Best automatic trimmer....

Anyone have personal experience on how well the Trimbox handles the smaller looser popcorn outdoor buds?The machine itself is £600 in the UK,but I have found a far,far cheaper generic one from a chinese manufacturer,anyone used a generic or would you recommend the original?

The Trimbox performs much like the Trimpro from what I understand. Greyskull has one and he's got a thread devoted to it somewhere here on IC mag.....good pictures of his experience....it may in fact be linked in this thread somewhere too....take a look around.
There are different "grates" that can be made available for each of the models.....they're described as "workstations'...and if you look in depth, you'll see a plethora of different grate options are in fact available direct from the makers of Trimpro and Trimbox. The grate options may enable you to tailor your trimming more accurately for popcorn nuggets.
Another member here: Lapides has a Trimpro Automatic......he says it's the bomb for the small nuggets....and it's saved him hours of labor and chapping.
Take a look for his thread somewhere here also...he gives a once over of the automatic.

I LOVE my Trimpro. Wouldn't think twice in retrospect about buying one.

Thank you very much access,I will probably end up getting the original and a generic.

VanXant said:

Thanks humboldtlocal,

So how much is a Twister? The site for the Twister doesnt say.

have you used one of these yet???

if so, did you use the 240v vacuum? whats your opinion on the 120v vacuum?

appreciate your time

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The Twister goes for $14,000. A bit more than the Tumbleweed but in my opinion it is worth it. Still cheaper than the rolling thunder. I think this machine is better built and being so much easier to clean I think it will last a lot longer without needing maintenance or sharpening. If I can sell my Tumbleweed I will be switching. They do about the same quality of trim but if you can't keep your blades sharp over time the quality of the product will suffer. With a 120v vacuum the performance will suffer. It wont get as much suction and wont give as tight of a trim job. I would recommend the 240v 2hp. You can also get a 240v 3hp. That is only if you want to put your vacuum 50' away from the trimmer. If it is closer I think it would damage the buds. When you see these machines side by side it is obvious that the Twister is a much better designed machine. Much more user friendly and easier to adjust. Also has very detailed instructions. Anyone looking for a used Tumbleweed?

thanks again,

so how much is a replacement drum/blade for a Tumbleweed?

Does the Tumbleweed use a 240V 2-3 HP vacuum also? or ???

How long does the drum on a Tumbleweed go until its doing a poor job?

how much are you asking?

I haven't had to replace my blades because I clean them like crazy so I don't know what a replacement costs. You can sharpen the bed knife if you remove it. The Tumbleweed uses the same size vacs as the Twister. I have a 240v 2hp. If you clean your machine after every use and you remove your bed knife often to clean underneath it you should be able to go a long time without replacing or sharpening your bed knife. A new Tumbleweed with tax costs around 14,000. I would take 11,500.

What makes the Twister easier to clean, more user friendly and easier to adjust than a Tumbleweed?

Can you sharpen the bed knife on a Tumbleweed machine? how is that going to get done?

Any contact info for the Tumbleweed manufacturer would be appreciated..


Thanks again humboldt...

Blunted22 said:

hey guys im looking for the absolute best auto trimmer... im so sick up trimming i can puke

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hahaha how did I know you had something to do with this thread....

VanXant said:

What makes the Twister easier to clean, more user friendly and easier to adjust than a Tumbleweed?

Can you sharpen the bed knife on a Tumbleweed machine? how is that going to get done?

Any contact info for the Tumbleweed manufacturer would be appreciated..


Thanks again humboldt...

