Build or buy falling film?

Looking into building a falling film unit or buying one without pumps. I have 2
Cole - Parmer masterflex L/S pumps I am not currently using and thought they could be put towards a falling film build or maybe one that is missing parts and could use these pumps…

What kind of skill set do you have? making a falling film isnt anything like assembling a CLS system with triclamps. there is a LOT more to it.

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I don’t think those pumps are going to be as substantial a component in that build as you might think they are. Not to dissuade you. Put together your layout, then a complete bill of materials. If that doesn’t scare you off, put together a real BOM down to the last nut and gasket. That will give you a perspective for what the value of a used system missing this or that really is to you.

First rule of building a racecar on a budget is buy a racecar that someone else already paid to build. If this is your first major skid build, taking something incomplete or broken and fixing or modifying it will save you a ton of dough and give you some training wheels. It probably won’t get you as good a system as building from scratch but it’s a great starting point.

Just my 2 cents. If you’re not handy, this is very poor advise lol

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Aren’t there a few different variations of falling films like there are CLS Systems?

There’s a couple threads around here that touch on what you’re looking for

try searching the terms: ffe or Falling film

though you’ll get some replies here, your questions and concerns may have already been addressed and if not just post in an already started board - helps keep the searching consolidated (thats just my opinion though)

Is a good place to start

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I think in order for us to give meaningful advice you need to tell us what it is exactly you want to do, what kind of gallon or liter per hour rate you want to hit, what solvent, whats your budget, do you need to pass inspection, where do you want to install it, etc.

That said, I don’t have personal experience with that model of peristaltic pump but from the experience I had trying to use a similar 3-rotor peristaltic with 3/8" hose to try and empty rotovap solvent flasks while still under vacuum, you need 6+ rotors and a large diameter hose to get any descent throughput, otherwise the pump just fights recursion without moving significant volume of liquid. IMO this is why almost everybody specs gear pumps with a low NPSH value for pumping out your crude and solvent.

I would also warn that you need to think about the big picture. It’s not just bolting together an FFE, it’s also considering the proper amount of heating and cooling power, what parameters you’re going to run it under, how you’re going to filter your input to keep the shell & tube from fouling, how you’re going to remove the last few % of solvent in your output crude, how you’re going to decarb and what your end goal is - crude? W/D crude? Distillate?

If you have a large budget (~180k) we build and sell the Yellowstone FFEs, which don’t need a chiller. I say “~” because the price tag is 200 but Yellowstone may be willing to leave off the pumps for some savings but I’m not sure. Throughput is 80 gal/hr.

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That’s rediculous.

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Lol finally agree with Elliot. Yellowstone is overpriced scammers. Guys like this are worst than the suits…

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I just keep everything affordable. Out falling film has a few thousand markup and we like it there. Same with our new cls line.

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Would really like to see your new hydrocarbon system, Elliot.

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Might post pics this coming week or two.

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You’re killing me, elliot

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It’s ridiculous in the same way a Lexus is ridiculous. Once you get into the machine you see how much went into it and where the value is. Not everyone wants to pay for that value, some people are good with cars and are fine limping along a '92 corolla, some people want to build their own. Calling them over-priced scammers is like calling weed sellers scammers because weed grows from the ground for free.
Products have costs, and different products have different costs; there’s no use judging people for being in different segments of a market.

You can physically see the components offered. It’s not a 200k value. It’s unreal marked up. Like at wholesale to a vendor someone is still prob walking away with 100k in th pocket ontop build costs.

You can physically see the components in weed. And a car. Weed is free. People are selling it at infinite markup even at 1 cent.
I’m sure there is 100k on top of build cost. But they didn’t just slap components together that “work” and mark it up a bunch. It took a team over 6 years and many, many iterations. Someone had to pay for that and they should be able to make it back if it’s valuable. And how could it be valuable? Because with the time they save up-front and the resources they save during operation it just makes sense for a lot of people.
It’s really nice that you can build a machine that accomplishes the same general effect and buying one makes absolutely no sense for you. That’s really cool. But not everyone is like that.

I don’t think it took six years blindly to develop that. They may have been in business for six years making machines to get to thier current model but I’m sure the clientele helped fund thier rise. And that’s okay but adding huge markups doesn’t validate it. General margins cover products typically. I’m just saying for 200k the actual abilities of that machine are outshined by the vast majority of ffe units.

BizzyBee is the best at it and first…your saying Yellowstone was working on a FFE 6 years ago? Lol. They probably started because Delta or Bizzy and copied them.

All these companies just rape the community anyways. Weed isnt free at anypoint with overhead and most of these FFEs are 50k to build or less.

“You wouldn’t download a falling film”

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We sell ours in analogous for 50k I think. With certified explosion proof German discharge pumps they are 75k.

And those units perform really well on the market.

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