Any suggestions on where to look or how to fix? Its been going strong for 2 years since I have worked in this lab and last week it has drastically slowed down and im at a loss on what to do. It has done this for a day in the past but the next day corrected every time.
Hit up IGT, best Corken support in the country. Ask for Chuck. Cheaper than corken direct and they always have everything in stock.
270-783-0538
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Will do thank you! Think he will help diagnose as well?
What’s the inlet pressure, outlet pressure, inlet vapor temp, rpm setting, and solvent mixture?
Basin pressure and temperature as well. How many kw of heat are you throwing at it?
Inlet pressure is around 20 psi outlet pressure sits at what our tank is during recovery which is about 50 psi.
Im honestly not sure what rpm youre referring to if its the pump id just say standard lol never messed with the corken itself.
Basin pressure is usually around 30 psi most the run until the end and vessel temp is 120f. If you mean basin as in the solvent tank its jacketed with a coil with -40c chiller hooked up to it.
The main thing im confused about is nothing as changed with our operation and the guages are all still reading/behaving the same through out the system but recovery has dropped off very significantly. I imagined with a clog it would spike pressure somewhere but i could be very wrong
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At the conditions of 20psi inlet, 50psi outlet, an inlet temp of 50f and assuming 675rpm at the t291 and using pure n-butane as the solvent, the compressor should be able to move 4.85lbs per minute and 120f butane has a max pressure of 53.52psi.
Unless… your valves are sticking and they are not allowing a steady flow of vapor through the head. Use the tool provided on the front of the corken to take the valve covers off, pull out the valves (note which goes where), clean with ethanol, ensure proper spring function, replace back in compressor (rotate until they drop into place). Don’t loose the little metal spacer ring! It goes in first under the valve seat.
If hash ever makes it into the compressor you can get sticky valves that can cause multiple issues. The flow path is pretty simple, inlet to the valves with the piston in-between to the exhaust. It is either going to leak gas/oil or something will stick when it breaks.
Wise to introduce a monthly maintenance plan with the corken. Check / replace the crankcase oil, clean the valves, etc. Would tell if the operators have been sucking hash through the compressor or not pretty easy and might suggest to consider changing up your process a little if it happens no matter what over time. Cleaning the valves is a 15 minute process easily added to the beginning or end of the day or once a week/month etc.
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Beautiful thank you i will try that out! Yea actually about 3-4 days prior to the issue starting there was hash sucked through and into the solvent tank. I appreciate the info a ton ill be breaking it down and cleaning Tuesday. 
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Yeah, hopefully that gets you rockin and rollin tues. Shouldn’t take long.
Just watch for those spacer rings and the order the valves go in. They are a little different between inlet and outlet stages. Make sure to rotate them when putting back into place. You might think its seated but they will usually drop about an eighth inch when it finally finds its home upon rotating.
Flip the valves up-side down and depress the spring with a screwdriver in some solvent to make sure its nice and clean. It should have a fair bit of resistance, just as long as the full path of motion is there then they will work great.
Sounds like previously when it happened, the corken got hot enough during operation to somewhat carbonize the hash so it didnt stick later and made it seem like the problem went away.
Let me know how it goes. Here to help work through any corken related issues. We have a very in depth knowledge of their systems at this point.
Happy New Year! 
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Happy new years and again youre a life saver ill definitely update have a safe night!
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Great information. Thanks so much.
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Do you happen to know of any videos that show the break down? Ive been looking and am hesitant to just start trying to do it myself but looking like ill just have to jump head first into it
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Corken has videos on just about everything with their compressors under Resources on their webpage - as well as documentation on just about everything.
The 091 looks different than the 591 on the head and the valves but its essentially the same compressor otherwise, just moves a much larger volume.
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Popped it apart was not as dirty as i excepted bit a but gummed up and springs worked well, we still throughoughly cleaned everything with ethanol and put back together the valve assemblys. Unfortunately it didnt seem to fix anything so it might be a deeper issue like the pistons but I hope not.
Going to break apart all my lines, mol sieve, and heat exchanger and clean all that out first and hope it is just some build up somewhere in one of those. I appreciate your help though man and glad I got some experience breaking down the corken just in case we need to do it again for pistons.
Do you happen to know the cost of a full rebuilt kit for the t291 by chance? I tried looking it up but like with the videos probably didnt look well enough lol
Just recently got one from ets, it was close to $4K