Does anyone here make their own dry ice to aid in their closed loop needs? It seems the dry ice machines out there are all around $1k and seem to be pretty basic designs and I’d think it could be DIY’ed pretty easily. Has anyone experimented with this at all? The best thing I’ve seen for sale so far is the ThermoSafe 560 Dry Ice Machine, which is about $1500. Obtaining dry ice is fairly difficult in my area, so making it would be more ideal. I only need it once or twice a month as it is.
You have a hard time buying dry ice but you can get cylinders of CO2 easily?
Whoever your vendor is for CO2 cylinders should be able to provide you dry ice as well. They’ll be able to make it way more efficiency (and cheaper) than that machine would.
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I’ve heard of people using something like this…but it would be for low volumes of dry ice
http://www.novatech-usa.com/Products/Icewares/F38886-0002.html
Yeah those aint economical. As ions71 said. My CO2 guy is my dry ice guy. He is half price what the supermarkets charge and i can request it pelletized for my dewaxing sleeves.
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I should have worded it differently. It’s easy to get, it’s just a pain to travel to get it each time I want to run the system. I was hoping to find a way to produce it myself so I can easily store a few cylinders of co2 and use when needed. Say I wanted to do a runs every 4 days, that travel time will easily add up. I’ll also add I’m only running personal amounts for personal consumption, so the amount of DI needed is pretty small each time.
Another question would be how do the large scale producers produce more efficiently than the smaller machines? Is there a way to scale down their operation while still maintaining the same level of efficiency? Forgive me if this sounds noobish but I’m not very familiar with DI production.
I only make shit for personal consumption as well. I just make all im gonna need for a month in a few hours. I have 2 extractors. One small terpinator inspired passive extractor that i can run up to a 1/2lb in at a time. I have 5 tubes for that extractor if i want to run 5 runs in a day back to back…I can buy about $50 worth of dry ice and run that in 7 hours. I ran that for 3-4 years. And still run samples in that extractor. I also have a 2.5lb bi-directional that i run once i know the material is good. I typically buy 80lbs of dry ice for $100. I can get 3 dewaxed runs in my 2.5lb extractor with 80lbs and still have some left for my diamond miner.
I dont grow anymore. I just buy trim and larf from various growers i know. Its just cheaper to buy trim and make my concentrates then buy herb and concentrates.
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I heard if you take some regular ice and pat it down with some paper towels, it will become dry ice
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yeah maybe I should switch up the way I run then and just source it… I’m only running a 1.5" x 12" material column, so each run yields around 15-20g of concentrate. I simply run enough material to fill the tube, then do another run when I’m down to the last gm or if i have a surplus of material that I need to get rid of… which is usually a couple weeks later anyway. I grow all my material with a single 600w HPS, so sometimes it’s hard to have more than a couple oz of material to run at once. Love that you’re mining diamonds, I’m dying to get started with that also. Did you DIY a miner or get one premade?
I’m going to give that a try
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Get a co2 tank with a liquid dip tube. Find a cement mixer, add swivel air fitting to rear center of drum, connect to co2 tank. Place trim into mixer, place silk screen mesh over the mouth of the mixer and attach it. Run co2 and mixer slow, tip mixer forward into rubber maid tote. Keif/ plant particles will rain out.
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bought a premade one.
You don’t need a diamond miner to make great crystals. Read the Only the Strong TEK.
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I’ve been studying that guide along with any others I’ve been able to find info on. I feel I have the process down just have yet to start due to lack of material at the current moment. Waiting on some plants to finish up. I understand the jar tek but at the same time want to do it with a pressure vessel that I can pressurize with n2 gas as I’ve been told by some miners that it helps grow them bigger. No doubt when I start my first run will be in jars but money isn’t an issue so building and experimentation is half the fun. The added benefit of knowing your vessel can handle 50+ psi and have a gauge are more what I’m concerned about.
I get my co2 in 50 lbs cylinders for 18$ while dry ice is usually more than 1$ per pound. check out your local welding shop and make an account
Bizzybee once told me how to make dry ice with a sock and liquid co2 so I modified it slightly. Run a line with a needle valve from the tank to a cooler, close the lid and fill the gaps with a towel or similar breathable material. Open the valve enough to maintain a steady flow but not blow ice everywhere. We fill up 100# coolers in an hour or less if the line doesn’t clog. There is some loss making it this way I just havent measured how much but at 30 cents a pounds it’s worth it.
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Well, most the guys here that own the miners…
If they told you the TRUTH it be they get fucking huge diamonds with jars! And I would almost bet, every miner owner(unless bc fire marshal regulations), has jars going at the same time, that make HUGE Diamonds… Usually the ppl vessel only are in business that can’t use jars bc regulations!
Just saying I know 3 miner owners at the moment that are honest with me, they all use jars still! And have the miner loaded up also, just they can almost recreate w the jar perfect too. The miner require more attention too, has to be slowly vented at the right times, otherwise with miner, the seal so good the Tane would never evap
Think about it, if you have run after run to do, that miner goes down almost weeks at time tied up till next run
,I can get trays diamond miners at Walmart! Mason jars, be smart be safe, you will probably buy miner just to realize this!
Good luck!
And by no means did I say miners can’t grow faster, bigger! Just it’s only 1 miner that cost 800$.
That’s how many jars? 1000 lol
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We have been making aluminum vessels to play with, a mason jar goes inside to hold the dissolved resin. pretty cheap if you make them yourself. You have a point, if you only have one miner and you need a constant rotation of product you’ve got a problem. Dimond miners are more ideal to grow large crystals, but mayson jars work too in a pinch. The thing I never liked about the jar is the uncontrollable pressure releases.
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I use both.
Around 2016 when guild started showing off their crystals, i started trying to make diamonds. @pangea was one of the first people posting up ways to isolating THCa with slow evaporation over on Icmag.
I was using jars like most people but under estimated my use of the solvent as that is not the important factor in creating diamonds.
I kept using too much solvent and popping lids. Then i put together a miner. I was able to realize the amount of solvent needed not only by seeing the pressure on the gauge but seeing the consistency after burping and waiting. I then took that knowledge back to the jars, which now i can get ALMOST the same performance out of the jars as the miner. Miner DEFINITELY takes LESS ATTENTION not more like you stated. And will slightly grow bigger diamonds…Which i dont like anyways so i dont care for them. personally, i like to crush them all up and re-x the whole batch these days.
Now i want to use no solvent (Instead of the 5-7.5psi) in the miner and back fill with 10-15psi of Nitrogen. I cant do that in a jar. So, while the miner was not really necessary. It was in refining my technique.
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