Very educational. The moral of this story: don’t buy electronic scrap for refining. Hyperinflated prices, laughable yield. Only use that stuff if it was free.
Not really no. There are plenty of lots that are very well priced and there are things that yield better than gold fingers. If you can get it for free then obviously it's best
Thanks for overpaying for the scraps to make the video. It was very educational. The gold looked very pure to my eyes. Better than the 22K gold coins I have. Most videos this long don't hpld my interest but this did. Seeing the acid fumes coming off the beaker reminded me of something that happened to one of my uncles. One of the fume hoods wasn't working and no one told him. When he opened the door and leaned in to get whatever it was out, he inhaled acid fumes that burned his lungs. Other than needing to use an inhaler the rest of his life because of the damage it caused, he seemed alright, but it ended his career in an instant. Acid fumes are no joke.
He's old school. To the point. We need more of this these days. All that foo foo stuff between content is a joke. Sadly we are loosing a generation with the keys.
For those who are wondering if there is still nitric acid in your solution but you don't have a small gold nugget for testing, you can use 24k gold leaf. It's relatively cheap for a book of 10 sheets and is an excellent alternative to a small gold nugget.
Agitation is the key. You need to get the fingers rubbing against themselves to break the foils loose. A single bubbler is too passive. You need an aggressive boil by using a tube with multiple air holes in the bottom with air pressure strong enough to move things around. Letting it just sit is like holding you hands in a sink hoping they come clean. You need to scrub them to get them clean. Your soak would likely have been only a few days not weeks. Also, recharge your acid as the reaction weakens the brew.
You need a portable plating barrel, a 6x12 inch and a rectangular tank that it would just fit in. Then put the scrap into the barrel, lock the lid and put it in the tank with the solution, and turn it on. The barrel rotates at approximately 4.5 RPM's and will scrub the gold foils off, which will go through the perforations in the barrel, and drop to the bottom of the tank. This will drastically reduce the time in the acid solution. If you clean the parts with acetone, the acid will attack them much faster. The whole process should be less than 24 hours.
Or, you can use hot dilute nitric to release the foils in a few hours. Drain off the waste solution (it will be full of base metals) then add AR to dissolve the gold.
@@sreetipsYes you could but if there's any kind of organics on the surface the acid, or any acid for that matter won't remove the foils. After watching you check the parts many times and seeing the same ones each time not done or still looking exactly the way they were when you first put them in the acid solution, there's something blocking the acid from removing the foils. The abrasive action of the parts tumbling will cut through the organics with out using any extra chemicals, or increasing waste. The amount of time you are putting into doing these at the high cost to obtain them, can't possibly be very profitable. Is there anyone doing this on a large scale? I use Atlantic Refining for my scrap gold, silver, copper, and nickel, but they won't even take anything that they have to use any chemicals to process. I own an electro plating business and I've seen many different ways to strip gold. I've been using an orosene electrolytic process that I formulated myself. I hang the parts on a titanium wire, then make them anodic in my solution and the gold dissolves into the solution, while simultaneously plating onto titanium cathodes. Its not pretty but can be easily melted off the titanium. It takes about 2 minutes to strip a part with normal thicknesses, and then just melt with a torch. Then I send it to Atlantic to assay it and then they buy it.
Math skills impressive. But you didn’t have the most important factor: a million views is worth twenty grand. Recalculate and you’ll see it was a big win for everybody. The viewer, the seller of the scrap, and the producer of the video. Everybody wins. And that’s a good thing.
Just when you think that processing trimmed fingers from electronics is a good way to make money, Sreetips goes to great expense to show you it isn’t. Thanks for the videos, sir.
HEAR THE WAY HE'S BREATHING... FROM THE COPPER BRASS BURN OFF WHAT THIS GOLD PROSPECTER . DOING FOR SOME D XTRA Cash .SHORTENING HIS LIFE SPAN. BY ATLEAST 8.12 YEARS.
Loved the vid! Learned a ton! Thank you for showing us how its done even if you lost a bit (you DID tell us these prices of trim were grossly overpriced) so thank you again!
the reaction you are seeing that soon is from the solder on the finger boards. They should have been clipped closer to the edge, or resistors / Lead removed first. The seller should be ashamed of himself selling those boards for that much. It's like taking aluminum cans to the recycler filled with junk to increase the weight.
Love all your Videos I have learn so much from you I appreciate it much. I’ve been .refining 999 FS for a year now and refining gold as well. I’m a retired Disabled combat Army Veteran can no longer work but I finally found a great hobby thanks to you sir. Thanks you Sir I’ll continue watching your Videos. 👍👍👍
Awesome I'm homeless and having trouble getting hired. So I also play music and searching for all kinds of ways to make money, even if it's finding pennies a gain is a gain!
I may have said this before but, in my opinion it would be far easier and less wasteful to blend such "fingers" to dust which will also contain fine gold dust. Mixing that dust with nitric should extract 10 times faster and with far less acid any unwanted metals in my opinion. Nevertheless it was an interesting episode, as always. Too bad the yield dollarwise was much lower than the acquisition price... but it still makes a very entertaining video to watch :)
Even easier is cooking them in an oven which goes up to 400C, then they can be scraped off pretty easily, basically replicate the conditions that normally cause pads to lift from boards when soldering.
Nitric will cause a BIG problem if there's tin anywhere. You'll end up with the dreaded metastannic acid and insoluble tin oxynitrate. ALWAYS at least clean off the fingers with HCl for a day to get rid of the tin.
I use to work in a precious metals scrapyard. We granulated the boards via big industrial granulators. The company built the business up from this basic set up like shown in the video. This was at least 35 years ago. I still have a bag of platinum pips somewhere, I’ve always wondered how much they are worth.
As someone who works in environmental compliance and regulates metal finishers and electroplaters, it's amazing how similar your refining methods are to industrial scale wastewater pretreatment. Same processes on a smaller scale with hobbyist equipment.
Spent $400 on old cards, another $200+ on chemicals, tools, buckets, beakers and supplies, 3 weeks of extraction, got $500 worth of gold. Tha ks for showing the process though, interesting video!
Due to the myth; there a quarter ounce of gold in every scrap PC just waiting for those who can figure out how to get it. The persistence of this myth is astounding.
@@emustorage6769 you missed the first part of the video. it was, 100 + 400 + 500, spent on fingers, which comes out to 1k spent for 629 return at todays price.
He's going to put those bags in his scrap pile, then reduce them down with some HCL and later some piranha solution and suck the .00001g gold from them in another video.
@n n You guys anyway. I was relieved he didn't struggle with trying to open them properly on camera (though doing so, then fast forwarding through would've been fine)
Back in the day my PC broke. So I figured out how to fix it because I couldn't afford to pay someone to fix it. Over the next few years I got really good at it. I started collecting computer parts to fix/upgrade friends and family members computers. I had a huge stock pile of parts. After watching this video I went to see how much I had so I could try this and my wife chucked it. I'm a lot more bummed about it then I should be. lol. You make it look so easy that I want to try it. I don't even really want the gold and I hated science in school. I never would have thought I would spend this much time watching these kinds of videos. Thank you.
Again, I love collaborations! A cross-over vlog with you and Jason, from MBMM, LLC, would be great! He has a video of him running 100s of lbs of this through his crusher and shaker table. It would be interesting to see you two test both of your recovery methods, get an assay, and then maybe add his slag to your stock pots for later... I don't know, just a thought...
@@sreetips I believe his video was more bulk electronics such as entire motherboards. He did one with CPUs as well. I've never seen him do trimmed fingers.
@@taxesdeathandtrouble.1886 I was out of work for a few months because I had pneumonia and had to be on oxygen I was in the dang hospital for 12 days. It sucked I’d fall asleep so much that I couldn’t drive anywhere. I’m straight up grateful to God and glad I’m back to normal. I definitely had some crazy dreams tho.
Great experiment 💛 The bucket with fingers was probably overloaded - dividing the content might have resulted in faster detachment. So, in the U.S. on July 7, that gold button was worth $593.28 (9.6 grams x US$61.80 per gram for 24K gold) Yeah, those fingers were definitely way overpriced. I wonder how the sellers arrived at those prices?
They’re just trying to get as much as they can. If people would look at my videos on this topic and see the yields that I get then they would be less likely to over pay. The sellers would be forced to drop the price if they wanted to sell it. I’ve got some more coming and I’ll repeat this experiment - again. I agree, the bucket was overloaded.
