A neglected copper mine

This really looks unimpressive, but I swear its just a bad photo. Forgive the light quality, and trust me- this is actually very cool. React with oohs and ahhs accordingly.

So, as most readers of this site know by now, I currently going through a sort of scrap metal/capitalistic recycling phase right now. I dismantle and destroy things to sell their metal for money- especially copper and aluminum.

With this in mind, I have been trolling the nh.craigslist.com free ads for anything that might be fun and profitable. A while ago, I posted a listing in the "Wanted" section saying that I would pick up dead or dying UPS (Uninteruptable power supply systems... those things that power your computer and stuff when the power goes out). I advertised "dead battery, bad battery or no battery" because all I want from them is the copper in their large transformers. Maybe two or three pounds. A week went by, and all I got was someone asking $20 for a perfectly working unit. "I'm sorry, but thats not how we play this game" (I know only two people perhaps who read this will get the Paul Shanklin reference, but that's OK.)

Meanwhile, I answered a listing from someone who said they had a few monitors they wanted to get rid of. It was a phone number only listing. I called.

"Ages and stages?" The person said on the other line.

I was a bit confused, but I had the right number... Turns out, they asked for donated computer equipment for their preschool and they got more then they bargained for. Everyone dumped their computers on them. They kept the best and it looked like someone took most of the actual systems- but they had about 15 monitors left over. Most of them, as she told me were "still working as far as I can tell". I told her I'd take them all and that I'd call back shortly to arrange a pickup.

Meanwhile, sometime around the next day, someone finally answered my listing for old UPS systems:

"I have one ups system that I'm just waiting for the word to remove it. I think it was made in 1990 but I am not sure. It is BIG so you will need a pick up truck. Is this something you want?"

He said he was located around Exeter, which was a bit far for me but I conversed with him for a bit through email and he sent me some pictures of the beast that made me feel it was a reasonable risk to take. Plus, it wasn't very far from the monitors so I'd be combining the trips. I felt pretty good about it so I told him I'd pick up the unit and asked for the address and when I could pick it up. He wrote back:

"Hours of pick up are 08:00 to 14:00 ... My name is Sgt. Dave ..."

At this point my eyebrows were raised. Was this some military base I would be going to? I felt a bit nervous. I read on:

"...Upon your arrival you will need to call me a 2nd time so I can let security know. You will be going to a corrections center so NO firearms!!!"

A corrections facility? Wait isn't that like... *gulp* a prison??

Yup. Sure was.

Somehow I roped my good friend Jim into going with me. So here we are- two guys, driving up in a van loaded down with 15 computer monitors into a prison facility (complete with barbed wire fences stretching to the heavens), sitting in the parking lot by the sheriff's cars, suspiciously rocking the van back and forth, trying to get a cell signal to call the good Sargent out.

But it all turned out all right. In the end we made contact with him and he walked us to the loading dock (a secure facility mind you) whilst once making a joke about "not getting shot at". Which was great. Because even though we were honestly a bit concerned, having a guy be able to joke about it is fun. Anyways, if I did exit this life then, I would have wanted it to be while laughing. Sargent Dave was cool.

The Sargent called two guys from the maintenence team and together all four of us hoisted the big sucker into the van. It was ridiculously bottom heavy. Even with out the batteries.

Yeah, the batteries were gone. Luckily that wasn't our main focus anyway: Our main focus was the copper in the transformers. And... well, I'll let you decide:

This is a little more then half of the second smallest transformer windings. Yup, that is some fat PHAT copper wire of epic proportions. No, the picture doesn't do it justice. You have to examine this thing for yourself and feel the weight. Plus the low light conditions couldn't have helped.. This is the one Jim Sawed away at for about 40 minutes. The matching half to this- which is a bit smaller- is worth by itself 10 dollars. With that one transformer, we broke even. It will pay the gas money and then some. All together: Over 65 pounds of copper, as told by the bathroom scale in this picture:


I like this last picture; for some reason the copper stacked up like that makes me think of something out of a Doctor Who episode.

So... 65 pounds of copper times $2 per pound. I got $120 greenbacks in just copper, not counting the aluminum and wire (which I will also sale).

In the first picture, you'll notice behind the block of copper a big aluminum heat sink with several devices attached to it. These have copper inserts for getting rid of the heat. Copper then aluminum, smeared together with thermal paste. Whatever these were, they must have ran pretty hot. I was looking at the copper with a greedy eye. My dad stopped me.

"Before you cut into that thing for copper, let me look up the part number".

I shrugged and told him to go ahead. Dad was great. He kept coming in when our dismantling of doom was at full fury and impart small words of wisdom. He would say something like "This transformer here looks like the top has just been tack welded on... I'm willing to bet that if you could cut through that, the rest would chisel right off." Then he'd leave. And sure enough, it would be as he said and save us untold hours. Jim, who did basically did all the copper removal work (thanks Jim!) got really fast after using this method. He then used the blocks he removed as stands to elevate the transformer up as he pounded the copper out. He got pretty fast at it. The last few went by in probably less then 10 minutes a transformer- quite a feat.

Later my dad came down with the spec sheet for the chips he looked up.

"Guess how much each of those is worth."

"Five dollars?" I guessed.

"Twenty?" Jim chimed in.

"If you wanted to buy them online right now, they would cost you 320 bucks a pop."

So yeah... there were about 4 or 5 of those on one side. I doubt we can get that much for them, but they should be worth a bit more then their scrap value, thats for sure. I just have to get someone to buy 'em now.

Okay, lets see. I've told these stories so often I've gotten bored of them, heh... But. I didn't mention the 15 monitors. I got to utilize my handy dandy trusty wusty (sorry) Pocket PC:

I was pretty proud of this. It was raining very hard last Saturday, so I backed the van into the garage and threw a computer in the back and set it up as a test box. I then started taking the monitors and testing them one by one. I'd put a piece of tape on it, give it a number, then hook it up and see how high a resolutioun it would take, what size it was and how high the brightness and contrast had to be turned up to order to look good. I put in all this info in on the fly with my pocket PC. I felt very geekish. Thank you so very much Pip. This thing rocks.

Oh, and you have NO idea how hard it was to get that picture of the Pocket PC clear. I must have taken ten pictures of that thing. I'm almost more proud of that picture then I am of the whole copper thing. I'm not going to show you the monitors; you all should know what they look like and the shots were really low-light, ghetto quality anyway.

So I have 6 monitors left. If you want one, come and get it. I'm open to trade, cash or begging. I'm trying to sell them but monitors are a dime a dozen these days. Except for the 19 inch, $10 a piece is probably all I'll get for them. Which is fine.

All in all, this was a pretty encouraging Saturday for me, and I think for Jim too, who is also getting into the spirit of capitalistic recyling (busy though he be). This was certainly a high yield. Its funny; all this momentum in the scrapping business and I'm about to start a full time job. But I'm going to keep at the scrapping stuff. Its just to much fun. And I think there's a good business to be built around this.

"Whats that, Zeke? A full time job??" Yeah. I'll post about it later. Quite crazy, actually. Until then, have some more pictures.

Jim and Dad confer over a big HOG transformer that has just had its lid removed.

(Click to see full size and read text)
Imagine seeing the whole world like this; little mental price tags on everything. That's pretty much where I am right now... Twisted, I know.