Terpenation at Terpene Station

[FatherEarth]

Kcar,

I would think that the yield has less to do with how much butane and more about plant nutrition/environment . Unless you dont have enough butane in the system to wash down to collection.( yellow filters and yellow oil and material plugs in the ends of your columns when finished) If the plant has a surplus of nutrition and can express its FULL genetic potential it will have more to yield including stuff we dont want like plant fats/lipids. For wax makers its great, for winterizing or subzero runs it can be more work and less returns. Just my thoughts on the subject. ...



FE

 

[Kcar]

How do you measure how much butane you run through the terp unless your tank only has that much?

Yes, that is how much is in the tank.

 

[Holden Oversoul]

eh HO,
We have food grade quality bentonite @ concentrates in PDX....not sure where you are..

I'm in San Francisco. How much do you pack into a column?
By weight or by volume?
Is there a reason to choose bentonite over zeolite?

 

[Holden Oversoul]

RE: BHO Extraction efficiency
In preparing suffeciently-dried material prior to extraction have you ever tried mixing material with Soduim Sulfate? THis salt is commonly used in organic extractions to remove residual water from an extracted solvent. It seems like if one could find the right ratio to mix the material with this would significantly improve extraction efficiency. Or it could become a big clumpy mess hiding material from the solvent! Just curious if you've tried it and if so what your results were?

 

[Kcar]

Kcar,

I would think that the yield has less to do with how much butane and more about plant nutrition/environment . Unless you dont have enough butane in the system to wash down to collection.( yellow filters and yellow oil and material plugs in the ends of your columns when finished) If the plant has a surplus of nutrition and can express its FULL genetic potential it will have more to yield including stuff we dont want like plant fats/lipids. For wax makers its great, for winterizing or subzero runs it can be more work and less returns. Just my thoughts on the subject. ...



FE

Thanks FE! It's not so much our yields. Our yields are great.
Avg about 70g per run. It's just that the Levels of Cannabinoids
have been lower and my friend thinks it's because we're over washing. Now he thinks we should only do 1 wash...

 

[icdog]

Kcar from how much material are you getting 70g from? From one tube that would be pretty amazing.
So far everyone has said at least 10 lbs of butane in the tank.

 

[Kcar]

68g from 520g, 74g from 520g, 71g from 450g
That was with a 3x36 tube and 2 washes of 5lb butane...

 

[pusbag]

Charcoal butane tank fill

Charcoal butane tank fill

^^^^^^^^^^^ Dude Thats awesome!!!!! Props on the creativity!!!

I will also agree with regisphilburn, the AI vac ovens are awesome, specially the 1.9 cuft, just enough room to keep up with 2 MKIIIa's running all day. They hold temp great and seems to go to very low temps no problem. I keep mine right at 110F/50C. I put ceramic tiles on top of my selves so it has a nice even warm shelf that slowly will adjust to temp if i happened to ramp up the temp for a batch to get done quicker. 3 shelves seem to work just dandy.

Also I've been discussing something with a friend and we've found out where that mystery oil comes from when your first filling the machine with the canned butane... IT IS FROM THE BUTANE!!!! He sprayed 50 cans though a clean glass tube, into a SS pot and evaporated the butane off and what was left behind was a gross oily substance, same as what i found in my recovery pot when i filled my 50# tank with 3 cases of butane. I fill my 50# tank by filling my column with activated charcoal, and hooking the can tapper up to the butane supply hose and run the machine as normal. So the tane goes through the charcoal then gets recovered and put in the #50 tank, every time i'm done filling(have filled my tanks about 7 times) i open up the collection pot to find a gross oily substance that smells like a tire shop, or those cheap hoses when they are brand new. I've tried multiple butanes, Vector, Lucienne, Colibri, Newport, and many others, they all leave this residue behind.But it does get left behind! I've done runs with no material just to see if the butane leaves the collection pot clean and it doesn't, no a drop of oil or even a scent of smelly rubbery oil, so it can be separated which is good to know. So i've come to the conclusion that theres something that being used to can butane, i don't know what it is and the manufacturer wont say and just asks why we are worried about this oil substance lol.... Makes me worried about the years of open blasting through glass tubes, how much of this oil have a smoked??