So he paid $1000 for trimmed fingers. He ended up with $600 worth of gold. -$400? Plus, hydrogen peroxide $5. 2 gallons or Hydrochloric $?. Nitic Acid$? other acid? Am I missing something? Oh, labor (love of labor). Amazing and I want to do this, but I can't afford to loose $500-$600 to learn...one day. It is a blessing that he can afford to show us and I will show my students...as well as give him a donation ❤️
I was just doing the math too. I skipped through the video some so I wasn't able to nail down your cost for the fingers but if $1,000.00 is correct and you are yielding $565.00 of gold (10/7/2023 price) then you are $435.00 in the hole not including the cost of the chemicals, equipment, video equipment, computer, video editing software, your labor, etc, etc... However, since your TH-cam channel is monetized (and you are, I have a way of checking through your home page's code), then at best i'm assuming you have earned $ 2,458.00 minus taxes through AdSense based on this video's views as of 10/7/2023. If this figure is correct then was the $ 2,023.00 minus taxes, chemicals, equipment, and your labor worth it? For me, the educational content was priceless, thank you!@@sreetips
That little GOLD button looks so dam Beautiful 😍 I absolutely 💯 love this channel brother..... thank you so much for spending your time teaching us how to do what you do!!!! We all know you don't have to do it but you do anyway! We need more people like you, willing to share your knowledge with us and spending the time to do so!!!!! 🤜🤛
A tip: You can speed up the rinsing of the last remnants of gold foils by putting them in a large plastic detergent bottle, putting the cap on and shaking. You then treat large areas of the fingers at one time. It's also handy to use another cap in which you've drilled some large holes. If you change it after shaking for the closed cap, you can easily pour out the gold particles. In this way you can reuse all the AP without creating too many waste liquids.
This process requires way more time, patience, knowledge, specialized equipment and chemicals than I ever thought it would. Plus at the end, you most likely didn't even break even on the scrap (that final bead is worth about $8500 USD today). Thanks for the video ! 👍
Hey Sreetips! I think you already know , but the "chloride" at Minute 11:22 ff is probably to some part Silverchloride. HCl and H2O2 dissolve silver metal like "fizzy cubes" in water. Also, just as a tip: Bubbling air through the solution is not as effective as stirring. When i did pretty much the same as you did, all the foils came completly off after 3 days of stirring.
Yea , cannot see any reason to spend a month dissolving when you could agitate it in some kind of dough making type machine and lik you said it should all be off in two or three days...
These are also some of my favorite videos of yours Sreetips . I'm happy you got what you were expecting for a yield , and I was wondering if you happen to drill a few small holes in the bubbling tube , would that help the process work any better ? Great content sir . See you soon my friend . Cheers
Thanks for the video. It seems that the "worst" part is releasing the sheets, which in this case takes 3 weeks. In other tutorials I have seen that they put the scraps of the cards directly in HCl + HNO3, and in 2 hours they had it dissolved, with approximately the same yield (about 3 grams per kilogram of scraps). What is the difference between the two methods? could it be that with this abbreviated method that I mentioned the quality is worse?
I’ve tried fingers in Aqua Regia (video posted on my channel) and it made a very dirty solution that resembles used motor oil. I’ve switched to getting the foils released with hot dilute nitric. Get it done in a day.
This is the meat of my hobby, ram and card fingers. I recently acquired about 110 pounds of ram. Use the same process you used here, and I think your AP solution may have gotten saturated. Could be why it seemed to stall. Your yield was right on the money, about 1.5 to 2 grams per pound of trimmed fingers. Keep up the good videos!
@@sreetips I use Board Sort prices to determine what I'll pay. Right now clean fingers are $40 a lb. Whole ram boards are $20 a pound. I the 60 lbs for $325.
I did about 25 lbs this week alone. It's a lot of work brother! Save some of the used ap. Just put some in an empty hcl jug. Next time you need ap for something dump the used ap in with your hcl. No H2O2 needed. It won't hurt a thing. It will kick start the process and save you many days. Get two of the same size buckets. One will slide inside the other. Drill holes in the bottom of the top bucket like you did with the smaller one. It will take less solution to cover the materials and you can just use the handle on the top bucket to rotate the fingers around and drop it back down into the bottom bucket. 1 gallon of hcl will do about 10 lbs of fingers. To me the ap process is like silver. It creates a lottt of waste solution from washing.
@@sreetips Another thing i noticed was it seemed like you didn't have enough air going on there. Though it takes very little air in your waste solutions for cementing and stirring the ap process is different. It thrives and drives on air. The more the better. Air=time. You can get an air stone and use it in solution. It will hold up and not break down. That will give you smaller air bubbles and more surface air for the air to absorb more efficiently.
I know it's maddening to think about doing this, but it seems like a lot of those foils are clinging to the fingers just barely and could be dislodged by some sort of scrubbing/abrasion or pressurized liquid washing...would it be worth it to have a simple electric toothbrush to take to each finger as you sort through them one-by-one? Would it increase your yield/shorten processing time by any significant measure? As always, wonderful work and education Mr. Sreetips. Thank you, sir!
@@prestontucker6171 Yes, but as Sreetips said, he wants to minimise the amout of waiste solution. Some vibration mechanism attached to bucked could help too, I will try that with my fingers... I mean gold fingers... not my fingers... you know...
Muriatic acid is essentially the same as hydrochloric acid, but with some differences in purity and concentration. Muriatic acid is a less pure form of hydrochloric acid, typically used for industrial and household purposes like cleaning masonry or adjusting the pH in swimming pools. It usually contains impurities, which can give it a yellowish color, whereas pure hydrochloric acid is colorless. Both are chemically the same (HCl), but muriatic acid is less concentrated and may have other additives or impurities.
Good looking button. Really appreciate the time and expense you spend to produce these videos. Not much return on the computer fingers (I know you are doing it for the channel ) but as always fascinating and entertaining content. The part where you were using sulphuric to precipitate possible lead gave me an idea for a band name for you. “Three Nines Fine And The Lead Removal”. When will T shirts be available? 🙂
Love your videos about to give this process a try myself. Looks like you got a good yield that last batch of fingers had alot of empty board space on them. That seller definitely padded the weight alot. Thought it might've brought your yield below the 9 grams you expected. Would love to see you do a video on IC chips. Been learning alot from your videos thanks for sharing your knowledge with the community.
They are just different types of gold fingered connection pieces. There was a good mix of older and newer fingers there so the wider fingers are generally thicker gold 👍
Hello Someone else might have suggested this? Use a metal paint stirrer propeller blade turning by a drill motor to agitate the computer pieces in the acid bath….to dislodge the foils….instead of using your fingers one by one?!?!
I love your videos,, I'm just scared of the acids and fumes,, can you recommend a good gas mask for working with these kinds of fumes and acids,, Thanks for all your help,,
Thank you for this highly educational video. . I know it was posted a couple of years ago, but thought it was worth a comment. You have conclusively proved to me , that is not economical to recover gold from computer board connectors on a small scale. I am retired, and my time isn't worth much, but I still can't bring myself to want to acquire all the material to recover the small amount of scrap gold I have.
Excellent, that’s part of the reason I made the video. To dispel the myth: that there’s a half ounce of pure gold in every scrap PC just waiting for those who can figure out how to get it. The persistence of this myth is astonishing.
If you want to get into gold and silver then I’d recommend checking local yard sales and estate sales. Get up early and be there first. And you don’t need to refine the silver and gold. They can be held just like they are. So long as you don’t try to “melt it down” and ruin the markings. Then it’s purity, and therefore its value, becomes questionable.
Wonderfully informative. Off the top of my head…I suspect you lost value when considering the total cost of the fingers, shipping and chemicals. Thank you again Sir. I learn so much from your videos.
You remarked on the dark motor oil color of the used AP solution, and I noticed it was exactly the same color as your Stannous Chloride test indicating gold. is there a possibility there is any Tin under those foils that dissolved in your HCl and made a batch of Stannous Chloride which is binding up some of your gold in that dark solution?
thats a question along the same line as my own, i was thinking the black acid would have gold in solution since the peroxide in HCl was used in another video to refine gold... but now you mention the stannous test and for sure there is tin in the solder and the acid provides the chloride so it makes sense that stannous chloride has formed and dropped some gold as black dust, but most of it went thru the filter, only a little got tipped off the top and not filtered... and the filters went in the AR so only a little bit got lost to the process. The big surprise was how stubborn the fingers were to hold onto the boards...
So $1000 worth of gold plated clip offs yielded a month later about $570 in gold. Also needed several hundred $ in equipment. The muriatic acid fumes and the brown fumes above the nitric acid treatment are quite toxic and the muriatic acid fumes will result in any ferrous metal within 10-20 yds in a closed space rusting solid over weeks.
The problem is that people are paying that price. I know sreetips is doing this for the video, and he will make up the lost revenue with that, but it makes it essentially impossible to refine the fingers for a profit. The sellers are selling for the price they are able to get. A few are paying that price, so it just makes the who process unprofitable.
Wonder if anyone ever tried agitation and friction to help remove the stubborn foils from the fingers after waiting a couple weeks of soaking? Something like a perforated spinning drum to tumble them in to speed up the process. I know it's just an experiment but I'm super impatient with things like that so I can't help but think of ways to make it go faster haha.
I was thinking the same (as I'm sure many others), and I do know that jewelry cleaning machines use ultrasound to vibrate things to clean it. I'm sure Sreetips has a jewelry cleaner but not sure if that would work on this scale.
@@ToniThePerkele - that’s funny. Have you ever watched the Canadian show Red Green? Your poor man’s version sounds like something Red Green would try, along with plenty of duct tape.