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There is an electrical panel on the Tumbleweed that you have to cover with plastic before you wash the machine. On the Twister you can wash every square inch of it. On the Twister you can access the back of the blades and under the bed knife in seconds. To access the back of the Tumbleweed you have to remove a lot of bolts and you need to run a bead of caulk along the housing when you reinstall it. The Twister is easier to adjust the angle of the barrel and adjust the height of the barrel from the blades. If you see the two side by side you will tell right away which is a better machine. The Twister makes the Tumbleweed look like the "green machine". The bed knife needs to be sharpened to very specific specifications. A lawn mower shop could probably sharpen it for you but I think you would need a machine shop with the proper equipment to sharpen it. I was told to call the manufacturer to get the specifications to take to a machine shop. The Tumbleweeds website is Tumbleweed.bz

If one were primarily interested in quality, but harvesting on a scale impractical by hand, which trimmer would one use? I like the trimpro, but one person on here said slapping the plants onto the grates caused a lot of trichome loss. I'm thinking that tumbling through the tumbleweed or others in that style would cause the same thing. At least with the trimpro, the new grates have a nonstick coating, and perhaps if you trim the fan leaves first - which takes very little time - and raise the blade, you could rotate the lollipops in such a way as not to damage an excess of trichomes...

I used the Trimpro XL Deluxe a lot last year and this spring (on a friend's job), and while there are better and worse ways to use it, at its very best (and believe me, we tried everything, called the manufacturer, Andre, repeatedly, etc.), it won't damage the trichomes too much (it moshes the outer ones, but doesn't knock them off), and the finished product can look pretty good, but it always damages the smell (at best it just removes it, at worst it makes it smell like grass/hay I'm assuming from moshing green plant material all over itself because it doesn't use a vacuum system, just gravity to remove the trim, and the blades are in a fan configuration which helps the bud float on the grate but also keeps a fair amount of mushed leaves floating around for a little while). It also removes all the red hairs. Despite the coating, the action is just too intense, and I think the lack of vacuum really causes problems.

Last week I used the Reel Pro which is one of the other style (like the Tumbleweed, Centurion, Twister, etc.) and it was amazingly better. Waaaaay gentler on the buds, they smelled great at the end, and it trimmed them super tight after making some adjustments, as long as you kept the blade clean. In our area, (southern Oregon, NorCal) people like super tight trim (its to a degree that's silly imho), and we compared the finished product to the hand trim of several very experienced hand trimmers working that day. Only one person trimmed theirs tighter and that person is so anal that it takes them 15 to 20 hours to do a pound, which is really not very practical. The machined stuff looked better than
the other hand trimmers. I was really impressed, especially after the Trimpro Deluxe XL. I"m sure Trimpro's used as open grate trimmers are great, but as closed in automatics they have some serious design flaws.

That said, the two thoughts I had running the Reel Pro is that it'd be a lot more efficient if it were easier to clean the blades (about 10 bolts have to be removed to get it out), which needs to be done every 4 to 6 hours to maintain optimum cut. They gunk up with resin eventually and pretty much stops cutting. We were running some super crystally indoor, so you might get away with longer times. It took about 20 minutes to dissassemble, clean and reassemble whereas it could take 5 minutes or less if there were easier access.

And, if it had a self-feeding system so no one had to literally baby sit the thing and constantly add small handfuls. I wondered if anyone had worked with the Tumbleweed in hopper mode, and how that worked?

Other thoughts:

These machines are mostly made in Canada where they do a fairly shaggy trim job, so you have to adjust the machines when you get them if you want it tight like they do in the Emerald Triangle and its frontiers. I know several guys who've gotten these and freaked out on how shaggy the trim job was before calling the manufacturer, setting the blade closer to the barrel and re-running.

Also, to get that kind of quality of trim job the most we could run through was 1 to 1.5 pounds per hour, no matter what. Which is still killer compared to hand trimmers around here taking 5 (big easy buds, great trimmer) to 15 hrs (airy bud, lots of popcorn, mediocre trimmers). When I hear these claims of running 5 to 20 lbs an hour, I'm assuming its complete bs, crappy trim jobs, or we're missing something. Am I missing something?

