I gotta say that I vouch HIGHLY for @AlexSiegel’s system. Since you are in an educational environment, I wouldn’t expect the students to treat the equipment as nicely as a tech in a production environment. Couple that with limited access to funding, and you are one piece of glass hitting the floor away from dead equipment. Having used an all glass shortpath and Alex’s system, I have no desire to go back to the glass. It is so much easier to clean as well as super modular allowing you to do more things with it.
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If this is treu
I must admit that my hat is off to summit research and there owner in particular
Who would have guessed
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I’m a huge proponent for “no glass in the lab” wherever possible.
However, in an educational environment, I would say that a glass shortpath is a vastly better learning tool, because unless someone here has developed transparent stainless steel, you can’t see what’s going on inside the head. Being able to watch reflux and colour change and condensation can be extremely useful to anyone who doesn’t understand what is going on inside.
If Summit isn’t ponying up a free system, I can put @B.Voyles in contact with my glassblower who makes very excellent equipment for around the same price as the questionable stuff that is on amazon.
IMO, a handful of 500ml to 2L short path systems would be a much better investment than a single large system that everyone needs to watch. Get a handful of extra heads and flasks and such for when breakage happens - your lab stands and mantles and such aren’t going to get broken nearly as often as the glass bits.
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100%. I teach people all the steps on a 500mL glass system. So they can SEE the physical changes, the sizes of the bubbles, the changes in color in the bowl, the viscosity of the condensate, the droplet sizes and vapor pressure in the fractional head.
I have videos that I have used for this in the past - but doing it in person, having people watch and hear as they are control charting. That’s been huge for me.
The best techs I trained learned on a system they could see working before they moved to our larger systems. And they usually understood the control charts well enough by that point to know how to setup a new system without too much worry on my part.
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I couldn’t agree more with the glass aspects and benefits, i loved my AI unit and the fact that watching it made me more curious. That curiosity sparked the internal research nerd in me and I started learning so much more.
I do love the idea of a smaller unit if we had access to one, the 10L is just what I have the experience in operating and feel comfortable teaching on, if asked to today. With that said, a smaller unit would still offer students the same benefits, but with more runs which makes for more opportunities for a student to get hands on time with those machines. 
@Cassin @Lincoln20XX I can see your points about wanting to see inside the head. Understanding how liquid could condense in the head might be useful but you get the same information from the ejection of the material into the flasks.
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I did consider this also, not as much to see but still can see it once it drops into the flask. Haha just making sure I explain that neither are wrong but I could get the job done with either for sure. My experience was just 4 hours of training then sink or swim you run two of these M-F, good luck. 
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Or watching any of the other hundreds of short path videos on youtube…
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lol videos are great and I have a lot from running in the past but my goal is for them to see it, in person and be the one to make the changes on machines. Watching cause and effect in real time has no comparison to videos in my personal opinion.
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Yes, you CAN get that same information, but if you don’t truly understand what is going on upstream in the head, it is a lot harder.
Realistically, how many people are going to go into the field and use one of your systems? Very few. Most will have to work with glass.
Unless you are donating it free of cost to the school, I don’t think it’s something that would be a good spend of money for them given their educational goals.
Watching a video is never going to be the same as seeing it in person. Especially for people who have a hard time understanding from just watching videos. For some it’s enough. For many it is not.
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Depends on who your teacher is, I’d take a @RockSteady video over a lot of the people that are running short path in cannabis.
Watch a Carl Sagan lecture on video and then go to your local community college and see which physics lessons are more informative and easier to understand.
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Sounds like the industry standard, which is why I think these educational opportunities are so important, even if the equipment isn’t exactly the same.
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Same! If only I coulda been as prepared as they are back when I started 
I wouldn’t be surprised if I have as many SPD operating today as anyone so I think it would benefit them.
It might be that simplifying the tool for the students would make it easier to spend time learning the basics. That makes intentional decision making a bit easier than having a large spread of complex variables.
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I wanted to share the last tour video I took students on, I feel it’s best you all know that I truly do love having this class and take pride in what we all do. 
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Until you get your HPLC up and running, if you have need of any testing services for the students and their products I’d be happy to assist y’all at significantly discounted rates. Love what you’re doing out there.
Some restrictions may apply based on the nature of the material, but if you are interested hit me up and we can discuss further!
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I’d absolutely love that, for us to test our FEHO or Lotion it runs $500-750 per student sample
Glass products are indeed prone to damage.That will be a large expense.
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Yeah, if I hadn’t visually seen/controlled reflux with a glass system, I would agree that it might be difficult to imagine for one that is not experienced in distillation. I would totally trade a chinese glass setup for some time on a particle analyzer if @B.Voyles has access to such toys 
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