Good video. My only suggestion is to make sure your ventilation hood is actually hooked up to an exhaust system. It wasn't readily apparent in the video. Also, last time I checked, there's no respirator cartridge that mitigated nitric acid, so be extra careful around aqua regia even with a respirator. Those fumes cause respiratory damage very quickly. ...and, fwiw, yes, I'm a Chemist. ...in the mining industry. ...specifically the Au, Ag, and Cu mining industry
This is a very informative video but unless I am missing something, the lesson is that one must be VERY careful when extracting gold from electronic scrap that the cost of the scrap is not too high. If I did my math right, 9.6gm of gold is worth about $534 as of 24 July 2022 and you spent $1000 on the scrap and an additional amount on the chemicals which yields a substantial loss.
Getting the foils off always seemed crazy to me. Surely it'd be easier to dissolve away the PCB material and then just filter out the Copper/Gold and process it normally. The common FR4 PCB material is basically an expoxide, so epoxy solvent from home depot might work. Needs some experiments, of course ;)
I think your solution of ap was saturated hence the length of time taken to remove the foil's. Those sellers should be trimming those fingers a lot closer so you probably have had more copper and mlccs ect for the HCl to tackle. Beautiful foils though 😉👍
could you accelerate the gold from boards by using the same baths but have that happening on a shaker table or rolling drum situation where they're forced to bump into each other and loosen up quicker ?
Hey Sreetips! Love your videos! I know the computer scrap thing isn't really your jam because the yields are low. Should you upload another trimmed slot card teeth video there is a faster cheaper way to strip the foils you could try. Maybe do a head to head video and see what way is the most cost effective. High acidity vinegar (I used 7.5% because i couldn't find 10%) sea salt and 3% hydrogen peroxide. I found it worked pretty good. Just an idea for you. Take care man!
So the goal is to dissolve the base metals off of the gold foils. But the gold protects the base metals from being directly exposed to the acid, and the solder mask is doing the same thing and is also not really bothered by the acid since I think it is polyester. I wonder if some physical damage like smashing them with a hammer/grinding the PCB material up in a garbage paper shredder would allow the acid to get at the base metals quicker. Don't think that incineration is the way, the stuff they make PCB with is pretty bad stuff when burned.
Gold protects base metals from oxidation from normal enviroment and is there for better conductivity. Acid finds the way, as there are cuts in base metals, also whe cutting PCBs they bend and crack (I trimm fingers myself). Acid and bubles just need some time, that is all. Boiling could speed the process from weeks to hours, good for few fingers in oone day, but at this scale is patience better way...
I'm just wondering that if at the step where you cut the fingers off, would it be worth smashing them up at that time. You are already doing physical work to trim off the fingers, if the next step after that is to bash them with a mini-sledge hammer in a cotton bag for a minute or two, but it reduces the time in the bubbler--it might be worth it. An extra minute or two now, saves hours later? Sandpaper would also help, but it might introduce grit into the mix.
@@spokehedz You know, you do not have to blow the bubbles by your mouth, or stand there and spin some wheel by hand. Acid works 24/7. Just wait. If you smash the fingers, then you have bunch of small bits of PCB, hard to divide from gold foils. The less small junk, the better. Patience man, patience...
A great video and one that perfectly illustrates why I sopped dealing with these things. lol The amount of time waiting and the volume of waste really bothered me. AP is an effective and cheap option but so slow and wasteful. If I do get any of these to process (typically I'll stockpile them until I have a lot) I usually resort to a nitric soak (in diluted 20-25% nitric acid). It's more expensive but WAY faster and I can recover much of the nitrate salts and produce more nitric later on. What took weeks of sitting for AP is usually done within 24hrs. Cleanup is much easier too as no precipitate forms when washing. For washing I found that putting all the fingers in a bucket with some water, sealing the lid well, and then just shaking the life out of it (roll on the floor too) does a fantastic job of separating all those stubborn foils.
A small trick to cleaning foils off stuff like circuit boards or gold plated "smaller object" - which will reduce the "soak time" in the acid: Get a metal bucket with a metal lid (kinda sturdy). Here there are two versions. one is to just drill a hole, the other is to install a "power transfer thingy" (no clue what they are called in English. It's basically just a thing with a power drill bit (female part) on each end, with a mounting bracket in the middle so you can permanently use a power drill on one side and attach something else on the other side and having it isolated) In both cases you take a "round" toilet cleaning brush (the sturdier quality the better - they will break occasionally though - so don't get a really expensive one 😀) drill a hole into the shaft of the toilet brush, and then add a drill bit to the hole. I'm personally using a bit which is used for making "bores" for bolts in metal plates. It's good because it fastens into the hole really well and binds well when it bottoms out the pre-drilled hole. Now MAKE SURE to rinse off all the acid before doing this. The metal bucket will not be happy if you don't. dump a few handfuls (the more you add the harder it is to get it all and the more stress on the materials) into the metal bucket and put in some clean water. turn the "toilet brush" around though the hole in the lid slowly at first using a power drill with good speed control- and then go for a while at medium speed. Don't go full power since that will put more stress on the brush. This will make you able to get all the gold off much quicker - and it doesn't really make the cleanup that much dirtier.
The first half of the video I was on my way out to start scrapping used electronics,the second half I said screw that 😂.....Cool content regardless..Thanks
Listen i know exactly fuck all about chemistry, and even less about practical solutions for extraction of gold. All I know is, you took a bucket full of pcb, and through intelligence and diligence, "turned it into" a fat lil gorgeous nugget of gold. And that, is super fuckin cool to my little pleeb brain.
Thank you for making this video for us to view, looks like it took a lot of time and resources! What if you powdered the circuit board fingers by crushing or grinding? Maybe using a simple stamp mill. I think physically separating them into a powder would be superior to relying on acid alone. It would also decrease the volume of acid needed to cover the material. You could then agitate it and extract it using cyanidation and it would cost far less per run, but maybe more for equipment.
Depends how you measure "break even". The gold won't pay for the fingers but the views of the video just might. Sreetips is demonstrating a modified process and many viewers will find it interesting. Income from the video may be enough to cover the overpriced fingers.
@@roberthayward9299 exactly. Plus knowing Kevin he's also getting enjoyment out it too and there's a ton of value in that. I don't think it's ever been about the money. Just the joy of doing it and spreading the knowledge 👍
Just looking at this intriguing video on gold recovery. Would not ever contemplate doing this on a small scale due to the cost of procurement, the chemicals and time that is required to get that small amount.
What would happen if you just add the nirtric acid to the 5 gallon bucket of hydrogen peroxide and Hcl, along with the circuitborad finngers, and just dissolve into solution on the first day?
The foils would probably dissolve and make a dirty mess. I did use hot dilute nitric in a later video (no peroxide or HCl) to left the foils off in a single day.
That's about .33oz of gold. Today around $600 but not a year ago. Seems like too much work for the reward. Assuming you have more to start then a higher return. I have about 50lbs that need this process but not sure if I should take this endeavor.
Could you put a large spoon with holes in it into the foil bucket with holes in the bottom and stir the mixture to help shake off any loose gold from the boards? If so, what would the spoon have to be made of or not be made of? Wouldn't agitating the boards by swirling the mixture around when it's opened each time be a bit more efficient? Just a friendly question.
Good question. Yes, agitation would help. But I recently switched to using hot dilute nitric to dissolve the base metals and remove the foils in a single day.
@sreetips really?? That's huge. If you can just find the circuit board pieces at a better price. With the price of gold today.. thanks for replying to your comments. Not everyone engages like that.
Haha.. sure looked better while it was in leaf fragments. All that surface area made it look like a lot more than the little solid button. Very informative and fun to watch. Thank you.
Wonder if grinding the computer pieces up wpuld work better. Its what I would do when making my honey oil back in the day makes the chemicals get through the smaller pieces either. Id be curious to know if you kept all your fingers from past projects and seen if you couldn't get more Gold out of them by grinding them up to see how much you missed...
Any particular reason you're not using nitric acid? If it's mostly copper that copper would be gone in a few hours. I guess I am unsure how easy it is to get nitric for regular people and the cost. All I know is a tote of 70% nitric is only slightly more expenlsive than HCl or sulfuric.
At the start you had 2909g of trimmed fingers. What was the weight of the waste plastic circuit board after spending time in the acid? That would give an accurate gold to scrap metal content. As opposed to gold to “total scrap” content.
Just a thought.. but couldnt this process have been greatly sped up if instead of just "sitting" idle in a bucket the chips were instead in a slow tumbler? Just as washing machine needs agitation to remove dirt/stains, or a rock tumbler needs rotation to polish stones I think this would speed the process of the gold coming loose to a matter of days?
@@sreetips Dilute nitric? would that increase the cost over regular Muriatic acid? As a brick layer I have unlimited access to muriatic acid since its used to clean brick. lol. Also would you know how much gold is contained in an Iphone? I have a drawer with at least 7 old ones as well as an Ipad that are useless.
