I had two unwanted computers. I removed the hard drives and set them out by the road, they disappeared quickly. I threw the hard drives in my fire pit, today I found two solidified blobs of metal, each the size of a walnut. I am fairly sure no lead is involved in modern electronics. Does anyone have any guess as to what the metal might be?
So how can I find out what this metal is?
- Thread starter pondoro
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So I melted aluminum? That is impressive, but I was hoping for tin.
Aluminum melts around 1200 F. I remember making some sand castings in high school industrial arts class.
Update - I have a third hard drive to dispose of. I disassembled it (required only a tiny Torx driver.) The case is what I was trained to call "pot metal." I dug through the ashes and found the two previous disks, deformed but not melted, also the aluminum cover plates. So I melted the pot metal cases but not the aluminum disks. I still feel like my data is safe. Zinc (melting point of 786 F) is a prime component, since it lowers the melting point of the mix. The melting point must exceed 786, but is variable depending on the components. According to Wikipedia "Common metals in pot metal include zinc, lead, copper, tin, magnesium, aluminium, iron, and cadmium." I would guess most modern pot metal no longer contains lead, here in the US, but these hard drives certainly came from China. China has put lead in baby toys and dog food and toothpaste, It would be silly to assume they keep it out of their "mystery metal" recipes. So this could be made into a passable pewter, with enough tin, but I would be cautious about eating with it.
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