Boardsort.com launches AI e-scrap identification, grading tool

Users can upload a photo of a circuit board and receive a grading result based on Boardsort.com’s pricing scale.

electronic scrap

Thomas Heitz | stock.adobe.com

Boardsort.com, an Alliance, Ohio-based circuit board and electronic scrap recycler, has announced the launch of its Optical Scrap Categorization and Reporting (OSCAR) tool, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify and grade circuit boards from photos.

According to Boardsort.com, this tool removes the guesswork and streamlines the sorting process for both individuals and commercial sellers.

Aimed at both professionals and beginners in the e-scrap industry, OSCAR allows users to upload a photo of a circuit board and receive a grading result based on the official Boardsort.com pricing scale.

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“A fair part of my workday is spent interacting with customers providing basic but necessary grading guidance on common, easily identifiable circuit boards and chips,” says Chris Skeeles, owner of Boardsort.com and the developer behind OSCAR. “This tool empowers users to get that same guidance instantly without needing to wait for an email response.”

Skeeles says the idea for OSCAR was more than a decade in the making, and he originally envisioned the project as an optical image-matching system powered by an archive of thousands of reference photos. However, he says that approach proved unreliable and resource intensive.

Thanks to recent breakthroughs in AI, Skeeles shifted strategies, building a system that uses visual reasoning rather than image comparison. Boardsort.com says the result is a smarter, faster and more scalable solution that evaluates each board’s form, factor and function to determine its proper classification.

Once a grade has been assigned, OSCAR explains the reason behind the grade, giving users insight into the specific features that affect a board’s value, including component types, socket styles and layout density.

OSCAR is web-based, and users can access it from a desktop or smartphone for free.