Fascinating video. How about sealing the acid bucket and rotating it on a motorized pair of rollers or other contraption and turning it into a tumbler? Seems some mechanical abrasion might save you a lot of time?
I appreciate everything in context and the beautiful display of the hard workmanship that you put into retrieving the yield at 9.6 g of gold but even at the best price today it's $65 at best for 1 g of gold at $624 give or take for that yield I say strips and chemicals alone You didn't even make your money back not even to break even so you have to have a love and some pretty strong lungs to absorb the ramifications for the long haul in the end game. Either way you have my respect love and appreciation for teaching someone such complicated and 100% working methods God bless you and keep up the good work May your beautiful work give you a lifetime of happiness Happy New Year my friend😊
@@sreetips I didn't mean it to be disrespectful as a loss I was just pointing out that it was a wonderful video but you can't do this unless you have a love for the chemistry and not just chasing the yield because the beauty of it is the work and utilizing chemistry which is the key to everything metals or not and that is the beauty of it which makes it priceless so I agree
No disrespect. Most people view it as a loss because they want to buy it low, recovery the metal and immediately resell for more than was paid for a “profit.” But I don’t work for paper. I work for gold (and silver). I would have paid more for this scrap. The ad revenue for this video is up over sixteen grand, which I quickly convert to more gold and silver. Plus, I get to keep the gold. I hate to reveal this because it sounds like bragging. So in the end, you get to see the process, and how much this type of scrap actually yields. I get paid for my work. Everybody wins. And that’s a good thing.
Why would you wear your gold watch while processing acid? During the boiling with Sulfuric and Nitric acid, is that the sulfur gas coming off yellow? What was the investment in supplies consumed too?
I’d love to see a waste disposal video. I have seen a few by NileRed, they were interesting. Your experiments are far more specific (metal refining) and you aren’t in a big fancy lab. So curious how you handle it.
great video. I'm new to this and trying to learn so I have a few questions. what percent concentration of sulfuric acid and nitric acid did you use? also do you have a video on waste treatment?
couldn't you capture the silver from the soldering on the bottom of those boards also hence a double yield of precious metals? both have different melting points but idk how or what to use to separate gold out & silver out assuming at different stages of the acid reactions ? that would be cool to see that processtoo
I have been a viewer of yours for years now and I just ran my first escrap over the weekend i used this upload as a guide and without fail it got me the results I wanted once again thank you sree for the knowledge it truly is priceless and my urban mining/home refining couldn’t be possible without videos you creat u got me into this addictive hobby lol and I am grateful for it sure so from me to you thank you for what you do may u make these videos for years and years to come
Can we start at the beginning? Where and what are the " fingers"?Can you please elaborate about the air hose? Can a fish Aquarian filter be used? Thanx
Inside of a computer there are circuit cards that fit into slots inside the computer. The circuit cards have an edge that makes contact with the slot. To ensure proper contact with no corrosion, they have thin gold coating at the connection points. These fingers are the cut-off strips from computer circuit cards. They are some of the richest, highest yielding, computer scrap that there is. I use an aquarium bubbler that I got at the thrift store to bubble air. This helps to dissolve and release the foils from the fiber board. But I’ve quit doing it with acid/peroxide. I’ve switched to hot dilute nitric to dissolve the base metals under the gold foils to release them. Hot nitric takes only a day.
Dude I've watched a few of your videos over the years & I must say that when I do fingers & boards I usually do a 50/50 mix of the muriatic acid & 3% hydrogen peroxide & after about 8 hours most of the gold has already released & that's without using a pump for agetation just bc I didn't take the time to set it up bc I often get excited & want to get rolling. As for the stubborn ones I leave them overnight but to wait for twenty some days, you got some patience. If you think there is error in my mix ratio let me know. I learned it years ago & don't recall from where or whom but it works good.
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Very educational. The moral of this story: don’t buy electronic scrap for refining. Hyperinflated prices, laughable yield. Only use that stuff if it was free.
Not really no.
There are plenty of lots that are very well priced and there are things that yield better than gold fingers.
If you can get it for free then obviously it's best
This batch may have been a little financial ding, but the knowledge is priceless and eternal
@proVShowI think what he meant is not for the sreetips but tips for the others mate ✌️
Around $750 in value that 9g today 9/16/2024
@LifeAsDane nice!
Thanks for overpaying for the scraps to make the video. It was very educational. The gold looked very pure to my eyes. Better than the 22K gold coins I have. Most videos this long don't hpld my interest but this did. Seeing the acid fumes coming off the beaker reminded me of something that happened to one of my uncles. One of the fume hoods wasn't working and no one told him. When he opened the door and leaned in to get whatever it was out, he inhaled acid fumes that burned his lungs. Other than needing to use an inhaler the rest of his life because of the damage it caused, he seemed alright, but it ended his career in an instant. Acid fumes are no joke.
I like your editing style. Not fancy, not showing off. But, effective, patient, relaxed. I like. :)
He's old school. To the point. We need more of this these days. All that foo foo stuff between content is a joke. Sadly we are loosing a generation with the keys.
For those who are wondering if there is still nitric acid in your solution but you don't have a small gold nugget for testing, you can use 24k gold leaf. It's relatively cheap for a book of 10 sheets and is an excellent alternative to a small gold nugget.
Nice idea
Very Dangerous work🇺🇸
Agitation is the key. You need to get the fingers rubbing against themselves to break the foils loose. A single bubbler is too passive. You need an aggressive boil by using a tube with multiple air holes in the bottom with air pressure strong enough to move things around. Letting it just sit is like holding you hands in a sink hoping they come clean. You need to scrub them to get them clean. Your soak would likely have been only a few days not weeks. Also, recharge your acid as the reaction weakens the brew.
You need a portable plating barrel, a 6x12 inch and a rectangular tank that it would just fit in. Then put the scrap into the barrel, lock the lid and put it in the tank with the solution, and turn it on. The barrel rotates at approximately 4.5 RPM's and will scrub the gold foils off, which will go through the perforations in the barrel, and drop to the bottom of the tank. This will drastically reduce the time in the acid solution. If you clean the parts with acetone, the acid will attack them much faster. The whole process should be less than 24 hours.
Or, you can use hot dilute nitric to release the foils in a few hours. Drain off the waste solution (it will be full of base metals) then add AR to dissolve the gold.
@@sreetipsYes you could but if there's any kind of organics on the surface the acid, or any acid for that matter won't remove the foils. After watching you check the parts many times and seeing the same ones each time not done or still looking exactly the way they were when you first put them in the acid solution, there's something blocking the acid from removing the foils. The abrasive action of the parts tumbling will cut through the organics with out using any extra chemicals, or increasing waste. The amount of time you are putting into doing these at the high cost to obtain them, can't possibly be very profitable. Is there anyone doing this on a large scale? I use Atlantic Refining for my scrap gold, silver, copper, and nickel, but they won't even take anything that they have to use any chemicals to process. I own an electro plating business and I've seen many different ways to strip gold. I've been using an orosene electrolytic process that I formulated myself. I hang the parts on a titanium wire, then make them anodic in my solution and the gold dissolves into the solution, while simultaneously plating onto titanium cathodes. Its not pretty but can be easily melted off the titanium. It takes about 2 minutes to strip a part with normal thicknesses, and then just melt with a torch. Then I send it to Atlantic to assay it and then they buy it.
I am a wiz at math, I believe that you lost your rear-end on this batch .but maybe better luck next time.
Math skills impressive. But you didn’t have the most important factor: a million views is worth twenty grand. Recalculate and you’ll see it was a big win for everybody. The viewer, the seller of the scrap, and the producer of the video. Everybody wins. And that’s a good thing.
No computers were harmed in the making of this video... They were already dead.
Your efforts were more gold than the gold at the end of the video, thanks for this instructive video
Just when you think that processing trimmed fingers from electronics is a good way to make money, Sreetips goes to great expense to show you it isn’t. Thanks for the videos, sir.
I was thinking the same thing, spent $1000 plus Chemicals to get at Best $700 in gold??
And I'm sure he's being environmentally responsible come time to dispose of hazardous waste.
Using and agitator helps. Like a massage gun pressed onto the side of the bucket from time to time
Well do the math 2.300 plus. Profit 1.300.........foe shoo.
HEAR THE WAY HE'S BREATHING... FROM THE COPPER BRASS BURN OFF WHAT THIS GOLD PROSPECTER . DOING FOR SOME D XTRA Cash .SHORTENING HIS LIFE SPAN. BY ATLEAST 8.12 YEARS.
Loved the vid! Learned a ton! Thank you for showing us how its done even if you lost a bit (you DID tell us these prices of trim were grossly overpriced) so thank you again!
the reaction you are seeing that soon is from the solder on the finger boards. They should have been clipped closer to the edge, or resistors / Lead removed first. The seller should be ashamed of himself selling those boards for that much. It's like taking aluminum cans to the recycler filled with junk to increase the weight.
you know that famous saying "a sucker is born every minute."
@@Alex-kp3hr Sreetips was born, re-born and re-born etc....
Give him a pass.
