Clean Circuitboards

Value

Circuitboards, including motherboards, cards, memory boards (SIMMs, DIMMs, Cache, etc), hard drive and other controller boards, are one of the most valuable recycling material FreeGeek deals with. The more we can categorize them (dependent on space and time), the more money we can get from them. Prices are determined by the amount of precious metals, especially gold, that were used to manufacture the board or chip.

Clean for safety and processing

Lastly, for clean circuitboard bins to make everyone happiest, the following things need to not be in them:

• batteries. All batteries, like Dallas type clock, NiCd barrel batteries, alkaline, and button type, have to get removed.
• processors. All have to get removed, including 386 and 486 procs.
• memory modules. Remove all memory sticks off the boards.
• heatsinks. Remove them, including the smaller heatsinks on chips.
• physically large capacitors, or transformers. These boards go in with powersupplies unless the components come off. The transformers are copper around ferrous, and we don't know what to do with them better than motors, though we should explore it.
• Steel faceplates.