Cedarstone Industry Cannabis centrifuge: Looking for reviews

[cyclopath]

Client asked me about Cedarstone Industry’s entries into the cannabis extraction market. specifically their centrifuges.

Wondering if anyone here has actually run them and would be willing to review. Or better yet invite me to come see what they’re doing with them.

@Cedarstone has showed up here a couple of times looking for an extractor and an engineer (presumably to get these off ground). Search results for 'cedarstone' - Future4200

I looks like they were reselling Chinese gear at one point, and may now be doing much of the manufacturing in the US.

anyway. just wondering what y’all have to say on the subject.

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[RockSteady]

Totally first read cedarstone as clandestine; was like this Is going to be a good thread😅

[cyclopath]

dammnit! I was hoping I’d found a review from a trusted source in under 30 seconds…

[RockSteady]

What is this reddit?

Never seen one run personally; but they look like a fine piece of kit! I’m curious too, never heard of these guys.

[cyclopath]

I said trusted source…

[thesk8nmidget]

I have heard of them, I think there was a isolate reactor being sold made by them and it looked to be extremely nice as well.

[cyclopath]

yeah, I suspect it will become a sticky mess in fairly short order. every fuge except the Ace40 drips tincture when opened. these guys have a flat surface that comes to within a few mm of the bowl. what I think that means is tincture will drip down into the housing. making the insides a sticky green mess.

If the operator manages to sprinkle kief on there as well while loading the bags (as happens routinely), that mess is going somewhere that will be much harder to clean than some of the competing units.

Hands up anyone who hasn’t had their lid seal leak?

everybody (except Rousselet Robatel and Curian that I’ve seen) uses the same flawed seal design. leaks on this design seem like they’ll end up inside the housing. making end of day clean up harder.

their sales literature stated a 7.5HP motor on their 70lb machine. they acted like I was clueless when I said it was too small… then back pedaled and said they’ed doubled the size of the motor when I sent them a screen shot of the literature they’ed just emailed me.

their website still looks like it was written by a non-english speaker in places.

[Cedarstone]

Thanks for your interest.

We have upgraded our PSI peer reviewed centrifuge SpinMatic 250 to 15HP( 70lbs load ), and SpinMatic 150 to 7.5HP(35 lbs load) respectively

[cyclopath]

yep. solid moves.

what sort of spin up/spin down times can you achieve with that?

Pretty sure the Ace40 is using a 10HP motor on their 40lb machine.

cycle time is a very important piece of the puzzle. shaving 5min off a 20 min cycle time because you can get up to speed and back down again faster means 25% more cannabis processed per shift…

[Cedarstone]

The spin schedule can be fully customized by the user. There is a default schedule for the user to choose, though.

[cyclopath]

not true. that ignores physics (and is why you put a bigger motor on there…)

the fastest you can spin up is based on the mass being spun and the motor doing the spinning.

the fastest you can spin down is based on how you are performing the braking.

so again. how fast can you get 35lb of cannabis up to max speed?
how long to slow it back down?

is there a lid interlock? does it stop the user opening the machine during operation, or does in merely turn the power to the motor off?

edit: if it didn’t matter, there would be little point in upgrading the 20kW motor on the fuge I’m sitting in to a 50kW motor…

[Cedarstone]

The 7.5 HP electric motor has enough juice to spin out 35 lb loads for roughly 5 seconds. However, there are 2 major restrictions.

1. Inrush current: The VFD drive spins the motor from 0 to Max for 15 seconds which significantly reduces inrush current and makes the motor, and electrical components, last much longer.
2. Disbalance: To reduce disbalance and vibration the spin sequence is divided into 5 ‘settable’ steps. We have a predetermined set installed, but it can be manually changed if you like.

The speed down normally takes about 3 minutes, but it can be reduced in the spin settings without physical brakes.

[cyclopath]

that doesn’t really answer the questions I asked, but I appreciate the attempt.

there are some fuges used for this purpose that have physical brakes.

The Bock/NSEP is one example. I can point you at others as well. Most however, rely on the motor and/or a set of braking resistors (comes with free toaster oven!).

The motor can only take so much load. same with the resistors. how much momentum the spinning load has, divided by the maximum load the “brakes” (motor and/or resistors) can handle, determine how long it takes to spin down.

presumably a panic stop (hitting the big red “OMFG” button) will give a decent approximation for the “absolute fastest we can stop this thing”.

Which I have seen take several minutes on various machines.

the time to stop when the panic button is hit should also be a decent approximation for how quickly the machine can be bought up to speed.

Assuming the braking sequence has been programmed correctly (which has not always been my experience direct from the OEM).

Strategically adding more mass to the rotor in the correct locations makes it less susceptible to misbalance conditions, but more rotating mass also means longer spin up and spin down. so there is a compromise that needs to be found.

@Cedarstone

Inrush current: The VFD drive spins the motor from 0 to Max for 15 seconds which significantly reduces inrush current

I suspect you’ve got a typo here… and “for” should be replaced with “over” or “in”.

I’d also be willing to bet you can’t get from zero to 1500rpm in 15 seconds. or even 50 seconds.

