I’d take the “Didn’t look anything like what you guys are dealing with” with a grain of salt. it crashed FAST, and given when it was poured (pre crc), it wasn’t separated, or grown to large facets (please correct me if those assumptions are wrong @Griffin.Labs).
if one adds “crashes in the collection pot” to the description of the issue folks are having (seems reasonable at this stage in the game), then I’d say the @Griffin.Labs anecdote fits the general picture.
what is required at this point seems like a fairly straight forward experimental design.
I saw it on a slab, evap in front of my eyes and made like a sizzling sound. Looked like strait wax. Then 30-45 minutes in the oven, no vac. Looked normal. Finished up normal too
Solvent fill plants and suppliers compete with one another for both wholesale and end-user business. The F4200 world is a lot different, where people share information, SOP’s and freely offer advice to help everyone in the industry.
Every fill plant has developed their own cleaning method that they believe is superior to the methods others are using. They do not want to share those methods with others they directly compete with. I don’t mind sharing that our cleaning process does not involve using water or any other liquid not already being used as an extraction solvent, but I’m not going to elaborate further.
The medusa problem is like the chalk problem IN THE SENSE THAT no one has tested to see the difference between “good” and “bad” solvent. As you suggested, good solvent could be spiked with each potential contaminate and processing with the spiked solvent might identify the problem. I don’t think that’s reasonable approach because if your testing shows that bicyclobutane causes rapid crash / medusa you don’t know if it is the exclusive cause or one of hundreds of causes. You also don’t know the concentration that causes the problem. Butane burns in air in concentrations between 1.8 and 8.4 %. If you tried to burn a sample at 1% or 10% concentration, you’d conclude the gas is not flammable.
I maintain that lab testing both good and bad solvents is a better approach as it would show the variances and provide a legit list of suspects. This would be a solid foundation for continued testing.
I’d suggest you contact your supplier and requests the following from the fill plant they deal with;
A brand new cylinder with the interior inspected to ensure absence of oil. Not clean or otherwise process it, valve it with your preferred outlet & fill it.
The gas will be representative of the bulk gas at the fill plant, but will have black particles in it, that can be removed by distilling/filtering. No chance of contamination.
Else, @Myrrdin above wrote he had good gas. I’m sure others do as well. Any “others” care to get involved?
I have gone to a local fill station and they openly showed me their process and explained any questions I had without hesitation. Sadly their explanation and lack of cleaning between every fill made me go elsewhere but my point is if you want customers or you want to win someone’s business sharing procedures that concern your clients are detrimental to building clients and making customers feel comfortable. People that hide important procedure behind the claim of IP is bound to risk the loss of clients.
Let’s touch on this claim:
So you clean with a solvent that is used for extraction, how can you ensure that your solvent used for cleaning isn’t contaminated?? If you are being honest you could only be using butane, propane or isobutane, which has just as much likelihood for contamination as the cylinder you are cleaning.
I don’t know about the rest of the people but that claim is enough for me to pass on your gas all together, the lack of switching to a non hydrocarbon to flush out anything hydrocarbons can’t clean is a sure miss in my book for proper cleaning.
When I’m trying to clean a stubborn vessel or glassware I alternate from different types of solvents because I know that only using one will only extract the things it can dissolve. If you only use hydrocarbons to clean something you are sure to leave water soluble stuff behind.
The medusa and the chalk problem are one in the same. And there’s plenty of people that experience the problem with” bad gas” but not with older tanks of “good gas” @Dukejohnson i recall being one of them. now whether or not they still have the good gas to get a test it against the bad, I don’t know
Just posting and raising awareness about the issue on IG has made people come pouring into my inbox’s. Like I stated before people are having the issue without knowing that are having the issue. I guarantee you everyone will notice that they’re experiencing these issues as more awareness is created.
If someone in Cali wants to run tests on the 2 year old solvent I have against present day solvent, lmk where to take it. Have a cute little vessel and all for traveling
Same thing happening in my lab with samples from the working and stock tank. Hypotheses was the same as well. I’ve been asking if what we’re dealing with is something that only reacts with interaction with THCA and terpenes, but I haven’t got any answers on it. Seems to be the case.
Cured runs seem to be worse as opposed to FF and THCA content and interaction with the solvent seems to be something to look at.
