Where do you get prices like $5 a ton? Who spends the time collecting tons
of dead monitors just to sell them for that little? I would think it costs
about 1000 times more just to store and transport a ton of monitors? Please
tell me where to find bargains like that, on account I am in surplus
electronics sales.

James Burkart

-----Original Message-----
From: pic microcontroller discussion list
[mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of Roman Black
Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2000 3:55 AM
To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: [OT]: Treasure from trash??


Jinx wrote:
> Components such as ADC, logic, memory, solenoid, signal processing
> ICs, FETs, caps, diodes, connector, etc that are worth more than a PIC.
> It's not always known what caused the PCB to fail of course, pot luck
> plays a part. The absolutely huge amount of PCBs dumped makes for
> quite a good treasure hunt though and worth the effort

Speaking of dumped boards, I occasionally visit a
local scrapyard that buys obsolete electronics by
the ton. Last time there I got 24v 5A servomotors
in good condition (but faulty encoders) for $3 US
each (worth about $100 US each). But back to the
topic, he used to run all the scrap PC circuit
boards into the furnace, and recover the gold and
other precious metals. Apparently there is $10+
of gold in the average PC motherboard, and he gets
old PCs for a few dollars a ton.

Shame the EPA shut down his furnace, now he just
buys/sells the stuff by the ton and makes a lot
less from it, but the good side for me is that
there are lots of electronics stuff lying around
waiting for the educated eye to scavenge. Recently
I got a Hewlett Packard 15" printer for $25 that
had big dc servomotor/encoder, precision leadscrew
with CERAMIC bearings (ever priced them?), all the
circuit boards were fully gold plated, the large
PSU caps 47,000uF 80v alone are worth about $20,
and there were 3 of them, etc etc.

I know that many of the guys here are professional
engineers with too little time to really go bargain
hunting, but it is a real buzz to buy something for
a few bucks that has hundreds of dollars of top
quality parts in it. I too buy large motors and
stuff new, so I know what this stuff costs.

Back to the scrap circuit boards topic, I have
often wondered about building a granulator, where
instead of using a furnace you MASH the boards to
powder and use vibration/gravity sifting of the
powder to remove the precious metals. Very little
environmental pollution and very high profit,
many govt agencies and the like have to PAY to
have obsolete electronics removed and dumped.
I was told you can get PC monitors for $5 US a
ton, and PCs for about double that.

Any thoughts??
-Roman

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