I keep hearing that Wiped Films are a waste of money and you are better off with multiple SPD units. Im on the fence about dropping 150+k$ on wiped film when I can buy several 12L or 20L SPD units. what are the pros and cons? Would love to hear as many opinions as possible. Im new to the game.
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hey @QGA where are you ats?
Both will work, the spd’s are going to be a pain to run and clean everytime. The wiped thin film is a great way to go for doing week long production runs of distillate, and will degrade your cannabinoids the least.
Have you priced out all the perepherals for the spd’s? All those pumps and cold traps may add up to more than the wfe.
That being said if something were to break and you had a gang of spd’s you’d still be running.
Ideally you would have a few of the wfe daisy chained together and some extra parts onthe shelf.
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Really, what leads you to that conclusion? How many 12Ls do you think it would take you to match a 6" wiped film? Do you expect to be able to run them all effectively at once being new to the game? How much do you expect a 12L to cost when it actually has good parts, wide bore, etc?
One thing I do recommend is getting a steel wiped film if you go that route. You don’t want your operation to be dependent on one very expensive fragile piece of glass. The glass evaporators really should be thought of as just being practice for method development purposes, not your eventual workhorse.
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Breaking dabs on ig is pulling 4-5L/H with only a 20L with summits new HB head…
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Truth!
Think of this like the rabbit and the turtle race, yes you can stack up enough spd’s to get a simialar output. But the energy you put into setting up/tearing down/cleaning/ watching the thing run outweighs the effort of running a wfe.
The 6" should yeild several kilos per day, Unlike you it can run all night and day no breaks! The continous feed and operation of these machines make it an great choice for large production.
Yes you can make a lot of distillate fast with spd’s, but running them everyday is going to get really old and day#2!
Edit: sorry @Alchemist thought this was a question direcred at me!
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Oh hi. I was responding the the OP not you. I actually do use wiped film and those were rhetorical questions intended to make the case for WFE.
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yeah got that now lol! Isnt wfe a hell of alot easier than spd! Minus clogs and cleaning the wiper!
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I’ll train people on running any wiped film so that way you can skip running the glass set up and jump straight into running an all steel system.
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steel for the win!
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Yep but in build up and running and breaking down and cleaning the avarage go s down fast
Large SPD really Need attention When at work
IT s like driving a bus down a Hill with No roads quoting @anon42519203
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Totally so a gang of his hb heads running on 20 L would be like stand in the middle of 20 lane road with busses flying down at you lol
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lol smh I don’t know what to say anymore 
its kind of depressing.
@Isolater read my other posts about short path vs wiped film
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we like having both systems. you can pull volatiles with Spd and do second pass with wfe…
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Look into some pre processing steps, we were going to get a WFE. Till we learned that a LLE after a ethanol extraction will clear 90% cannabinoids no problem on first pass. Even @ a 2L a hour flow rate thats just under 48L in a 24 hour shift with 2-22l kits filled @ 65% assuming your crude is yielding 50% (22L flasks fit in glas-col and summits 20L heating mantles.) 3L a hour flow rate is just under 400Ls a week … Not to mention the LLE skips a few trash fractions…
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This was also discussed here, if you want further info.
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No harm, I was more showing that further info could be found in the other thread. I could have worded it differently.
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THIS. I was impressed with how well an LLE with methanol cleaned up my own crude when I tried it, and was curious about what others thought of it for distillation prep after reading about how much it helped Beaker. It’s encouraging to hear it makes such a dramatic difference for distillation that someone else included the step in their own SOP at that kind of scale.
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Honestly not there yet, Weve hit the 3L per hour on the full bore kits but the whole build out is still under construction. With the help of some experts we should be hitting those numbers some time february.
Care to elaborate which system are you using for your LLE? Sep funnel or glas reactor?
Currently a sep funnel, the continuous LLE system ahead is composed of a few reactors a couple loooonng sep funnels…
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