P.T. Barnum
Love all your Videos I have learn so much from you I appreciate it much. I’ve been .refining 999 FS for a year now and refining gold as well. I’m a retired Disabled combat Army Veteran can no longer work but I finally found a great hobby thanks to you sir. Thanks you Sir I’ll continue watching your Videos. 👍👍👍
Awesome I'm homeless and having trouble getting hired. So I also play music and searching for all kinds of ways to make money, even if it's finding pennies a gain is a gain!
You have done a great job simplify this. Thanks. I've been collecting foils for 6 years. Can't wait to try this
I may have said this before but, in my opinion it would be far easier and less wasteful to blend such "fingers" to dust which will also contain fine gold dust. Mixing that dust with nitric should extract 10 times faster and with far less acid any unwanted metals in my opinion. Nevertheless it was an interesting episode, as always. Too bad the yield dollarwise was much lower than the acquisition price... but it still makes a very entertaining video to watch :)
He makes up for it through ad revenue
I was thinking the exact same thing
Even easier is cooking them in an oven which goes up to 400C, then they can be scraped off pretty easily, basically replicate the conditions that normally cause pads to lift from boards when soldering.
The dust is a fairly dangerous mess, i'd rather have the plastic turned to fuel, then metals extracted from the pcbs.
Nitric will cause a BIG problem if there's tin anywhere. You'll end up with the dreaded metastannic acid and insoluble tin oxynitrate.
ALWAYS at least clean off the fingers with HCl for a day to get rid of the tin.
You were right on with projected yield I think you did a smarter more practical approach then previous fingerboard video, what a button
Oh man. That's quite a journey. It's take lots of patience for the precious metal. And you did it. Best of health & good luck.
I use to work in a precious metals scrapyard. We granulated the boards via big industrial granulators. The company built the business up from this basic set up like shown in the video. This was at least 35 years ago. I still have a bag of platinum pips somewhere, I’ve always wondered how much they are worth.
Theybare worth hundŕeds of thousands
@@justingallant8558 I better find them and decide what’s the best way to get the platinum off the pips. Thanks for the reply.
@@justingallant8558 haha hundreds of thousands huh
Why do you think our Catalytic converter’s are being stolen right and left, lol
@@danevertt3210 u unedumacated boy?
As someone who works in environmental compliance and regulates metal finishers and electroplaters, it's amazing how similar your refining methods are to industrial scale wastewater pretreatment. Same processes on a smaller scale with hobbyist equipment.
Spent $400 on old cards, another $200+ on chemicals, tools, buckets, beakers and supplies, 3 weeks of extraction, got $500 worth of gold. Tha ks for showing the process though, interesting video!
Do you do anything to fumigate or do you just let the fumes go into the atmosphere? Idk if it would make the air unhealthy?
How can sellers be selling 233 grams for 40.00 on ebay?
Due to the myth; there a quarter ounce of gold in every scrap PC just waiting for those who can figure out how to get it. The persistence of this myth is astounding.
@@emustorage6769 you missed the first part of the video. it was, 100 + 400 + 500, spent on fingers, which comes out to 1k spent for 629 return at todays price.
The ultimate alchemist. Respect for your efforts and patience.
I like how the fingers are in ziplock bags but he just is like f these bags and slices them open
He's going to put those bags in his scrap pile, then reduce them down with some HCL and later some piranha solution and suck the .00001g gold from them in another video.
@n n You guys anyway. I was relieved he didn't struggle with trying to open them properly on camera (though doing so, then fast forwarding through would've been fine)
He was like " f these zip bags" it was pretty gangster
These are exothermic reactions. Fast reaction can be a problem. I know, I know. Who cares if it explodes. So much must first be removed before a
Kinda' confusing, seeing as how the video is about Recycling gold from old chips.
Ironic.
Man, the lengths you goto and efforts you make to keep us fans and viewers entertained and educated is MUCH appreciated!
Thank you, Senior Chief! 👊👊👍👍
How many computers does it take to get that amount of gold?
@@josephgarcia676 hundreds if not thousands
Not very profitable though!
I have no idea what I just watched, BUT I could not stop watching... This was, if nothing else, very entertaining and you gained me as a subscriber.
Welcome, thank you!
Back in the day my PC broke. So I figured out how to fix it because I couldn't afford to pay someone to fix it. Over the next few years I got really good at it. I started collecting computer parts to fix/upgrade friends and family members computers. I had a huge stock pile of parts. After watching this video I went to see how much I had so I could try this and my wife chucked it. I'm a lot more bummed about it then I should be. lol. You make it look so easy that I want to try it. I don't even really want the gold and I hated science in school. I never would have thought I would spend this much time watching these kinds of videos. Thank you.
STUPID WIFE!
women...
You have to throw away some stuff that means something to her to make things even. Tell that broad to leave your stuff alone.
SOUNDS LIKE...
YOU GOT TERRIBLE !
communication skills.
No Common Sense.
And A LOT OF
Broken Dreams...
Don't Blame The Wife.
That's why I don't mind my workshop looking like a bomb site. It deters her from coming in and poking around.
That was quite a journey. Thank you for showing us all the steps together in 1 video. That was a lot of work, very fun to watch!
This dude is a menace slicing the bags like that
Again, I love collaborations! A cross-over vlog with you and Jason, from MBMM, LLC, would be great! He has a video of him running 100s of lbs of this through his crusher and shaker table. It would be interesting to see you two test both of your recovery methods, get an assay, and then maybe add his slag to your stock pots for later... I don't know, just a thought...
He has a video on trimmed fingers? I didn’t know that.
@@sreetips I believe his video was more bulk electronics such as entire motherboards. He did one with CPUs as well. I've never seen him do trimmed fingers.
They certainly do approach their respective refining methods quite differently
@@themakerken3453 I'm not going to say that Jason doesn't know his onions but I'd like to see Sreetips have a go at Jasons slag.
What’s the name of this Jason guys channel?
I like this channel!
It’s so intriguing to me that I actually had a dream about pulling gold out of old iPhones. I’m not even joking
@@taxesdeathandtrouble.1886 I’m good lol
@@taxesdeathandtrouble.1886 I was out of work for a few months because I had pneumonia and had to be on oxygen I was in the dang hospital for 12 days. It sucked I’d fall asleep so much that I couldn’t drive anywhere.
I’m straight up grateful to God and glad I’m back to normal. I definitely had some crazy dreams tho.
Thank you Taxes:) fr
I think that is why you see used phones and diabetic test strips purchased.
Great experiment 💛
The bucket with fingers was probably overloaded - dividing the content might have resulted in faster detachment.
So, in the U.S. on July 7, that gold button was worth $593.28
(9.6 grams x US$61.80 per gram for 24K gold)
Yeah, those fingers were definitely way overpriced. I wonder how the sellers arrived at those prices?
They’re just trying to get as much as they can. If people would look at my videos on this topic and see the yields that I get then they would be less likely to over pay. The sellers would be forced to drop the price if they wanted to sell it. I’ve got some more coming and I’ll repeat this experiment - again. I agree, the bucket was overloaded.
So he paid $1000 for trimmed fingers. He ended up with $600 worth of gold. -$400? Plus, hydrogen peroxide $5. 2 gallons or Hydrochloric $?. Nitic Acid$? other acid? Am I missing something? Oh, labor (love of labor). Amazing and I want to do this, but I can't afford to loose $500-$600 to learn...one day. It is a blessing that he can afford to show us and I will show my students...as well as give him a donation ❤️
Here’s what’s missing: the value is in the video, not in the gold that I recovered. That was just a bonus.
I was just doing the math too. I skipped through the video some so I wasn't able to nail down your cost for the fingers but if $1,000.00 is correct and you are yielding $565.00 of gold (10/7/2023 price) then you are $435.00 in the hole not including the cost of the chemicals, equipment, video equipment, computer, video editing software, your labor, etc, etc... However, since your TH-cam channel is monetized (and you are, I have a way of checking through your home page's code), then at best i'm assuming you have earned $ 2,458.00 minus taxes through AdSense based on this video's views as of 10/7/2023. If this figure is correct then was the $ 2,023.00 minus taxes, chemicals, equipment, and your labor worth it? For me, the educational content was priceless, thank you!@@sreetips
@@sreetips The moment you mentioned the expected recovery it was quite clear you weren't looking to turn a profit.
That little GOLD button looks so dam Beautiful 😍
I absolutely 💯 love this channel brother..... thank you so much for spending your time teaching us how to do what you do!!!! We all know you don't have to do it but you do anyway!
We need more people like you, willing to share your knowledge with us and spending the time to do so!!!!! 🤜🤛
Ha ha you could really hear Sreetips go all "my preciousss" once the gold came out! :)
Oh, yes! That's the prettiest little button. I'd love to have it as a ring. It would fit so nice above a wide gold band. (sigh)
A tip: You can speed up the rinsing of the last remnants of gold foils by putting them in a large plastic detergent bottle, putting the cap on and shaking. You then treat large areas of the fingers at one time.
