Scrap circuit breakers made by manufacturers from 1960-present for very high yields in silver. You can also expect to get small amounts of copper, tin, aluminum. brass, zinc and steel.
Your documentary was awesome! I have been a electrician since 1986 and it never even crossed my mind till just recently how much other precious metals where in contacts and switchs and breackers it kills me to think of the thousands of demos I have done and just through all that stuff in the dumpsters except for the copper of course, thanks for the videos
Freinds FYI: you should check the resale on those breakers they could be worth $200 or more if they are usable. I recently sold one for a Centrifuge for $260 $2 dollars worth of silver or $200 for the whole thing, you decide whats the best move for you.
This reminds me of reading how some lead plumbing connections supposedly contained some amounts of silver, too... We'll see. Maybe i'll be done processing by the end of summer 😆
I swapped out a defective contactor that had 3 large contact pads. I desoldered them and used my Dremel to make tiny silver crosses for necklaces for my nieces.
I use hoove clipper to clip silver contact off instead of use wire cutter. Many parts inside breaker are silver plated copper I do take it and pour high strength hydrogen peroxide to dissolve silver so I can sort out copper pieces for scrap, save silver solution for refining. It safer because of cadmium. Found a big 200A breaker last week and got couple silver contact size as a thick dime.
kristi1378 I stack silver. I just do not buy it from dealers. When you pay a premium on top of its value, you are just paying a tax. The whole silver stacking thing is a huge scam. The only way to stack precious metals is to buy cheap or get them for free. I get mine fore nearly free :D Thanks for watching.
You speak about the percentage of silver on several different items. How are you determining the percent of silver? Also, how do you extract the silver from the insides so that you can resell it?
Old video, but just an FYI. Old and hard to find breakers can be worth a lot more, if sold to the right people, than you will get just silver scrapping them.
enjoyed it I scrap copper and have some large square contacts that old timers were taking out of old panel boxes and switches used way back in the oil fields here in Texas.Ive been told this is silver and some platinum????
Rob The Plumber WOW. I was salvaging a home that burnt. It has 3 panels in it with a total of 74 breakers. Super happy I stumbled on to this gem of a video. I do scrap recovery from farms, fires, and abandoned cars. This is a sweet video. Thanks man.
I'm slowly getting into stripping parts for salvage. Is there a devise that you can buy that will tell you what is silver or other meddles? So much to learn...
Third, only the part that contacts the "Buss-bar" of the breaker panel and the 2 contacts will have silver. Fourth, as you increase amperage rating, the contact material will change from Silver Alloy to Tungsten.
Hey Rob, I recently made a video about the old pushmatics but yours is far better. I really appreciated the way you described everything in detail. I kind of thought there might be silver content in the other pieces but didn't know for sure so I thank you for that. Are you a refiner also?.....Mike
Yes but just a hobby refiner. I am currently working on a project refining all metals from scrap electronics. Wish I had time to edit all of the clips I have. Thanks for the cool comment, it really is what makes me tick.
Do the large fiuses with copper bars on the end have silver? These are not the standard shotgun shell style fuse. I have several sizes that range from 1- 1.5" in diameter and 6-10" long. I bought a lot of them at an auction thinking they at least had some copper value.
great video. I've been stacking breakers for a few years since I realized their silver content. what is a good way to tell if other pieces besides the actual contacts are silver? besides color obviously. and if I'm not sure, should I just save it anyway to be thrown in the chemical bath later on down the road
First, the case of a circuit breaker is not plastic (if it was it would bend hefore breaking) it is made of Bakelite, which shatters. Second, the breaker "tripping" would not crush silver contacts as tripping a breaker opens the contacts .
hay rob.. I took apart a 3 pole breaker and found out one of the thingys inside was silver plated copper... beside the contacts being silver.. I found out by drilling out a rivet on one of those parts... just passing on something I learned...
Rob The Plumber I have has success with a mapp gas torch and a long old flat head screw driver to remove the silver off the copper arm from the contact..
The brass is easy to tell apart. The magnet only takes the steel away. The rest is sorted by eye and experience. I too get confused over what else is silver besides the contact buttons. When in doubt save and ask
You were wrong about the silver getting smashed in the contacts the first time they make contact with each other if it were pure. Silver is a soft dense metal but it's not that soft and it would take a lot more than one time to for it to compress in
Yours will all have A LOT more. You have all 240 volt breakers. I would love to get a couple. Could you maybe message me a couple brand names and panel models? I can maybe source some from EBay, so I can make a European circuit breaker video. Thanks for watching. Congrats on Norway becoming the most prosperous country in the world!
thanks.and yet we want more..haha. i'll look into that. i believe a friend of a friend of me,is an electrician. i'l talk to him and se if he could get me some. will let you know. keep up the good work... by the way,what country are you from/live in? i believe one brand is ELCO.