Here are my questions, in easy to respond to form:

1) Does the Tumbleweed hopper allow you to dump buds in, walk away, and get a great trim job?
2) Can anyone who does tight trim jobs, move significantly more bud through than 1 to 1.5 lbs per hour? If yes, what do you think is the key to getting good quality and speed?
3) What's up with the vacuum feature on the Reel Pro and similar styles? When we were running the Reel Pro, very little trim actually got sucked into the vacuum and most of it flew up into the air. Is that normal? When we turned off the barrel and blades, you could feel good suction from the vacuum.

HooleyBooley said:

Here are my questions, in easy to respond to form:

1) Does the Tumbleweed hopper allow you to dump buds in, walk away, and get a great trim job?
2) Can anyone who does tight trim jobs, move significantly more bud through than 1 to 1.5 lbs per hour? If yes, what do you think is the key to getting good quality and speed?
3) What's up with the vacuum feature on the Reel Pro and similar styles? When we were running the Reel Pro, very little trim actually got sucked into the vacuum and most of it flew up into the air. Is that normal? When we turned off the barrel and blades, you could feel good suction from the vacuum.

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1. No

2. Are ya talkin dry...we put alot more than 2 lbs an hour through..The key(reel pro) is to run it through twice(for the tightest trimm)..Also bigleafing helps..Eliminates the fan leaf stem protrusions that kill bag appeal.

When im doin 2runs I like 2 prop up the entry side of the machine with a 2x4 to add a little more slope to the barell angle. I also run the barell at 3/4 speed....Ive heard of guys in BC that have four machines, and run them in line....

3. I noticed that two. seems like all you end up with is a bunch of dust in the catch bagg, and leaf allover the trimm shop.., huh?....I found that cleaning the filter bagg (taking off, turning inside out and slapping against a wall)on the vacume every fiew hours really helps.

I feel that the vacume filter bagg is greatly diminishing the ability for these machines to get a tighter trimm. This fall if things are doing well enough(meaning I can afford to waste hash material for a better trimm) I plan to bypass the collection system, and simply blow all that shit directly out the window, into the compost bin.....
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Glad to hear that the real pro worked out well for you bro....I fuckin love that machine, it has allowed me to truly step it up a fiew levels...

Thanks for the reply Fastpine.

1) You answered my Tumbleweed question definitively, have you ever used one? Why have a hopper if it doesn't accomplish that?

2) We'd get a kick-ass trim with one run through with it set-up like this:

A) Exit end propped up on a 4x4 plus a 1/2" thick board, making it so it had a gentle slope through. Blades cleaned every 4-6 hours (crystally indoor). Speed control on the highest setting. Barrel adjusted so it was as close to bed-knife as possible. How much you could send through was pretty much controlled by the machine because the slope was so minimal if you put too much in it just worked its way back out the entry side. That's how I could imagine a hopper being useful because it pretty much wouldn't accept too much at a time.

But 1 to 1.5 lbs per hour seemed to be the max. We always big leafed, and removed the crows feet leaves before the run through. I like the idea of one setting and one run through the best, but if you're able to do more per hour with two runs I'm all ears.

HooleyBooley said:

Thanks for the reply Fastpine.

1) You answered my Tumbleweed question definitively, have you ever used one? Why have a hopper if it doesn't accomplish that?

2) We'd get a kick-ass trim with one run through with it set-up like this:

A) Exit end propped up on a 4x4 plus a 1/2" thick board, making it so it had a gentle slope through. Blades cleaned every 4-6 hours (crystally indoor). Speed control on the highest setting. Barrel adjusted so it was as close to bed-knife as possible. How much you could send through was pretty much controlled by the machine because the slope was so minimal if you put too much in it just worked its way back out the entry side. That's how I could imagine a hopper being useful because it pretty much wouldn't accept too much at a time.

But 1 to 1.5 lbs per hour seemed to be the max. We always big leafed, and removed the crows feet leaves before the run through. I like the idea of one setting and one run through the best, but if you're able to do more per hour with two runs I'm all ears.

Click to expand...

We may have been able to do more because I wasnt normally removing crows feet, or bigleafing...It simply got bucked down to usable chunks, and thrown through..