It's also handy to use another cap in which you've drilled some large holes. If you change it after shaking for the closed cap, you can easily pour out the gold particles. In this way you can reuse all the AP without creating too many waste liquids.
A tight lid on the bucket and shake sounds like the simplest solution.
@@sreetips Your right. Even better!
This process requires way more time, patience, knowledge, specialized equipment and chemicals than I ever thought it would. Plus at the end, you most likely didn't even break even on the scrap (that final bead is worth about $8500 USD today). Thanks for the video ! 👍
Hey Sreetips! I think you already know , but the "chloride" at Minute 11:22 ff is probably to some part Silverchloride. HCl and H2O2 dissolve silver metal like "fizzy cubes" in water. Also, just as a tip: Bubbling air through the solution is not as effective as stirring. When i did pretty much the same as you did, all the foils came completly off after 3 days of stirring.
I notice the chlorinated tap water produced that precipitate. After sitting, and the chlorine was gone, no more precipitated formed.
How effective would it be to put the bucket on a vibrating plate and just vibrate the mix for who knows how long?
@@byrdmania4895 I was thinking the same thing. Fill a bucket and hook it to a paint shaker 😆
Yea , cannot see any reason to spend a month dissolving when you could agitate it in some kind of dough making type machine and lik you said it should all be off in two or three days...
These are also some of my favorite videos of yours Sreetips . I'm happy you got what you were expecting for a yield , and I was wondering if you happen to drill a few small holes in the bubbling tube , would that help the process work any better ? Great content sir . See you soon my friend . Cheers
Would find the path of least resistance
Nope, the air would just go through the highest holes
Thanks for the video. It seems that the "worst" part is releasing the sheets, which in this case takes 3 weeks. In other tutorials I have seen that they put the scraps of the cards directly in HCl + HNO3, and in 2 hours they had it dissolved, with approximately the same yield (about 3 grams per kilogram of scraps). What is the difference between the two methods? could it be that with this abbreviated method that I mentioned the quality is worse?
I’ve tried fingers in Aqua Regia (video posted on my channel) and it made a very dirty solution that resembles used motor oil. I’ve switched to getting the foils released with hot dilute nitric. Get it done in a day.
@@sreetips❤
Great educational tutorial. The gold is back to the way it should be and it’s all yours! Thank you Sir! 👍👍
You're right they are I find his videos so soothing relaxing and entertaining
This is the meat of my hobby, ram and card fingers. I recently acquired about 110 pounds of ram. Use the same process you used here, and I think your AP solution may have gotten saturated. Could be why it seemed to stall. Your yield was right on the money, about 1.5 to 2 grams per pound of trimmed fingers. Keep up the good videos!
The four pound bag was a total rip-off. They were the tiny gold foils with extra fiber board.
@@sreetips I use Board Sort prices to determine what I'll pay. Right now clean fingers are $40 a lb. Whole ram boards are $20 a pound. I the 60 lbs for $325.
They are getting hard to find in large groups.
Dude I have a lot of gold from a huge server
Watching your videos are like watching a mystery. I can hardly wait for the finale. Video was long but not boring. 🐎✌️
I did about 25 lbs this week alone. It's a lot of work brother! Save some of the used ap. Just put some in an empty hcl jug. Next time you need ap for something dump the used ap in with your hcl. No H2O2 needed. It won't hurt a thing. It will kick start the process and save you many days. Get two of the same size buckets. One will slide inside the other. Drill holes in the bottom of the top bucket like you did with the smaller one. It will take less solution to cover the materials and you can just use the handle on the top bucket to rotate the fingers around and drop it back down into the bottom bucket. 1 gallon of hcl will do about 10 lbs of fingers. To me the ap process is like silver. It creates a lottt of waste solution from washing.
That’s a good one. Thank you
Yes it's like adding a bit of burnt copper wire into fresh HCl to kick-start the solution 👍
@@sreetips Another thing i noticed was it seemed like you didn't have enough air going on there. Though it takes very little air in your waste solutions for cementing and stirring the ap process is different. It thrives and drives on air. The more the better. Air=time. You can get an air stone and use it in solution. It will hold up and not break down. That will give you smaller air bubbles and more surface air for the air to absorb more efficiently.
I’ll do it!
I know it's maddening to think about doing this, but it seems like a lot of those foils are clinging to the fingers just barely and could be dislodged by some sort of scrubbing/abrasion or pressurized liquid washing...would it be worth it to have a simple electric toothbrush to take to each finger as you sort through them one-by-one? Would it increase your yield/shorten processing time by any significant measure?
As always, wonderful work and education Mr. Sreetips. Thank you, sir!
Another option might be to use a product called a "waterpik", which is normally used as an alternative to dental floss.
@@prestontucker6171 Yes, but as Sreetips said, he wants to minimise the amout of waiste solution. Some vibration mechanism attached to bucked could help too, I will try that with my fingers... I mean gold fingers... not my fingers... you know...
Maybe something like this?
th-cam.com/video/82HSuyH2iX8/w-d-xo.html
My thought was putting the acid solution bucket into a concrete mixer so the fingers tumble themselves
A viewer recommended a tight lid and shake the bucket with the A/P and fingers inside.
Muriatic acid is essentially the same as hydrochloric acid, but with some differences in purity and concentration. Muriatic acid is a less pure form of hydrochloric acid, typically used for industrial and household purposes like cleaning masonry or adjusting the pH in swimming pools. It usually contains impurities, which can give it a yellowish color, whereas pure hydrochloric acid is colorless. Both are chemically the same (HCl), but muriatic acid is less concentrated and may have other additives or impurities.
Good looking button. Really appreciate the time and expense you spend to produce these videos. Not much return on the computer fingers (I know you are doing it for the channel ) but as always fascinating and entertaining content. The part where you were using sulphuric to precipitate possible lead gave me an idea for a band name for you. “Three Nines Fine And The Lead Removal”. When will T shirts be available? 🙂
Dead head who likes a good colt?
Love your videos about to give this process a try myself. Looks like you got a good yield that last batch of fingers had alot of empty board space on them. That seller definitely padded the weight alot. Thought it might've brought your yield below the 9 grams you expected. Would love to see you do a video on IC chips. Been learning alot from your videos thanks for sharing your knowledge with the community.
They are just different types of gold fingered connection pieces.
There was a good mix of older and newer fingers there so the wider fingers are generally thicker gold 👍
Hello
Someone else might have suggested this?
Use a metal paint stirrer propeller blade turning by a drill motor to agitate the computer pieces in the acid bath….to dislodge the foils….instead of using your fingers one by one?!?!
I love your videos,, I'm just scared of the acids and fumes,, can you recommend a good gas mask for working with these kinds of fumes and acids,,
Thanks for all your help,,
Yes,
No gas mask, must have a fume hood.
Thank you for this highly educational video. . I know it was posted a couple of years ago, but thought it was worth a comment. You have conclusively proved to me , that is not economical to recover gold from computer board connectors on a small scale. I am retired, and my time isn't worth much, but I still can't bring myself to want to acquire all the material to recover the small amount of scrap gold I have.
Excellent, that’s part of the reason I made the video. To dispel the myth: that there’s a half ounce of pure gold in every scrap PC just waiting for those who can figure out how to get it. The persistence of this myth is astonishing.
If you want to get into gold and silver then I’d recommend checking local yard sales and estate sales. Get up early and be there first. And you don’t need to refine the silver and gold. They can be held just like they are. So long as you don’t try to “melt it down” and ruin the markings. Then it’s purity, and therefore its value, becomes questionable.
@@sreetips Thanks for the information.
Wonderfully informative. Off the top of my head…I suspect you lost value when considering the total cost of the fingers, shipping and chemicals.
Thank you again Sir. I learn so much from your videos.
You can buy 10 grams of gold for far less than what he spent on the fingers and chemicals
You remarked on the dark motor oil color of the used AP solution, and I noticed it was exactly the same color as your Stannous Chloride test indicating gold. is there a possibility there is any Tin under those foils that dissolved in your HCl and made a batch of Stannous Chloride which is binding up some of your gold in that dark solution?
thats a question along the same line as my own, i was thinking the black acid would have gold in solution since the peroxide in HCl was used in another video to refine gold... but now you mention the stannous test and for sure there is tin in the solder and the acid provides the chloride so it makes sense that stannous chloride has formed and dropped some gold as black dust, but most of it went thru the filter, only a little got tipped off the top and not filtered... and the filters went in the AR so only a little bit got lost to the process. The big surprise was how stubborn the fingers were to hold onto the boards...
@@m3sca1 I am sure some of the gold went into solution, it is correct to use car battery electrolyte instead of HCL ..
@@hugglv8090 "car battery electrolyte" is just sulfuric acid and deionised water. It won't work
@@scrappydoo7887 works great with H2O2
@@hugglv8090 that's because you are making piranha solutions. It's extremely dangerous and not fit for this purpose
So $1000 worth of gold plated clip offs yielded a month later about $570 in gold. Also needed several hundred $ in equipment. The muriatic acid fumes and the brown fumes above the nitric acid treatment are quite toxic and the muriatic acid fumes will result in any ferrous metal within 10-20 yds in a closed space rusting solid over weeks.