So I tried the charcoal tank fill method but had no luck and resorted to regular method. Not sure if im doing something wrong with the valves or just needed to keep tapping new cans to push butane througt the overflow. A more detailed explaination other than run as normal would be awesome. Then I think I will see where I went south. I would like to eventually expand to 2 mk3 and a across 1.9 vac oven due to then matching up together well yield wise. So my question there is an approximate of how much material the 2 mk3's and 1.9 oven will process ?

 

[high life 45]

Pusbag, that seems like quite an open question to me... yeild is dependent on strain and material, I have seen 10% difference in yeild just from material.. ON top of that we dont know how big your tube is, or how much you are stuffing on it, Or what methods or temps you purge at.

If your pouring off, going for shatter, or just going for wax, your going to have different extraction times and purging times.

It seems like everyone techs are just alil different, just something to keep in mind.

 

[Momerath]

As far as the MkIIIA processing capabilities, I have found that in a good day I can run 6 tubes (running with no heat) @ around 150g each, for a total of ~900g of material a day. Running with two MkIIIa's would obviously double that.

As far as the ovens go, like high life said that is all dependent on your desired finish. Good shatter can be purged in an hour or two if using 115f @ -29.5" as per Skunk Pharms tech. However some people do a lower and slower method (I like 100f for top quality material. Seems to retain terps very nicely). And it also depends on the amount you are purging. Don't expect a 100g slab to be done in an hour. In fact if you want shatter, you should break it up into smaller slabs in order to have reasonable purge times.

Assuming 10% yield from the MkIIIA, you are looking at around 180g of oil per day, running 2 of em. That's more than enough to comfortably fill a 1.9 AI oven. I would say if you had 4 shelves, 40-50g on each shelf would take you the better part of a day to purge to completion. If you want wax, expect longer.

Again as high life stated, everyone's tech is just a bit different, so its hard to say for sure. For example, last batch of wax I made (2 x 90g slabs) took 5 days to finish at 100f @ full vac. Hope this helps

 

[hounddogg]

I am wondering how much of a difference there would be between freezing your tubes and recovery tank with dry ice and freezing your tubes in the freezer and running your recovery tank in a salt and ice bath. Do the temperatures really need to be as low as they are with dry ice? I seem to remember my tank getting way below 32 degrees in a salt and ice bath. Anyone have experience doing both?

 

[RegisPhilburn1]

Finally got the Caresaver in. This thing is Quiet!! probably 1/3 as loud as the appion. So far i have run 3 tubes through it and it is working great. finished a 24x1.5" tube in 21.5 min with 3 floods, ice on recovery tank, and 100F water on collection pot.

Id say it is slightly slower than the appion but not by much, and the difference in noise and the fact its rated for butane make it totally worth the extra couple minutes. Operates a little differently however, automatically shuts off at 0hg, and you have to hit the low pressure override switch to get it to pump to -10hg. I might just leave the switch on but im not sure if thats ok.

Ill keep you guys posted on how i like it later this week.

Edit: pumps down to -20Hg, the LP override only lasts 2 min and has to be turned off/on again. still figuring this thing out. im using regular ice.

 

[icdog]

Is the caresaver still an option for someone not running dry ice if it only goes down to -10?

 

[Rickys bong]

Regis,

Could you please take the cover off your Caresaver so we can have a look inside? I can't find any pictures of the guts of these things online. Someone mentioned they are "certified" for butane which is not true. They mention that they are "compatible" with R600 (butane) which is different from any governing body certifying them.

Anyway, there is one key engineering aspect as to why we run the Appion and that is that the crankcase is vented and isolated form the gas being pumped.

Some designs pressurize the crankcase with the gas being pumped to balance pressure on the piston seal. Fine for refrigeration, BAD for BHO. The Promax RG5000 is incompatible for this reason.

Why? Because the butane can wash away the grease in the crank bearings and get mixed into the butane stream. (really really bad mmmkay!)

The CPS TR21 looks worth trying but I can't find a decent parts drawing to tell how the crankcase is designed.

If anybody has an exploded parts diagram for a Caresaver or a CPS TR21 it would be nice to see if there are any parts of the crankcase that are wetted by the gas being pumped. Other CPS designs use a pressurized crankcase so I'm a bit skeptical. Even though they are oil-less they can still contaminate the medium being pumped.