Thanks Rob! Very educational for sure. Now I feel like I've been getting raped by these scrap metal companies. They all tell me it's nickle plated copper wire or brass connectors, and give either copper or brass pricings. What other connectors/wires have silver? This was my first time coming across any of your videos, I like! Try very hard to find more editing time, thanks again!
A girl brought a backyard electrician to my house and soon as he walked in my house my lights started flickering like a seance going on. Then when he left I had no electricity in my house and all the electricity was off in the whole block. I got scared and left my house and came back 12 hours electricity was still off on the whole street light for the whole block and I had no electricity I looked in my box control panel and there's a bunch of stuff missing circuits missing. Next three days later I see that he was arrested for stealing copper wire from municipalities street lights $100,000 in damage. Do you think he stole something from me and my electric box to cause this problem to me
You need to be using a oxyhydrogen torch. Oxyhydrogen has no carbon fuel to put any carbon deposits on the material you are melting and it melts 75% faster.
I don't think whole contact is silver. It's usually tinned or nickel plated copper or brass. There's literally no reason for them to use silver there. Actually using silver would make the part less springy and too soft to work as it should.
What if I just take barrels of the breakers to the metal yard? All that plastic will burn up in a split second in the blast furnace, anyhow. Too much work, no?
Brad Weber A lot of scrapyards will not buy anything that has been burned. Too many people are stealing wire and burning the plastic off. You really are not doing yourself any favors nor the environment. Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment.
I would burn the plastic spools that our old magnet wire was spooled around, after the wire got old due to the fact that that the varnish insulation gets better about every ten years. These were 5 and 10 pound spools of magnet wire, used to make magnetic coils for A,C, and D.C motors that are being rewound. Some time I just unspool them on the coil machine especially if its 18 gauge wire or large and 50 pound drums. Either way burned or spooled the scrape places take them. Heck many times I see people cutting off the insulation right out front the scrape place, most are legit electrical companies, yet sometimes not. I've even seen people take in copper gutters that was stolen off someones house. In DC there are a few places that take man hole covers cause scrape steel was up to 12-18 cent per pound, and they weight about 100lbs so thats 12-20 bucks. There are places that take nre fire fire pumps and stuff, all to make a profit.
I laugh when he said the silver contact part is made out of 85%-90%. Please get your fact straight up. Presently, those silver contact from circuit breaker contains cadium. YOU DON'T WANT TO PLAY WITH IT...SPECIALLY MELTING IT DOWN!
kwxj61b Actually some of the older breakers do have 80% silver contacts. What makes you think that the silver content is low? Modern day products I would have to agree with you, but there was a time that silver was pretty well worthless and was not worth making expensive alloys. Cadmium is a common byproduct of anything with silver in it that was produced pre-1990. It is perfectly safe to handle with latex gloves. When you chemically dissolve the silver there are safe ways to get rid of the cadmium. I will never personally do videos of the chemical process but there are good videos out there.
kwxj61b It's spelled "cadmium". It's a nasty, poisonous metal, and the contact buttons are probably silver-cadmium alloy. Don't try to separate out the silver from the cadmium; you risk being poisoned.
@@davestrauss9779Thanks 4 responsing after 7 months lol.. is it worth saving them ? I have 3 home depot buckets filled with contactor relays.Is it worth breaking them apart to save the small amount of silver? I scrap anything that comes my way. I do commercial HVAC.
Okay, big deal, there's silver in breakers. How do you refine or sell the stuff. A pointless waste of time to those of us uneducated, just like gold in computers, how is it worth having a tub full of silver pieces mixed with other metals. I'm not scoffing, please educate.
you forgot to add ANY VOLUME WHAT SO EVER TO THIS VIDEO. IT IS WORTHLESS IF NO ONE CAN HEAR IT. HOW DO YOU EXPECT ANY ONE TO SUBSCRIBE TO SOMETHING " WORTHLESS " ?
May 3rd 2021. Silver is 27 an ounce. I have over 80 pounds saved of these "silver" buttons. I'll agree it is a perk and byproduct of scrapping as a hobby. But ill disagree with you that its pennies of the dollar. Some are 5050 tungsten silver. I clip mine off and put in jars. E-scrap loves these buttons. Nitric acid bath and knowledge comes with escrap.