Yup, getting pure gold, from any source, is never quick, easy, or cheap.
I’m shocked at how much they charge for the circuit board fingers! I enjoyed watching this refining process.
The problem is that people are paying that price. I know sreetips is doing this for the video, and he will make up the lost revenue with that, but it makes it essentially impossible to refine the fingers for a profit. The sellers are selling for the price they are able to get. A few are paying that price, so it just makes the who process unprofitable.
Well, at least folks have a place to check before spending their hard-earned fake paper dollars on the over-priced scrap.
@@sreetips true true. I appreciate the work you do. Have you thought about setting up a patreon page?
No
Wonder if anyone ever tried agitation and friction to help remove the stubborn foils from the fingers after waiting a couple weeks of soaking? Something like a perforated spinning drum to tumble them in to speed up the process. I know it's just an experiment but I'm super impatient with things like that so I can't help but think of ways to make it go faster haha.
I was thinking the same (as I'm sure many others), and I do know that jewelry cleaning machines use ultrasound to vibrate things to clean it. I'm sure Sreetips has a jewelry cleaner but not sure if that would work on this scale.
poormans version would be woodsander with bungee cords outside the bucket..
A gold recovery washing machine :D
@@ToniThePerkele - that’s funny. Have you ever watched the Canadian show Red Green? Your poor man’s version sounds like something Red Green would try, along with plenty of duct tape.
Exactly what I was thinking. A tumbler would make short work out of this
Good video.
My only suggestion is to make sure your ventilation hood is actually hooked up to an exhaust system. It wasn't readily apparent in the video. Also, last time I checked, there's no respirator cartridge that mitigated nitric acid, so be extra careful around aqua regia even with a respirator. Those fumes cause respiratory damage very quickly.
...and, fwiw, yes, I'm a Chemist.
...in the mining industry.
...specifically the Au, Ag, and Cu mining industry
This is a very informative video but unless I am missing something, the lesson is that one must be VERY careful when extracting gold from electronic scrap that the cost of the scrap is not too high. If I did my math right, 9.6gm of gold is worth about $534 as of 24 July 2022 and you spent $1000 on the scrap and an additional amount on the chemicals which yields a substantial loss.
Now you know the truth about how much this scrap will yield and how much it’s actually really worth.
You know man, that you're an incredibly patient person!
Respect 👍
Getting the foils off always seemed crazy to me.
Surely it'd be easier to dissolve away the PCB material and then just filter out the Copper/Gold and process it normally.
The common FR4 PCB material is basically an expoxide, so epoxy solvent from home depot might work.
Needs some experiments, of course ;)
Ouch! The beautiful vintage Blue Cornflower Corningware used under the beakers. It hurts to see them used that way.
There are very tough. You can get them to glow red.
Agreed - they are extremely tough!
You can find those at every garage sale.
They are abundant at local sales.
I think your solution of ap was saturated hence the length of time taken to remove the foil's.
Those sellers should be trimming those fingers a lot closer so you probably have had more copper and mlccs ect for the HCl to tackle.
Beautiful foils though 😉👍
Yes, I think so too, just some water could speed the process...
could you accelerate the gold from boards by using the same baths but have that happening on a shaker table or rolling drum situation where they're forced to bump into each other and loosen up quicker ?
Agitation would help
Hey Sreetips! Love your videos! I know the computer scrap thing isn't really your jam because the yields are low. Should you upload another trimmed slot card teeth video there is a faster cheaper way to strip the foils you could try. Maybe do a head to head video and see what way is the most cost effective. High acidity vinegar (I used 7.5% because i couldn't find 10%) sea salt and 3% hydrogen peroxide. I found it worked pretty good. Just an idea for you.
Take care man!
I did a video on fingers using salt and vinegar a long time ago. It’s posted on my channel.
Add more h2o2 and it will work harder. 3 week? Also put bucket on a shaker table. { I use 25% and wet the well trimmed fingers, then into HCl}
So the goal is to dissolve the base metals off of the gold foils. But the gold protects the base metals from being directly exposed to the acid, and the solder mask is doing the same thing and is also not really bothered by the acid since I think it is polyester. I wonder if some physical damage like smashing them with a hammer/grinding the PCB material up in a garbage paper shredder would allow the acid to get at the base metals quicker. Don't think that incineration is the way, the stuff they make PCB with is pretty bad stuff when burned.
Gold protects base metals from oxidation from normal enviroment and is there for better conductivity. Acid finds the way, as there are cuts in base metals, also whe cutting PCBs they bend and crack (I trimm fingers myself). Acid and bubles just need some time, that is all. Boiling could speed the process from weeks to hours, good for few fingers in oone day, but at this scale is patience better way...
I'm just wondering that if at the step where you cut the fingers off, would it be worth smashing them up at that time. You are already doing physical work to trim off the fingers, if the next step after that is to bash them with a mini-sledge hammer in a cotton bag for a minute or two, but it reduces the time in the bubbler--it might be worth it. An extra minute or two now, saves hours later? Sandpaper would also help, but it might introduce grit into the mix.
@@spokehedz You know, you do not have to blow the bubbles by your mouth, or stand there and spin some wheel by hand. Acid works 24/7. Just wait. If you smash the fingers, then you have bunch of small bits of PCB, hard to divide from gold foils. The less small junk, the better. Patience man, patience...
Might I suggest some sort of tumbler like a rock tumbler or concrete mixer. Would shorten the leaf removal dramatically.
Agitation is the key
A great video and one that perfectly illustrates why I sopped dealing with these things. lol
The amount of time waiting and the volume of waste really bothered me. AP is an effective and cheap option but so slow and wasteful. If I do get any of these to process (typically I'll stockpile them until I have a lot) I usually resort to a nitric soak (in diluted 20-25% nitric acid). It's more expensive but WAY faster and I can recover much of the nitrate salts and produce more nitric later on. What took weeks of sitting for AP is usually done within 24hrs. Cleanup is much easier too as no precipitate forms when washing. For washing I found that putting all the fingers in a bucket with some water, sealing the lid well, and then just shaking the life out of it (roll on the floor too) does a fantastic job of separating all those stubborn foils.
That’s a great idea, thank you
On this video have all the step we want to follow ? I also have idea to follow this process brother,
Man kinda nailed your estimated yield.
Youre an educated man. I like your style of step by step process in a calm and patient manner.
Thank you
A small trick to cleaning foils off stuff like circuit boards or gold plated "smaller object" - which will reduce the "soak time" in the acid: Get a metal bucket with a metal lid (kinda sturdy). Here there are two versions. one is to just drill a hole, the other is to install a "power transfer thingy" (no clue what they are called in English. It's basically just a thing with a power drill bit (female part) on each end, with a mounting bracket in the middle so you can permanently use a power drill on one side and attach something else on the other side and having it isolated)
In both cases you take a "round" toilet cleaning brush (the sturdier quality the better - they will break occasionally though - so don't get a really expensive one 😀) drill a hole into the shaft of the toilet brush, and then add a drill bit to the hole. I'm personally using a bit which is used for making "bores" for bolts in metal plates. It's good because it fastens into the hole really well and binds well when it bottoms out the pre-drilled hole.
Now MAKE SURE to rinse off all the acid before doing this. The metal bucket will not be happy if you don't. dump a few handfuls (the more you add the harder it is to get it all and the more stress on the materials) into the metal bucket and put in some clean water. turn the "toilet brush" around though the hole in the lid slowly at first using a power drill with good speed control- and then go for a while at medium speed. Don't go full power since that will put more stress on the brush. This will make you able to get all the gold off much quicker - and it doesn't really make the cleanup that much dirtier.
And did you make a profit?
The first half of the video I was on my way out to start scrapping used electronics,the second half I said screw that 😂.....Cool content regardless..Thanks
You the man 👍👍
Listen i know exactly fuck all about chemistry, and even less about practical solutions for extraction of gold.
All I know is, you took a bucket full of pcb, and through intelligence and diligence, "turned it into" a fat lil gorgeous nugget of gold.
And that, is super fuckin cool to my little pleeb brain.
Thank you for making this video for us to view, looks like it took a lot of time and resources! What if you powdered the circuit board fingers by crushing or grinding? Maybe using a simple stamp mill. I think physically separating them into a powder would be superior to relying on acid alone. It would also decrease the volume of acid needed to cover the material. You could then agitate it and extract it using cyanidation and it would cost far less per run, but maybe more for equipment.
I pause the video once you weigh the fingers. You may not brake even. And my guess would 7 to 9 grams of gold. Thumbs up👍
Depends how you measure "break even". The gold won't pay for the fingers but the views of the video just might. Sreetips is demonstrating a modified process and many viewers will find it interesting. Income from the video may be enough to cover the overpriced fingers.
