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Washing machine extraction

Gtir

Member
Lately, I’ve been wanting to go BIG... need to extract at least 200lbs of material per run.

Was thinking about buying a large commercial washing machine, filling it with Trim, hooking the water line up to an ethanol tank, and set her to heavy wash.

Any flaws in my plan?
 

exploziv

pure dynamite
Administrator
Veteran
Why not use water and ice and do bubblehash in the washing machine? Then you don't have to evaporate ethanol, u just dry out your hash and it's ready. Also, if using ethanol u need to make sure it won't effect the washing machine parts (rubber seals ect.) or extract nasties like lubricants or other shit from exposed washing machine parts.
 

Gray Wolf

A Posse ad Esse. From Possibility to realization.
Mentor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Lately, I’ve been wanting to go BIG... need to extract at least 200lbs of material per run.

Was thinking about buying a large commercial washing machine, filling it with Trim, hooking the water line up to an ethanol tank, and set her to heavy wash.

Any flaws in my plan?

Ummmm, large commercial washing machines aren't designed to run flammable solvents, so hoses and seals are unlikely to be compatible. Not only might they fail, but they will leach constituents into the alcohol.

They aren't NEMA 7, so a leak could equal a fire.

Unless you were controlling the temperature, you would most likely end up with chlorophyll soup.

We've run ice water in our washer and extracted the kif with ethanol afterwards, which works well except for the lower yield part. We get more usable produce just doing a QWET extraction.
 

PDX Dopesmoker

Active member
Lately, I’ve been wanting to go BIG... need to extract at least 200lbs of material per run.

Was thinking about buying a large commercial washing machine, filling it with Trim, hooking the water line up to an ethanol tank, and set her to heavy wash.

Any flaws in my plan?

Some component of the washing machine disintegrating after being exposed to that much solvent or a fire would probably be your chief worries. To do 200lbs of trim you'd probably need something with a 60-80 cubic foot capacity at least, would take about 3,000lbs of ethanol to fill it. Can you lift a 3,000lb bottle of Everclear?
 

EsterEssence

Well-known member
Veteran
I tumble the material and then soak it in ethanol, in the freezer. I do two tumbles one for 3 min for rosin, and the around 20 min for the ethanol material. You may not get all of the product, but it is not as green and takes way less ethanol...
 

SkyHighLer

Got me a stone bad Mana
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Lately, I’ve been wanting to go BIG... need to extract at least 200lbs of material per run.

Was thinking about buying a large commercial washing machine, filling it with Trim, hooking the water line up to an ethanol tank, and set her to heavy wash.

Any flaws in my plan?


1) Completely disassemble, examine, and reassemble with only the basic plumbing and wiring necessary. Upgrade the plumbing pieces that don't pass a leach test. Replace or seal up any control switches, solenoids, temperature limit devices, etc. that may be possible ignition sources.

2) Screen the tub, or place the material in filter socks. If you screen the tub, the material should end up as a dry cake lining the inner circumference of the tub that you can scrape out in chunks. A large sheet of stainless steel mesh could be long set epoxied in place to cover most of the tubs holes, another ring of SS mesh epoxied in place at the bottom of the tub to cover those holes.


Because you're able to centrifugally remove the solvent the process should be extremely efficient. You could even spray rinse while it's spinning after the primary wash.


Run chilled ethanol, or if you've got crazy ass balls run a non-polar solvent.


Here's some pictures and description of how I modded a water distiller for flammable solvent use. J-B Weld is your friend.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=8035125&postcount=232


Going over a centrifugal juicer for flammable solvent use,

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=7868992&postcount=186



Thanks for the inquiry, on track with my imagining a washing machine extractor combined with a commercial solvent recycler.

Solvent recyclers,

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=8080205&postcount=16
 
Last edited:

Mikell

Dipshit Know-Nothing
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Doesn't Delta Separations build exactly this with the appropriate parts? Bit pricey.
 

G.O. Joe

Active member
Veteran
If I was in the extraction business for QWET at that scale why wouldn't I want to have a shop weld me a big stainless Buchner on legs with a lid with inlets, then put an overhead stirrer on it. If I was doing that much business I'd splurge on a sealed system allowing air compressors instead of vacuum pumps.
 

Gtir

Member
I don’t think it would be necessary to use the washer for anything other than removal of the left over ethanol that’s stuck in the plant material.

So wash Trim in ethanol and dry ice chunks,

drain,

fill mesh bag with wet Trim and toss in washer to reclaim all the ethanol.

I’m thinking it doesn’t need to spin for too long to remove the alcohol, so I can do multiple loads quickly in a standard size washing machine.

As far as safety...

I’m thinking the actually part of the washer that would have the trim in it is watertight and isolated from any electronics. Maybe I’ll keep a fire extinguisher nearby.
 

Mikell

Dipshit Know-Nothing
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Gtir,

You have some very experienced heads in here (I am not one of them), listen to their direction. Your approach and mindset is worlds apart from theirs, you would do best to figure out why.

They do, but I haven't seen them with anything near big enough to do 200lbs of trim.

Per run? No.

Their small unit claims around 10lb/hr and 25lb/hr for the larger.

Either would make short work of it.
 

prune

Active member
Veteran
Gtir,

You have some very experienced heads in here (I am not one of them), listen to their direction. Your approach and mindset is worlds apart from theirs, you would do best to figure out why.

You know, I used to try and stop the ingenious fools from doing harm, but I got sooooooo tired with how relentless they can be...

So Now, FUCK'N Hey MAN! Do it up! Sounds so RaDicAl!!! Please Twiter this, you will be so famous and popular and make so muck money and get SO much bOOTay ayyyy and aaayyyyyy!

(and they still can't turn you away at the emergency ward!)
 

Gtir

Member
wondering how much oil the alcohol can absorb, so how many washes of new trim can I do before rotoing off the alcohol?
 

GNYC

New member
1) Completely disassemble, examine, and reassemble with only the basic plumbing and wiring necessary. Upgrade the plumbing pieces that don't pass a leach test. Replace or seal up any control switches, solenoids, temperature limit devices, etc. that may be possible ignition sources.

2) Screen the tub, or place the material in filter socks. If you screen the tub, the material should end up as a dry cake lining the inner circumference of the tub that you can scrape out in chunks. A large sheet of stainless steel mesh could be long set epoxied in place to cover most of the tubs holes, another ring of SS mesh epoxied in place at the bottom of the tub to cover those holes.


Because you're able to centrifugally remove the solvent the process should be extremely efficient. You could even spray rinse while it's spinning after the primary wash.


Run chilled ethanol, or if you've got crazy ass balls run a non-polar solvent.


Here's some pictures and description of how I modded a water distiller for flammable solvent use. J-B Weld is your friend.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=8035125&postcount=232


Going over a centrifugal juicer for flammable solvent use,

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=7868992&postcount=186



Thanks for the inquiry, on track with my imagining a washing machine extractor combined with a commercial solvent recycler.

Solvent recyclers,

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=8080205&postcount=16


exactly what I was about to type out for you. we were doing 20 lb's of material to 50-55 gal of ethanol in a maytag and this is basically the layout to what we did. you can build refurbished industrial centrifuge compared to spending 60k on the delta9 separations machine
 

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