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Hello everyone!
I'm trying to make a big push to hopefully get everything I can removed from my property & sent to Boardsort.com but my biggest issue right now is boards. I have approx. maybe 200 different types/styles/colors/functions/etc. of boards to sort out, not including the ones I'm still removing from electronics every day.
Recently I've sent a package to be verified/sold to Boardsort.com & there were some modifications to my invoice due to items being in the wrong categories.
I'm wanting to try sorting all of this in the most correct way that I can, but I find myself 2nd guessing my initial thoughts for categories almost on every board it seems now.

How/What is the easiest/quickest way that a person can just hold a stack of boards and glance at them, & say "this one goes Low Peripheral, this one is P4 MB, this one is High Tele, etc." What is on these different boards that you immediately go to looking for first thing that tells you it "goes here" or "goes there"? I will probably post a lot of random photos in the ID forums looking for help, but I don't want to post 100+ photos in 20 different threads no more than you want to wake up in the morning and see that I did so!!!

Thanks for any tips/tricks you can share with me to hopefully make this so much easier to do being so new to all of this.

Scott~

The easiest way to get a crude sort is to just look at color.

Sort piles by color - brown (low/mid) - double sided green/blue (usually perf)

Browns are usually power boards, you can tell because they've got transformers on them and bulky aluminum heat sinks etc...

Once you get all the powerboard separated you can go through the peripheral stuff. Anything with heatsinks, brackets, small transformers, can be removed to upgrade the boards to high grade.

The telecom boards are usually obvious.

**Sorting after the fact is usually the most difficult. I generally sort my boards as I am pulling them out. I don't have to ship to BS but it helps that when I take them in everything is pre-sorted**

The thread pinned at the top of this section is a great one to go through.

Almost every grade has a video from Boardsort attached now, be sure to go through those as well (something I should probably do actually xD).

Get all the containers you're using organized (labels/sharpies are great) and start sorting the things you're certain on. If you pick up something you're not sure on, set it aside but try to keep these boards organized by where you think they go. You can make sure you remove any excess steel or heatsinks or batteries or wires as you do this. When you get 4-8 boards (depending on size/shape) take a photo with them neatly arranged and post them. You can tell us what you think they are if you want but you don't have to. You can can add to the same post over time or start new threads, both are good.

Depending on what kind of scrap your handling this may vary some but if you're getting PCs, motherboards, CD/DVD, HDD, RAM, power supply units (PSUs), Wi-Fi cards and GFC boards should all be things you start to recognize pretty quickly if you do this enough. Even if you don't instantly know all the break downs of motherboard you should know, okay this has a CPU socket and PCI slots and audio/video and peripheral ports so you can check the buy list to verify the socket type. Or this thing looks like a motherboard but there's no socket so I'll set it with unknown mobos to verify later.


Fell like that was a little scatterbrained but hopefully helpful.

_________________
Here to learn more so I can recycle more
My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort

Sorting circuit boards is as easy as solving a Rubics Cube. you just sit down and keep moving them around until finally they fall into a box. Or, if you are more visual than mechanical, just pretend they are like the old "Magic Eye Pictures" from years ago, where you look at a picture that is just a jumble of tiny shapes and colors, but it has no pattern or resemblence to anything you know, say maybe just blue and yellow and green dots and blurbs and blurs. It almost hurts your eyes to look,but when you finally learn how to look semi-crosseyed at an imaginary point in space behind the paper, suddenly a 3 dimensional picture of goldfish swimming in blue water in with beautiful green seaweed plants all around.
Of course, the picture I just described doesn't actually exist, as I just imagined the scenario, but if you practice long enough, you will learn to look thru the confusion and see the requisite features that put a board in certain classes. Basically, the important considerations are heavy junk/no junk; analog/digital; low population/high population, visible gold connectors/ no visible gold; and processing units.
Got that? now you are ready for the 1001 other little items that make a board go high or low, peripheral or telco, what to leave and what must go. But work assured, (don't "rest" assured) eventually you will begin to see gold and have green in your pockets.
To sum up what I rambled on about, start out by simply sorting, putting boards that look somewhat alike in the same pile. You can go over each one for the critical components later. My method works well for me. I am still sorting and classifying a load of boards I got last summer. Procrastinators are never out of a job waiting . Best excuse in the world. Oh, I'm sorry, but I have a load of computer boards I just have to get sorted so I can convert them to "commuter boards on their way to Boardsort in Ohio"

thanks for the advice guys. organization is probably my biggest issue cause i find myself "resorting" stacks i know for sure i already went through the week prior....

Lots to work on!! thanks again