I think it was one of these.
http://exformma.com/en/pro-4.htm
Mechanics seemed fine. Software as might be expected was kind of clunky. But it did work, calibrated fine and got numbers that matched 3rd party labs with brand name HPLCs. They used a US made column with it.
Be wary of any HPLC that is marketed specifically for cannabis — especially when they market it as a “turn key” solution and want you to get all your consumables exclusively through the company. And especially avoid any that require you to pay a monthly (the CANN-Id comes to mind) lease for the instrument and want all your data This machines have existed for decades. They aren’t exactly hard to run. You don’t need a masters or PhD. The real challenges come with troubleshooting and method development. For the later, some understanding of chemistry is required.
I have operated a multitude of instruments in varied industries (small molecule pharma, biotech, cannabis). Doesn’t matter if its Agilent, Waters, or Shimadzu they’re all about the same if you have the mental framework to know how to operate them. I even had success with a Chinese binary pump system with basic UV detector from Beijing vendor CXTH. For cannabinoids its all reverse phase and most are fairly straightforward to achieve baseline resolution. Oligonucleotides on the other hand are extremely difficult to resolve but I digress.
For a fair price I can help source HPLCs and associated consumables, along with a viable off the shelf method, to help folks get up and going with on site cannabinoid testing.
FWIW you can get a Varian 3800 for like $500 and they’re very well featured/robust units. Much more control than a 310 although you’ve got to deal with some older software (or set up analog acquisition which is not terribly difficult).
Again, I have been through handfulls of companies that stopped their in house analytics for various reasons.
As a simple answer, out of 10 cannabis companies, 3-4 of them have some sort of testing equipment they have no fucking clue how to use because their in house chemist/biologist left and they cant find another employee able to run the machines.
I get sad seeing all the unused HPLC’s HPGC’s and other equipment that’ll probably never see use again. 
Why not just buy a used system?
In an industry where people claim to be “scientists”because they run industrial equipment, what do you expect? 
“I used to be the lead scientist at a shatter lab” 
No one wants to put in the work to learn something outside of their comfort zone. Everyone wants to plug And play and follow route process and here we are with more hotdog water (distillate) instagram videos with rap in the background like its still 2017.
Is it hotdog water 2.0? Or version 3.0?
I interviewed another company this week at the Extraction Expo who has a subscription HPLC service. Way more expensive, nothing other than potency and terps. Their solution was cloud based, the data moves across their platform for analysis. Everything is hosted in the cloud. The service orders it’s own calibration when home base thinks that’s in order.
Equipment as service is a great model for this expensive equipment that requires lots of consumables.
The last company I worked for used one of the subscription services. It was utter shit. They had a manual injection agilent 1200 but their method used MeOH instead of acetonitrile mobile phase and didn’t get baseline separation.
What’s wrong with using methanol as an organic solvent mobile phase? As long as you get baseline separation and the method is validated for your specific assay, it should be fine.
Nothing wrong with using MeOH as a mobile phase, they just didn’t get the results that they could’ve with ACN.
Except you are entirely dependent on them for everything, it does nothing to help you understand how things work and how to perform the inevitable troubleshooting because these instruments will always require problem solving. Not to mention the cost of leasing through said company is far more expensive than outright buying a good used instrument.
What happens when there is another cannabinoid you want to test for but the leasing company doesn’t have a method for it yet?
Or if you want to have matrix specific methods to optimize separations and reduce interferences?
Wanna play scientist? Might help to actually learn the science
What do you think they’re going to do with all your data in their cloud system? 
There is a reason these services never took hold in long standing industries that use these instruments, like pharma or environmental testing
You don’t run terpene analysis on HPLC. That is run on GC
Everything @IonStorm said. 
I think the service could be extremely viable to some in the industry. Perhaps a lab just getting started, with hopes of eventually having in-house analytics.
That reason being everything you just stated. But there’s a large difference between a Pharma Lab and a greenhouse. Hell, most environmental labs have multiple labs within them — Volatiles, Semi-volatiles, Metals, PCB/Pesticides, etc — with a full team in each. It’s apples to oranges in terms of viability of this service.
Do you know which one?
Already been linked…
I’ve got a gently used newer hplc/hplc Shimadzu unit available for $30k
Hello to all,
my 2 cent about that machine.
We got that machine from another company that bought it and never used. I can confirm that the company is real, the machine is a very basic HPLC (rebranded from another producer). The method is ok, and the machine work good. I think is more a production and quality control machine than a Testing LAB unit.
The owner of the company is always replying in real time and troubleshooting all the problem.
The machine run a c18 column, the method is ISOCRATIC and use pH buffer to achieve the separation in 13 minutes of runtime.
We use it for our internal R and D, and it help a lot.
Dontk know if worth the retail price as we paid it half of the retail price (its brand-new but second hand) and for that price we paid im pretty happy of the performance.
as its a real machine, with real HPLC component, its possible of course to change column and create your own method. Im working in a different method than the one included with the package and happy about the results.
Post a chromatogram, let’s see the software interface too
I feel bad for the normie that buys this thing and then can’t even make or get standards.