searching for precious metals in electronics

[sexualjesus]

hey guys i have so much electronic parts cluttering garage and secretely i keep them all hopeing id have a use for them in the future but now i just need the space, theres a half dozen cd players, a few portable, a couple big ones with the record player at the top as well as the tape players and cd players down the bottom, speakers, radios, dvd players, and most importantly an unlimited amount of computer parts ranging all accross the board and i need some platinum.

some bloke over at the old lab tips was yanking platinum parts out of electronics, capacitors if memory proves me right, a Y shaped part like one end of a wratchet, i know a capacitor is a cylindrical part but i know little about electronics and my memory says it sounded like that. really im hopeing to get a knowledge bank of anything that i can melt down and sell to obtain funds for platinum or palladium,

gold parts, silver parts, rhodium parts, anything worth anything. i really need to get my hands on a gram of platinum without stealing catalytic converters from beneath trucks, 50 bucks a gram is just unspeakable compared to the whole stash of shit in my garage that just might hopefully save me a lot of cash.

thanks for any help guys.

[MunkeyQ]

Gold plating on components is very, very thin and needs to be removed with an acid bath and even then you'd need a truckload of circuit boards to even think about making it worthwhile.

As far as I know, electrolytics do not contain any valuable metals. Ceramic caps contain 5% palladium and 1% platinum, but since you can't extract that yourself you need to sell the whole capacitor on as scrap.

Scrap capacitors go for about $10 per pound. It really isn't worthwhile IMO, and scrap companies need literally tons of capacitors, not a bag full.

[phmeworp]

^^^ This

Gold (or any other precious metal) plating is generally on a few u"... millionths of an inch. I am not sure about the precious metal content on any capacitors, but the biggest problem with scrap electronics is the ferrous content.

There are a good number of electronic parts that contain no steel, but the majority of them do, either internally or in the leads (tinned steel). Some still use tinned copper, but definately the minority.

The frist thing any scrapper is going to do is introduce your bag of parts to a very strong magnet. If anything 'sticks' he will show you right to the door. There is no way they are going to take the expense of doing metalurgical analysis each part.

In one year I nearly filled a 30 gallon barrel with component lead trimmings, hoping to make some extra cash with a recycler in town. Thirty seconds with him and his magnet and it all went to the dump.

Edit: Another way to look at it is this... they are not going to put $0.15 worth of precious metal in a component that retails for less than $0.05.

[The English Gentleman]

I think getting the metals releases some nasty fumes. use the components to build a bitching robot costume...and remember pics or it did not happen.

[HektikNinja]

^^^

Best advice, right there.

[The English Gentleman]

^^^

Best advice, right there.

you know it homie, with that slick pimped out robot suit he can get back to picking up the hoes for sure...

[HektikNinja]

or will the hoes be picking him up? lol we'll never know..