that you share here, keep up the great work!

[@AethalianBunnyHouse]

u r so clever!

[@rkb6783]

A cat named copy ! How ever... It works !

[@bryzabone]

3rd like! Woohoo! Awesome idea

[@timvivoda5208]

excellent if it works dont fix it .i love the design

[@successfulengineer]

Appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment.

[@thomassidhoum5446]

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