So we have al lot of threads poping up about dissatisfied/disappointed buyers. The latest one being for an STM grinder. I think the best approach to buying canna equiptment should be the same way you buy a car. I have a few cars starting the cheapest being a 2001 Ford Focus ZX3. Its peobably a 1k dollar car. Even something like this I go and see it, pop the hood, look for leaks and finally give it a test drive before I decide to buy it. I do the same for a new car even though it has 0 Miles just to see how it drives. I urge every one from the 13k STM grinder to the 150k Beaker & Wrench gym equipment my boy is going thru it with right now.
For our grow facility we went with a company called Aesence for aeroponic equiptment. Before we made the decision I spent countless hour on the phone with the companies techs, engineers and owners. Also spoke with their original tester that had been running it from the go. After all the homework we asked for a tour of their largest customer. The 60k sqft grow was located in Washimgton in a town called BFE. Me and my partner flew out and toured the facility and spoke with the owners for the day and saw the equiptment working first hand. Only after the tour did we decide to buy the equiptment from them.
So the says DUE DILIGENCE is key for a pleasant user experience and happy end user.
But isnt that just what a wise person does? If one doesn’t fully investigate and understand what they are getting into, if they haven’t done their due diligence, if life hasn’t taught them this lesson first hand, then hopefully their ignorance and lack of understanding will be a learning experience. Some people make poor life decisions…some people learn from them and grow…some people don’t.
This very true, I’ll rant all day about unethical markups and shady practices, but without due diligence, there’s does need to be some responsibility taken by a buyer.
I mean, I’m not a owner of a business, but even I research any purchase a bunch before I make it.
I dunno, I’m glad I’m not having to deal with these headaches you guys are as processors.
During my career in the petrochemical industry I was involved in purchasing billions of dollars of process equipment.
Never buy from a small vendor without a trial running your feedstock at their site.
The last thing you need is a dysfunctional piece of process equipment in the middle of your process flow that sits idle while you burn cash.
YH-200 wiped film distillation unit, giant expensive paperweight. Wiper basket too long and heavy for the evap body causes rocking of the unit and uneven film. It’s been two months of nothing. Will edit and update this post if/when the YH-200 begins to work. Client has switched back to SPDs for production while their (Chinese) engineer is on a month long vacation (til mid nov). Not a fan of China anything - being accused of setting up something wrong and arguing about disfunction over something that expensive isn’t something any American company has ever done to me or my peers. Lesson learned.
Great advice @BG305. I feel like the old adage “more money than brains” fits well here.
Never in my life have I seen more people willing to spend money on equipment sight unseen without even really knowing what they are buying than in the cannabis industry. People will just see something on IG or the internet and order it up. I know people who have made this exact mistake and gotten burned badly to the tune of almost six figures. I think the step you mention about actually seeing things being used in a production environment and talking to experienced users is extremely important.
Unfortunately there is a lot of vulture capitalism out there looking to eat up small businesses and take advantage of unwitting consumers.
I’m sure lots of these manufacturers and welders just sit by and wait for the next trend to evolve, like CRC, where there is a small bubble that develops and people just buy because its the trend. Just like the stock market. How many people do think bought an $800+ filtering setup for CRC thinking the results are somehow tied to the filter setup itself? I bet lots. And manufacturers selling this stuff feed that mentality as best they can to keep profits rolling in.
I remember I called Pope Scientific several years ago before most people even knew what a wiped film still was but there were pictures starting to show up on IG and with a little googling you could figure it out.
I chatted with the guy several times and he eventually told me that they were getting inundated with people wanting to throw down money to buy stills but had literally no idea what they were or how they worked. He said most didn’t even know it was called a wiped film still or what “short path” meant. They just knew they could use it to make distillate and they wanted to buy it NOW. I’m sure they had an interesting board meeting or two out there in Wisconsin about their new income stream, lol.
Another great example is people buying underpowered chillers and not actually calculating how much heat removal they need first. Then they complain that the chiller they were sold “sucks” or doesn’t work.
says DUE DILIGENCE is key for a pleasant user experience and happy end user.
