Chemical composition.

lucky · Post by **lucky** » Fri Aug 22, 2008 4:19 am

Anyone have access/experience with a lab that can tell me what the metals present are and in what proportions in a piece of wire? Or maybe save a step and know a reputable refinery service? Just found a box of wiring I gutted out of one of my old cars from my massive subwoofer days, forgot I had bought a very large amount of what was advertised as platinum coated copper power cable about 10 years ago, methinks if it's real I could really cash in here.

The Dark Side of Will · Fri Aug 22, 2008 7:19 am

Platunum plated? What was the selling point of that? Copper has a significantly better conductivity than platinum.

Is the wire the color of platinum or the color of copper?

Mach10 · Post by **Mach10** » Fri Aug 22, 2008 10:33 am

The only reason to use gold on the ends of wires is to preven corrosion at the contact point. Copper is nearly as good as it gets for conductivity. Silver's a little better iirc, but it oxidizes really fast

The Dark Side of Will · Fri Aug 22, 2008 12:31 pm

Yeah, platinum is pretty corrosion resistant, but plating copper wires with it is just silly.

whipped · Post by **whipped** » Fri Aug 22, 2008 1:13 pm

yeah but it costs more than gold, so it has to be better!

lucky · Post by **lucky** » Fri Aug 22, 2008 9:26 pm

Strands are platinum colored, but cut ends of strands show copper. It was sold as "platinum series." It was top end stuff when I bought it, nearly $9 a foot for 1/0 gauge. Considering that I've got about 20' of 1/0, plus a collection of other lengths/gauges, it'd be worth it to me to have it analyzed.

Mach10 · Post by **Mach10** » Sat Aug 23, 2008 10:04 am

Copper alone is worth a fair bit. Even if you had a hundred pounds of the stuff, the copper in it would be worth more than the trace amounts of platinum plating--plus it would cost more to separate the platinum than you'd make to just sell the copper.

lucky · Post by **lucky** » Sun Aug 24, 2008 11:39 pm

I doubt that that's true, Mach10. Lets say the 18' of 1/0 is made up of ~1k strands each of which is a ~.005" thick strand of copper, coated with platinum. Not claiming to be 100% accurate here, but with the individual strands that small, a HIGH estimate would be ~10% platinum. If the wire is 30lbs, that's ~3lbs of platinum, ~27lbs of copper.
As of today, 8/24/08, market price for a Troy oz of platinum is $1416 USD.
Market price for copper is $3.50 a pound. Even if, out of 30 lbs, there were only 2% platinum, that's still ~7 troy oz (IIRC the conversion) or ~$9k.
It's more than worth it to send someone a couple inches of one of the 8ga wires I have for analysis. Got a lead on a local company, we'll see what happens.

The Dark Side of Will · Mon Aug 25, 2008 10:07 am

How much you PAY for it ten years ago?

Looks up a chart of platinum and look at what the price of platinum has done. You won't get $9K out of it unless you put a couple grand into it in the first place.

You're on the right track with your math, but you need to look up the plating process to guess how thick the platinum might be, get an accurate count of the strands, etc.

Mach10 · Post by **Mach10** » Mon Aug 25, 2008 11:55 am

lucky80 wrote:I doubt that that's true, Mach10. Lets say the 18' of 1/0 is made up of ~1k strands each of which is a ~.005" thick strand of copper, coated with platinum. Not claiming to be 100% accurate here, but with the individual strands that small, a HIGH estimate would be ~10% platinum. If the wire is 30lbs, that's ~3lbs of platinum, ~27lbs of copper.
As of today, 8/24/08, market price for a Troy oz of platinum is $1416 USD.
Market price for copper is $3.50 a pound. Even if, out of 30 lbs, there were only 2% platinum, that's still ~7 troy oz (IIRC the conversion) or ~$9k.
It's more than worth it to send someone a couple inches of one of the 8ga wires I have for analysis. Got a lead on a local company, we'll see what happens.

Electo-Plating for these purposes is in the "micron" range. Honestly, I think you'd be lucky to get 0.001% by mass of platinum out of it.

I won't argue it's not worth it to get tested, but I highly doubt you'll see more than a couple milligrams of platinum out of the whole set.

For perspective, consider that if you crush and melt down CPUs which use heavy gold plating for connectors and pure gold traces, you're looking at just under an ounce for every ton of them crushed.

lucky · Post by **lucky** » Mon Aug 25, 2008 2:15 pm

I know electroplating uses very thin amounts. I think total retail 10 years ago was ~$250, but that was at an audio shop that was going out of business, don't remember what their regular price was.

Mach10 · Post by **Mach10** » Mon Aug 25, 2008 2:17 pm

*shrug*

It's worth a shot; hell, even as raw copper it's worth at least a couple cases of beer. :salute:

lucky · Post by **lucky** » Mon Aug 25, 2008 2:20 pm

true true

Kohburn · Post by **Kohburn** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 8:44 am

i'd expect to find it being nickleplated not platinum.