FOR e-waste & ITAD yards

Mixed scrap sells by the pound. Identified parts sell by the part.

Unmake Robotics builds a bench-top machine for e-waste and ITAD recyclers that finds the valuable chips on scrap circuit boards and cuts them out. Your board pile sells for pennies a pound. The same boards, with the handful of chips a parts buyer pays for found and cut out, sell for dollars each. The machine does the finding, which is the part that takes a person all day, and the cutting.

Send us a box of boards See it run on real boards

TESTED ON: 12 real scrap boards
FOUND: 61 of 65 chips worth money
FIRST LOOK AT YOUR BOARDS: free

CAM 01 TELECOM LINE CARD LIVE · 8.97 px/mm

X 000.0 · Y 000.0 mm

19/ 19 chips found

10 mm

worth pulling heatsink or shield — lift it real scrap boards · labels spot-checked by a person · move your cursor over the boardreal scrap boards · labels spot-checked by a person · tap a board below

36×price spread, chip to chip$0.43 – $15.50 · eBay sold listings, 2026

61/65chips worth money it foundon 12 real boards, labeled first, misses counted

0/4on the board it failedmain chip under a heatsink · we show you

$8.00per chip, one buyer's ratewhat one recycler's buyer pays today, telecom parts

01THE OFFER

Send us a box of boards. We'll tell you what's in it.

Free, and useful either way. If there's nothing worth pulling, we say so and that's the end of it. If there is, we show you the machine that pulls it.

YOU SEND

One box of the boards you actually get: the mix, not your best ones. Ten to twenty boards is plenty. Boards you were going to sell by the pound anyway.

WE DO

Photograph every board, run the camera over it, and have a person check every result before anything is priced.

YOU GET BACK, IN WRITING

A marked-up photo of every board, each chip a buyer would pay for boxed, with the part number where a person could read it
A count per board: how many chips a parts buyer would pay for, by part number
What those parts fetch, against your buyer's list if you have one, or public sold prices if you don't
A straight list of what we missed and why. A chip under a heatsink is a miss; we'll say so

WHAT IT COSTS YOU

The box. Your boards come back, or we scrap them on our side, your call. Photos are not published without your say-so.

THEN

If the numbers are bad, we tell you. If they're good, we talk about putting the first machine on your floor on trial: our machine, your boards, no charge while it proves out.

Send us a box of boards

02REAL BOARDS

Run on 12 real boards. Here is what it found.

In our 2026 test on 12 real scrap boards, the camera found 61 of the 65 chips that had resale value. No two boards in your pile are the same, so we tested on the mess: telecom line cards, consoles, DVR boards, alarm panels. Every board was labeled chip by chip before the camera ran, so we know exactly what it missed. Those numbers are below, including the bad ones.

Camera output on a telecom line card: chips boxed green for worth pulling, red for not worth it, magenta for missed. — **TELECOM LINE CARD** 17 of 19 found · 10 false alarms

Camera output on an Xbox One motherboard, chips boxed and labelled. — **XBOX ONE** 18 of 19 found · 1 false alarm

Camera output on a DVR video board. — **DVR VIDEO BOARD** 9 of 9 found · 0 false alarms · 6 covers flagged

Camera output on a Sony PS5 motherboard. — **PS5 MAIN BOARD** 5 of 8 found · 0 false alarms · dense and shielded, the hardest kind

01 / 04

worth pulling cover — look underneath not worth the cut missed — caught against the labels

12 boards · labeled first · Sept 202665 chips worth money · 61 found

BOARD	CHIPS WORTH $	FOUND	FALSE +
Telecom line card (SFP, T1/E1)	19	19	20
Telecom line card (PMC framers)	19	17	10
Xbox One console board	19	18	1
DVR / video processing board	9	9	0
Alarm / fire panel	10	6	1
PS5 console board	8	5	0
Telecom card, chip under heatsink	4	0	2
chips actually worth money, all 12 boards	65	61	—

> The bottom row is the one that matters: of 65 chips worth real money across all 12 boards, it found 61. Seven boards are listed; the other five were controller boards and a handheld with two chips worth money between them, both found. The miss is row seven: a telecom card with its main chip under a heatsink. It found nothing, because a camera can't see through metal. It now flags heatsinks and shields for a person to lift. We'd rather you saw that here than found it after the machine was on your floor.

> The full test, all 12 boards with overlays, the four methods we compared, why the misses happened, and what this test cannot tell you, is on its own page: the 12-board benchmark.

> False alarm means it boxed a chip that isn't worth cutting. That costs a minute of cut time, not money, and the price check is meant to catch those before anything is cut. Telecom cards are dense; that's where it over-boxes most. Reading the part number printed on each chip is the next problem, and it is not solved: today a person checks every read before anything is priced. That is why the appraisal you get back is checked by a person.

WHAT WE KNOW

Of 65 chips worth real money on 12 boards, the camera found 61, and we show you the four it missed. One recycler's buyer pays about $8 a chip for identified telecom parts today. Your buyer and your boards decide your number, which is why we look at your boards first.