@@roberthayward9299 exactly. Plus knowing Kevin he's also getting enjoyment out it too and there's a ton of value in that. I don't think it's ever been about the money. Just the joy of doing it and spreading the knowledge 👍
Bama
Lol let’s go gentleman
both of you gentlemen are amazing
@@rickydona919 hey 💪👍
@@VendettaProspecting hey 💪💪
Just looking at this intriguing video on gold recovery. Would not ever contemplate doing this on a small scale due to the cost of procurement, the chemicals and time that is required to get that small amount.
5/31/24 Today $673.72
57😂🎉🎉
Haha 😂
Very nicely done video showing the process from start to finish thanks for sharing 👍
What would happen if you just add the nirtric acid to the 5 gallon bucket of hydrogen peroxide and Hcl, along with the circuitborad finngers, and just dissolve into solution on the first day?
The foils would probably dissolve and make a dirty mess. I did use hot dilute nitric in a later video (no peroxide or HCl) to left the foils off in a single day.
That's about .33oz of gold. Today around $600 but not a year ago. Seems like too much work for the reward. Assuming you have more to start then a higher return. I have about 50lbs that need this process but not sure if I should take this endeavor.
Getting pure gold, is never quick, easy, or cheap.
there is gold in the green and dark colored water, it can be extracted also, and silver
Could you put a large spoon with holes in it into the foil bucket with holes in the bottom and stir the mixture to help shake off any loose gold from the boards? If so, what would the spoon have to be made of or not be made of? Wouldn't agitating the boards by swirling the mixture around when it's opened each time be a bit more efficient? Just a friendly question.
Good question. Yes, agitation would help. But I recently switched to using hot dilute nitric to dissolve the base metals and remove the foils in a single day.
@sreetips really?? That's huge. If you can just find the circuit board pieces at a better price. With the price of gold today.. thanks for replying to your comments. Not everyone engages like that.
Fascinating but time consuming. You learn things anew every day on the net. Imagine I didn't have to pay for college this semester lol. Great job
Haha.. sure looked better while it was in leaf fragments. All that surface area made it look like a lot more than the little solid button.
Very informative and fun to watch. Thank you.
Wonder if grinding the computer pieces up wpuld work better. Its what I would do when making my honey oil back in the day makes the chemicals get through the smaller pieces either. Id be curious to know if you kept all your fingers from past projects and seen if you couldn't get more Gold out of them by grinding them up to see how much you missed...
Would that silvery looking residue at 31:50 contain any leftover silver solder?
The white stuff is probably silica.
Junk metal
Any particular reason you're not using nitric acid? If it's mostly copper that copper would be gone in a few hours. I guess I am unsure how easy it is to get nitric for regular people and the cost. All I know is a tote of 70% nitric is only slightly more expenlsive than HCl or sulfuric.
I didn’t think of it.
At the start you had 2909g of trimmed fingers. What was the weight of the waste plastic circuit board after spending time in the acid? That would give an accurate gold to scrap metal content. As opposed to gold to “total scrap” content.
Sorry, I just tossed them.
Good video man, but why the hell did you cut the zip lock bags??? I figured you would open and turn em upside down, just curious.
Two reasons: 1) they were full of holes and pretty much useless and not worth saving. 2) to save time for you, the viewer.
Where do you dispose of these chemicals? I have a hard enough time getting rid of my motor oil.
Just a thought.. but couldnt this process have been greatly sped up if instead of just "sitting" idle in a bucket the chips were instead in a slow tumbler? Just as washing machine needs agitation to remove dirt/stains, or a rock tumbler needs rotation to polish stones I think this would speed the process of the gold coming loose to a matter of days?
Yes, better yet, I do it in hot dilute nitric to release the foils in a single day.
@@sreetips Dilute nitric? would that increase the cost over regular Muriatic acid? As a brick layer I have unlimited access to muriatic acid since its used to clean brick. lol. Also would you know how much gold is contained in an Iphone? I have a drawer with at least 7 old ones as well as an Ipad that are useless.
Yes nitric costs more. iPhone have gold, but the amount will be tiny.
Omg is that all the final gold weight thats eye watering for that work😢
1000$ for PC scraps, 1 month of your life and some more $$$ for the chemicals, just to get 550$ worth of gold.
The value is in the video, not in the gold that I recovered. That was a bonus.
Fascinating video. How about sealing the acid bucket and rotating it on a motorized pair of rollers or other contraption and turning it into a tumbler? Seems some mechanical abrasion might save you a lot of time?
Agitation helps
I appreciate everything in context and the beautiful display of the hard workmanship that you put into retrieving the yield at 9.6 g of gold but even at the best price today it's $65 at best for 1 g of gold at $624 give or take for that yield I say strips and chemicals alone You didn't even make your money back not even to break even so you have to have a love and some pretty strong lungs to absorb the ramifications for the long haul in the end game. Either way you have my respect love and appreciation for teaching someone such complicated and 100% working methods God bless you and keep up the good work May your beautiful work give you a lifetime of happiness Happy New Year my friend😊
I know it looks like a loss. But this video is very valuable.
@@sreetips I didn't mean it to be disrespectful as a loss I was just pointing out that it was a wonderful video but you can't do this unless you have a love for the chemistry and not just chasing the yield because the beauty of it is the work and utilizing chemistry which is the key to everything metals or not and that is the beauty of it which makes it priceless so I agree
No disrespect. Most people view it as a loss because they want to buy it low, recovery the metal and immediately resell for more than was paid for a “profit.” But I don’t work for paper. I work for gold (and silver). I would have paid more for this scrap. The ad revenue for this video is up over sixteen grand, which I quickly convert to more gold and silver. Plus, I get to keep the gold. I hate to reveal this because it sounds like bragging. So in the end, you get to see the process, and how much this type of scrap actually yields. I get paid for my work. Everybody wins. And that’s a good thing.
Why would you wear your gold watch while processing acid? During the boiling with Sulfuric and Nitric acid, is that the sulfur gas coming off yellow? What was the investment in supplies consumed too?
For the show
I’d love to see a waste disposal video. I have seen a few by NileRed, they were interesting. Your experiments are far more specific (metal refining) and you aren’t in a big fancy lab. So curious how you handle it.
What is in the other bucket used for your bubbler I thought it was an aquarium pump.
The small bucket is my stock pot.
great video. I'm new to this and trying to learn so I have a few questions. what percent concentration of sulfuric acid and nitric acid did you use? also do you have a video on waste treatment?
Sulfuric is 93% nitric label says 68% to 70% type “waste treatment” into search block for my channel.
@ thank you, much appreciated. Keep up the good work
couldn't you capture the silver from the soldering on the bottom of those boards also hence a double yield of precious metals? both have different melting points but idk how or what to use to separate gold out & silver out assuming at different stages of the acid reactions ? that would be cool to see that processtoo
There’s no much silver in those. Mostly base metals under the gold foils.
I have been a viewer of yours for years now and I just ran my first escrap over the weekend i used this upload as a guide and without fail it got me the results I wanted once again thank you sree for the knowledge it truly is priceless and my urban mining/home refining couldn’t be possible without videos you creat u got me into this addictive hobby lol and I am grateful for it sure so from me to you thank you for what you do may u make these videos for years and years to come
Excellent, congratulations!
Can we start at the beginning? Where and what are the " fingers"?Can you please elaborate about the air hose? Can a fish Aquarian filter be used? Thanx
Inside of a computer there are circuit cards that fit into slots inside the computer. The circuit cards have an edge that makes contact with the slot. To ensure proper contact with no corrosion, they have thin gold coating at the connection points. These fingers are the cut-off strips from computer circuit cards. They are some of the richest, highest yielding, computer scrap that there is. I use an aquarium bubbler that I got at the thrift store to bubble air. This helps to dissolve and release the foils from the fiber board. But I’ve quit doing it with acid/peroxide. I’ve switched to hot dilute nitric to dissolve the base metals under the gold foils to release them. Hot nitric takes only a day.
Do you happen to have a list of equipment needed for this. I would have access to A LOT of computer parts if I had all this stuff!
It’s all in the videos, I’ve left nothing out.
I love how.you use vintage corningware. I love it!😊
I buy the Corning ware at yard sales.
Dude I've watched a few of your videos over the years & I must say that when I do fingers & boards I usually do a 50/50 mix of the muriatic acid & 3% hydrogen peroxide & after about 8 hours most of the gold has already released & that's without using a pump for agetation just bc I didn't take the time to set it up bc I often get excited & want to get rolling. As for the stubborn ones I leave them overnight but to wait for twenty some days, you got some patience. If you think there is error in my mix ratio let me know. I learned it years ago & don't recall from where or whom but it works good.
I switched to dilute nitric boils to get the foils off in one day.
would be nice if you included the outlay in cost to buy the trims, and what the final value of the yield was
Unfortunately, since I’m not concerned with reselling the gold that I recover, I don’t keep track of expenses for each batch. The gold is my reward.
Why no salt (Na-Cl) added to HCl Peroxide mix? Supposed to work a lot better for some reason.
But makes acid recovery for reuse tougher.
I’ve never used salt in this reaction.
@sreetips to be fair, it's vinegar salt and strongest peroxide on otc market they used in the video. They left glass jar in sunlight too for 10 days.