If you talk to your engineer again, they should explain that what your VFD is doing is ramping the “current” up over 15 seconds. once at max current, you’re at max acceleration.

were I to guess, I’d say you then need to apply that max current for at least another 100 seconds to hit max speed…

the point is, I don’t want to have to guess.

either about how/where time can be shaved in your extraction cycle, or where the drips that are inevitable with your (standard in this industry) lid & seal design actually end up in day-to-day use.

Edit: think about it…same energy requirements for spin up and down. just applied differently. if you could spin it up in 15 seconds, how fast could you slow it down using the same motor? so where does 3 min come from? why would it take longer than spinning the machine up?

[TheGratefulPhil]

Anytime something is UL listed it gets a huge bump in my book.

Regulators eat that shit up. That being said, $45k for a UL listed, 100L centrifuge from an American manufacturer is a helluva deal.

Additionally, working with a brewing company that is embracing cannabis is another plus from me. If their customer service is good, I’d consider, even with the lack of appropriate measure to keep the seal clean.

[cyclopath]

@TheGratefulPhil

Anytime something is UL listed it gets a huge bump in my book.

agreed. and the price point is decent too.

@TheGratefulPhil

I’d consider, even with the lack of appropriate measure to keep the seal clean.

I’m more worried about where the tincture goes next with this design… there seems to be a gap around the bowl that would spirit drips away to the internals. making clean-up next to impossible. there seem to be a couple of design revisions in the materials I’ve seen.

I’m not here to bust @Cedarstone’s chops. I just want to see one of these in action, and get feedback from someone that’s actually used one.

there are lots of options out there. I’ve touched many of them. I would not recommend any equipment to a client without having at least some hands on time…

edit: Assuming their customer service is great, they should have happy customers. In my experience, happy customers are often more than willing to help grow the business of their preferred vendor (so they’re around for the long haul). Seeking customer reviews is simply due diligence. Ignoring multiple requests for such “happy client” reviews raises some flags for me.

I got a live demo in delta separations shop once upon a time. lit a handful of the spent biomass on fire for them to explore their claims of “it’s dry!”. Suggested the folks I was working with order one then and there…because Delta were willing to set this up for me.

[cyclopath]

@Cedarstone: looking through your product literature, I can find no shots of the bottom of the basket.

Does your basket have a flat bottom, or a cone?

Many here probably believe a coned bottom to be a bug. After running a number of different designs, I would argue that it was a feature.

When you’re finished with a run on a flat bottomed basket, the bag looks very much the way in went in to the basket. with the biomass distributed evenly across the diameter of the bag.

When you’re done in a cone bottomed basket, all the biomass is up against the walls, with a large hollow area in the center.

given the way the forces involved work, what that means is the material from the coned bottomed basket will be drier that the material in the flat bottomed basket (the material in the center experiences essentially zero force…).

it doesn’t take much of a cone to achieve this effect, and it measurably changes the amount of solvent left behind.

[NaomiCI]

We do not use a ‘ General Application ’ VFDs. The type we do use has a default ramp start/stop setting of 5 seconds. We have adjusted that start/stop setting to 15 seconds. With no brakes, as there are on physical breaks in our standard design, it will take 3 minutes to stop. ( Yes, even when you slam the Emergency Stop .)

Note ‘ standard ’. We are a true manufacturer and are 100% capable of customizing our equipment to suit each client’s preferences and needs. If the base design is not to your liking, we can go over the changes and requirements needed to make it so. Note: At additional cost for those additions, of course.

In terms of Customer Service, there are a lot of reviews around about that. I pride myself on the aspect. We have very good relationships with our customers. Our clients after service care is as important to us as the pre-sale. We respect our customer’s privacy. You are more than welcome to visit us and inspect our equipment for yourself, though.

Recently, we have become registered processors in Texas. We are in the process of building the required booths and spaces to be able to allow clients to come and have hands-on access to our equipment. We are still, however, a few months out on that.

As to your question regarding the bottom shape of our basket:

Yes, the bottom of the basket has an inverted cone shape providing exactly the distribution of biomass as you have mentioned. I can provide you some images of this but the forum won’t allow me to post links - so it would be via email. Clay can also provide those to you.

[Future]

Should be able to post links/pics now

[NaomiCI]

Excuse the ‘mess’. We are a warehouse/shop, and you are looking at one of our Centrifuges partly broken down as we program and run it. You can also see our vibration absorbent footers. (And some water from the last run.)

[cyclopath]

@NaomiCI

With no brakes, as there are on physical breaks in our standard design, it will take 3 minutes to stop. ( Yes, even when you slam the Emergency Stop .)

Just to be clear here: Unless you’re doing something really dumb and just cutting the power, that 3min braking time should indicate maximum deceleration (using the motor and/or braking resistor).

The thing about acceleration is, it works in the other direction to, so neither the 5sec or 15sec “ramps” you’re mentioning have any relevance to the question “how long to spin up?”.

If it takes 3min to slow down (as fast as possible), it takes approx 3min to reach full speed as well.

If you can go from zero to 1500rpm in 15sec, but it takes 180seconds to go from 1500rpm to 0, you do not have your emergency stop programmed properly.

Edit: ask your engineer again. or go out in the shop and try it. if you can get from zero to 1500rpm in under three min, someone needs to have a chat with the person who programmed the VFD…because a panic stop means throw everything you’ve got at slowing this thing down…and “everything you’ve got” means “as many amps as the motor will take”, which might even mean more than you’re willing to throw at it while spinning up…