WHAT WE DON'T

Chips per hour on a full board: the machine has not cut a production run. Whether a buyer pays the same for a chip on a small square of board as for one lifted clean: that test is running now, and it decides the product. Board mix decides everything. Telecom and server boards pay; most consumer boards don't. We tell you which yours are before you spend anything.

03WHAT IT'S WORTH

Same pile, 36× apart.

A yard runs laptops, servers, printers and phones by the ton. Boards leave in one lot, priced by the pound. But a handful of parts on each board are worth tens of times the rest, and nobody has time to find them.

Discarded circuit boards weathering in grass, components still attached. — **INBOUND** mixed board scrap — some of these carry chips that sell one at a time

MIXED BOARD SCRAPpennies / lb

GOLD-LEG ICs, SORTED BY WEIGHT$17.50 / lb

IDENTIFIED, BY PART NUMBERup to $15.50 / chip

WHAT THESE CHIPS ACTUALLY SOLD FOR · eBay, 2026

Xbox southbridge X861949-005	1 sale	$15.50/ea
PMC PM5384 framer (sibling of the PM4358 on our board)	lot of 126, $1,008 list, best offer	≤ $8.00/ea
LM380N audio amp	9 sales, median	$2.34/ea
74LCX244 buffer	2 lots, median	$0.53/ea

On 2026 eBay sold listings, individual chips from the same kind of scrap boards sold for between $0.43 and $15.50 each, a 36-fold spread. Most chips are worth cents; a few are worth real money. The only way to get the good ones is to know which is which. 13 sales across 4 part numbers. The other 12 part numbers on our test boards had no eBay sales at all. Parts like that sell to obsolete-parts brokers, not on eBay. That's where the $8 a chip comes from.

The money is in knowing which chip is which.
Cutting is the easy half.

If a vendor already pays you per chip for zero labor, the question is not "by weight vs by part." It is what a machine on your own floor adds on top of that. We will run that comparison on your numbers, and tell you if the answer is "keep the vendor."

04WHERE WE ARE

We're looking for the first yard.

As of September 2026, Unmake Robotics has a working camera and a bench prototype in Plano, Texas, and no machine on any floor. Here is exactly what is done, what is being tested, and what isn't.

DONE

Camera tested on 12 real scrap boards, labeled first; every result, including the misses, is above
Picked the detection method that scored best on real boards, not the one that demos best
Machine plans its own cuts from what the camera sees
Bench prototype running: router, 4K camera and glare-cutting lights

DOING NOW

Ten chips cut by hand, five on a square of board, five lifted off, sent to a buyer to price both. This test decides what version one is
Does the chip survive the cut
Reading part numbers off chips automatically. A person checks every read today
Talking to a multi-site recycler about being the first yard

NOT DONE

No machine on any floor yet
Chips per hour not measured yet
Haven't confirmed a buyer pays full price for a chip on a square of board. That's the test that decides the design

THE FIRST SITE

One yard, Dallas–Fort Worth, at no charge.

We are putting the first machine on one recycler's floor and building it around their boards and their buyer. Within driving distance of Plano, because a machine we cannot reach in an afternoon is a machine we cannot support yet.

YOU GIVE

A bench about 3 × 3 ft with a wall outlet, and someone on the floor who can load boards part of the day
Your real inbound, and if you already sell chips per part, what your buyer pays for which part numbers. The machine looks for what your buyer buys
Ten chips from your boards, cut by hand now, for your buyer to price. Their answer decides what we build for you
The log: what was found, what was cut, what it sold for. That record is what makes the machine better, and it is why the trial is free
Photos of the machine on your floor, and a reference call if it works

YOU GET

The first machine, on your floor, for 60 days at no charge
Every chip it pulls is yours
A say in what it looks for, and the per-board log from day one
First right to keep it, at a price set with you against what the chips actually sold for, not a list price

AFTER THE 60 DAYS

You keep it and we agree the price, or we take it away. Either way you keep the chips and the log. If the hand-cut buyer test fails first, we tell you why, you keep the appraisal and the ten chips, and nobody has spent anything. If you're in DFW, come see it cut. Bring boards.

Be the first yard Send us a box first

05ON YOUR FLOOR

What it takes on your floor.

What is measured on the bench and what is still a design target, labelled as such. If any target here is a problem for your site, tell us before the trial, not after.

BENCH · MEASUREDFOOTPRINT

About 3 × 3 ft

The bench prototype is a gantry that ships in a crate about 38 × 30 in at 130 lb, on a table. The floor version adds a cabinet. No pit, no anchor bolts, no forklift.

BENCHBOARD SIZE

Up to 24 × 20 in

Gantry travel; usable board area is a little less once the board is held down. Big enough for a full server or telecom board in one pass.

DESIGN TARGETOPERATOR

One person, part-time

Load a board, press go, empty the tray. Designed so anyone on the floor can do it between other jobs. We haven't timed a full shift on a real yard yet. The first site does that.

DESIGN TARGETDUST & FUMES

Closed cabinet

The floor version is designed as a closed cabinet with dust pulled off at the cutter, so board dust and solder stay inside. The bench prototype runs with a dust shoe and isn't there yet. We will publish what the first site measures.