I too propped up the exit end and cranked up the barell speed to max.(did it as a test)..Seemed to give a cleaner trimm, but it took too long.

If I didnt keep feeding the drum the production rate would slow down greatly...I think it needs a steady ammnt of material in the drum to keep everything moving through quickly....

At the end of last fall's sessioning,,,it seemed that 2 quick runs through the machinewith the blade, on full speed, barell at about 80% speed, and the exit end propped up ~2inched from stock did best..
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Never used a tumble weed but in my research I remember the guy saying that it (hopper)was just an addition to the machine's sorting trey, basicly just giving you a easier way to load the machine.....I would immagine if you packed it full it would jam up..if it didnt jam up, id immagine it would be loading tooo much too fast,,,,probably resulting in portions of some nuggs never seeing the blade...,,,,,,,That;s what seemed to happen when I overloaded the RP....

Right on, thanks for the experiential feedback Fast Pine. It's like we're creating a user's guide here. We kept it running at full feed to get the 1 to 1.5 lb per hr, so the speed of trim per pound may just depend a lot on how tight you want it, which is kind of what I suspected. Its fun to play with the different settings and try to get something like this to run optimally.

I'm still wondering why no magazine does a "real" test. I would buy an abonnement instantly
for a quality trimmer test. Make it semi-scientific, same strain, same amount, maybe 1 pound of sativa and indica, wet and dry...
Indepth testing, including maintenance, spare parts cost ect.
Then spread the tests, one machine per issue, i will buy, and I'm sure i'm not the only one.

They just posted some very good info on the Twister blog about running Your scene with a trim machine.
http://thetwistermachine.com/blog/
I got to help some friends use the Tumbleweed again this last weekend and was very unimpressed. They were running some very leafy light dep. They had very similar results to HooleyBooley. But after reading the blog post I realize there were many things we should have done differently. They had harvested some plants that sat around for up to 5 hours before they got run through the machine. By that time the leaves were sticking to the buds and were not getting sucked into the blades. It also seams like the Vacume on the Tumbleweed is underpowered. My friends were running the weed through the machine too fast. They were doing three passes through the machine and the weed is still going to need a lot of touch up after it is dry. The first day the blades were not adjusted close enough and that was leaving them really shaggy. After adjusting the blades it got a little better. The blades on the Tumbleweed are a pain in the ass to adjust. On the Twister it has clickers on both sides that adjust the bed knife .0007". We had to clean the blades every hour or so. They were getting so gunked up. I think if we had been running fresher weed through it would have helped. They were also running all the big tops through the machine and on the blog they say you should do those by hand. The machine definitely makes the smaller buds look the best. I had only trimmed very uniform indoor with the machine that did not require a lot of big leafing so I had been having better results with the machine. Like Hooley said in Canada their standard is a lot lower than here in Nor Cal. That is how they can achieve 10 lbs per hour. I think those numbers are for indoor only. We were getting under 2 lbs per hour with 6 people bucking. It is faster than doing it by hand but the weed was going to need a lot of clean up after it was dry. I think you could run a lot more through if you were not big leafing like fast pine did. But basically you are either going to have to do a lot of clean up before it goes in the machine or after. I am getting a Twister machine in a couple of weeks and will be trying it on some more light dep. I am over the Tumbleweed. The blade adjustment is so poor that it required adjustment every hour. Ii is near impossible to get both sides of the blade to adjust. The Twister machine I ordered will have a barrel with a 1/8" bigger opening in it so it should suck more leaf through. It should also have a bigger vac than the Tumbleweed. I am hoping the two barrels will line up so I can run the machines inline with the Tumbleweed second. I am hoping the Twister can perform better and with a few changes to how we were doing the trim scene make things a lot faster. I will let you guys know when I get the machine.

Over on the Twister blog they say they are going to be shooting some more video of the Twister in action. They are asking for suggestions on what they should shoot. Send them an email or make a comment on what you would like to see. This is a great opportunity to get some questions answered.
http://thetwistermachine.com/blog/