There are large compressors designed to keep the pumped fluid pure. These are designed for larger applications pumping natural gas etc. but they start at around $15k. I can buy a lot of Appions before one of those makes sense.

Peace, RB

 

[high life 45]

Regis,

Could you please take the cover off your Caresaver so we can have a look inside? I can't find any pictures of the guts of these things online. Someone mentioned they are "certified" for butane which is not true. They mention that they are "compatible" with R600 (butane) which is different from any governing body certifying them.

Anyway, there is one key engineering aspect as to why we run the Appion and that is that the crankcase is vented and isolated form the gas being pumped.

Some designs pressurize the crankcase with the gas being pumped to balance pressure on the piston seal. Fine for refrigeration, BAD for BHO. The Promax RG5000 is incompatible for this reason.

Why? Because the butane can wash away the grease in the crank bearings and get mixed into the butane stream. (really really bad mmmkay!)

The CPS TR21 looks worth trying but I can't find a decent parts drawing to tell how the crankcase is designed.

If anybody has an exploded parts diagram for a Caresaver or a CPS TR21 it would be nice to see if there are any parts of the crankcase that are wetted by the gas being pumped. Other CPS designs use a pressurized crankcase so I'm a bit skeptical. Even though they are oil-less they can still contaminate the medium being pumped.

There are large compressors designed to keep the pumped fluid pure. These are designed for larger applications pumping natural gas etc. but they start at around $15k. I can buy a lot of Appions before one of those makes sense.

Peace, RB

Thank you so much! I assume you mean the g6000 not the g5000?

I had a premie app burn out after just a few runs, still trying to diagnose to mishap.

One of the copper rings next to the piston was there, one was only half there and I could find no signs of the other half anywhere...

I talked to the gents at RSD and they told me CPS "didnt use good parts" and recommended the robinair. promax g6000

Its funny because on the CPS site, it shows that robinair and appion are both made in Asia where as CPS is made in the USA.

I have been debating wether to buck up and get a caresaver or go with a cps.

Those commercial systems FE posted look interesting, but concern comes when the idea of potential seal replacement...

 

[Rickys bong]

I have personal experience with the Promax RG5000 / 5400 from an old experimental setup. The RG6000 uses a twin piston compressor with the same design drawback for extraction use.

If you can post some pix of the Appion failure maybe I can help. I know of several scenarios that will cause premature failure.

The commercial units FE posted I've looked at before. The Reftec RTO-500 is just two compressors in a common housing. Two Appions are more cost effective.

The larger units such as the Mityvac are belt driven units with a oil bath crankcase. All unsuitable for extraction use due to the risk of lubricating oil contaminating the pumped fluid stream. (cue Mr. Mackie voice)
"And that's bad kids, mmmkay?"
Not to over-praise the Appion, but it's still the shit in my opinion...

RB

 

[ptfarmer420]

So much info FatherEarth ... Many thanks for sharing all this ...

 

[RegisPhilburn1]

Hey Ricky here is the Caresaver with the cover taken off. Not sure what to look for. I can-tapped 3 cans through the machine before using it. Hopefully this is ok, i wouldnt be too happy about wasting 2g.

I Blew out an appion last week, less than 100 hours on it, never sucked up oil. My first appion is still truckin. Seems like people are having trouble with newer appions, maybe a change in production lowered the quality.

 

[RegisPhilburn1]

Here is one next to an appion for comparison

 

[high life 45]

I Blew out an appion last week, less than 100 hours on it, never sucked up oil. My first appion is still truckin. Seems like people are having trouble with newer appions, maybe a change in production lowered the quality.

Thats what im thinking. Hoping your caresaver lasts a while, because I am thinking about getting one myself.

I recently contacted vtech who makes equipment rated for HC and Co2 and they replied that their base recovery system starts at 25k.

When I talked to the guys as RSD they mentioned that the appions are wearing out from us pulling vac on them so often.
The cps says "ultimate Vacuum" 30hg...does this mean the pump itself can reach negative 30hg?
Perhaps this is one of the beefier attributes we are looking for..