DESIGN TARGETSAFETY

Door locks while it cuts

Interlocked door and an e-stop on the floor version. It won't cut with the door open.

WORKING · BENCHRECORDS

Every board logged

A per-board log with images and a timestamp of what came off and what stayed. Useful for your buyer and your own audit file. We haven't had it reviewed by an R2 or RIOS auditor. If yours has an opinion, we want to hear it before the trial, not after.

What does it cost?

There is no price list yet, and we won't make one up for you. The first machine goes in at one yard on trial terms: the machine is ours, it sits on your floor, and you pay nothing while we prove it on your boards. After that, the plan is to charge per chip pulled, with a small monthly floor, set against what the chips actually sold for. If you want to be the first yard, that's the deal on the table.

Who else is running one?

Nobody. We've tested the camera on 12 real scrap boards (results above, misses included) and the machine is on the bench in Plano, Texas. We're looking for the first yard to put it on the floor. The first yard gets it on trial terms and a say in what it looks for.

What if it breaks?

During the trial it's our machine and our problem: we fix it or swap it, and you're out nothing but bench space. It's a bench-top box, not a line. If it's down, your boards go out mixed like they do today; nothing else in your process stops. We're in Plano, and the first site will be within driving distance.

Who buys the chips?

Obsolete-parts brokers who price by part number. If you already sell to one, the machine feeds your existing buyer. If you don't, we'll help you find one. Sorted, identified parts with photos are what those buyers ask for. We haven't sold through a broker ourselves yet, and we'll say so plainly.

Do buyers pay full price for a chip that's still on a square of board?

We don't know yet. That's the test running now: ten chips cut by hand, five left on a square of board, five lifted off, sent to a buyer to price both. If the buyer wants them off the board, the machine gets a second step. We'll tell you the answer either way.

What happens to the rest of the board?

It goes out on your normal scrap stream. Only chips that pay for the minute it takes to cut them come off; everything else stays where it is.

Does it handle data-bearing parts?

No. It is designed to sit after your data-destruction step and touches loose boards only. It is not a data-destruction product. Check with your certifier how a harvesting step fits your chain of custody; we will share whatever documentation helps.

Isn't there already a robot that does this?

There are desoldering robots aimed at pulling memory and processors intact at high rates from large, uniform streams, and the biggest recyclers run their own disassembly lines. Both make sense at volume. We are aimed at the mixed pile, at a yard that will never justify a desoldering line, with a machine that sits on a bench. Ours cuts the chip out on a small square of board instead of desoldering it. Whether your buyer pays the same for that is the test we are running now.

What if my boards are mostly laptops and phones?

Then probably not much. On our 12 test boards, nearly half the chips worth money sat on three telecom cards; the consoles and handhelds carried a fraction of that. We'll tell you from your box, not from a brochure. "Nothing here worth pulling" is a real answer we will give you.

06THE MACHINE

Find it, price it, cut it, log it.

A small CNC router with a camera over it. Today it is a bench prototype; the floor version adds a cabinet, a locking door and dust extraction. This is a chip-harvesting machine for the mixed pile, not a depopulation line.

ILLUSTRATION a gantry head over a circuit board — stock footage of the motion class we use, not our machine

BENCH01

Board in

Drop the board on the plate against two stops. Any board up to 24 × 20 in, any make, no setup and nothing to program.

BENCH · 61/6502

Find

A camera finds the chips worth pulling and measures each one. It flags heatsinks and shields for a person to lift.

DOING NOW03

Read & price

Reading the part number printed on the chip is not reliable yet; a person confirms every read today. Each chip is then checked against what your buyer pays. If it won't pay for the minute it takes to cut, it stays on the board.

TESTING NOW04

Cut & log

Parts come off sorted by part number, not mixed in a bin, with a per-board log and photos you can hand a buyer. Cut quality and chip survival are what the current test measures.

Xbox One motherboard, as received, before scanning. — **INPUT** a console board as it arrives — nothing prepped, nothing programmed

Telecom card with PMC framer chips, as received. — **INPUT** a telecom card — the kind of board that pays

ABOUT UNMAKE ROBOTICS

Unmake Robotics is a robotics startup in Plano, Texas, in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. It builds electronics recycling equipment: a bench-top chip-harvesting machine that finds the valuable integrated circuits on scrap printed circuit boards and cuts them out, so a recycler can sell them by part number instead of by the pound. The machine is a three-axis CNC gantry with an overhead camera and a cutting spindle.

As of September 2026 the company is at the bench-prototype stage. The camera has been evaluated on 12 real scrap boards and found 61 of the 65 chips with resale value; no machine is installed at any customer; there is no list price; and the company is looking for one e-waste or ITAD yard in Dallas–Fort Worth to host the first machine on trial terms.

BASED IN plano, texas

Send us a box of boards.

We run them under the camera and send back what it found, what it would pull, and what that is worth against your buyer's list. No charge for the first run. If you're in DFW, come see it cut.

Send us a box of boards Be the first yard