Hey guys. So recently, after having many successful spd runs I’ve run into an issue. To begin, I am running a cheap joan lab mantle with Chinese glass from open source. Using a Welch duoseal 1400 and yellow jacket vac gauge. I know my equipment sucks and that I’m sure is making things harder, but i was producing consistent nice distillate until 3 runs ago.
My process was usually load 1 liter of crude into boiling flask, and slowly ramp my temps up by 10 degrees. Usually around 150ish I would start seeing a lot of heads and volatiles flying out of it. A fair amount of vapor inside could be seen being pulled out. Eventually when I would reach 200-210 on the mantle, I would see my head temp hit 200 and from there it would go into cruise control and just spit out nice distillate for like 2 hours. It would continue like that until the BF ran super low and stopped producing and I would call it quits. My vac depth is never ideal, but I’ve gotten it down to 200-400 while running.
Here’s what changed.
I started decarbing my crude before distilling. The first time I ever decarbed prior to spd, it made my run a lot smoother and quicker. But after that, I started having problems where I could never get the head temp to rise and eventually would have my Mantle set to 200 degrees with nothing happening. And I don’t want to roast my shit. The failed runs were a lot of “clean up and scraps” stuff so I figured maybe there just wasn’t much thc in it?
But today I’m running a liter of new good crude. My mantle temp is at 224, vacuum at 345 micron, and head temps at 183. But I’m not getting anything out. I don’t want to destroy my crude, (if it isn’t already)
So what the hell is going wrong. I did like 15 runs as a newbie all with success. And then all of a sudden I just lost the ability to pull out distillate. Ironically, my vac depths now are better than they were when I was having successful runs. The ONLY thing I do different is decarb before I put in the spd. Usually around 200 degrees until bubbles stop. Any suggestions?
early in my run the mantle wayyyy over shot like crazy and eventually came down. It’s currently set to 220, the actual temp dropped to 208, and head temp dropped to 164. I don’t want to keep jacking this up. Pretty sure I’m just destroying more crude
I’m pulling the plug. My mantle just over shot from 216 to 257. Fuck this 
I just don’t know what went wrong since my first 15 runs worked so well
Final numbers before I pull the plug
Mantle set temp- 220
Actual temp reading on mantle- 255
Vac depth-220 micron
Head temp-171f
And in the 2 minutes after posting this head temp went down to 160
Is your headwell insulated or heated?
Your mantel seems to have isseus a variac can help to smoothen these
How is your spinbar behaving same swirl you are used to ?
To the high mantle temp and no fraction happening.
This happened on my last clients run. He gave me (just found out 3 days ago) 3 yr old trim (4th lie from him about this job). There was no thc left to fraction off. So it could be the material.
And my old china junk base mantle did the same thing. I returned it and bought the upgrade china junk mantle and love it.
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To answer all that:
I wrap my whole setup in the fiberglass rope, from boiling flask up to the top of the head, and then even wrap all that in mad tinfoil
Spinbar seems to work well. But when I start spinning my head temps begin dropping even more so i try to avoid that.
And yes. All temps are super high and I’m getting no fractions, Barely even heads.
And I half believed those last 2 runs didn’t work because there wasn’t much good stuff in the crude, but still wondered wtf else could
Be making up a liter of crude after winterization. But this run, the crude was made up of nice trim from a 12 lb etho run I did.
The ONLY thing I do differently is the decarbing. And even that, the first time I pre-decarbed it helped a lot. After that, all failure. I only decarb at like 220 until bubbles stop. Maybe I’m roasting my shit during decarb??
And yea, my mantle for sure is fucked. But (and remember I’m still a newb,) even if the mantle is over shooting and sucking, shouldn’t I still be seeing something coming out? My crude read to be like 250 degrees after I pulled the plug. So at those temps and vacuum under 250 micron, shouldn’t I see SOMETHING? I’m ended up with a small amount of heads.
My first 15 runs were so consistant. Slowly Ramp up to 200ish… heads at 160ish, cruise control honey swirling at 200
You decarb around 200 what
F or C ?
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If possible place a separate temp probe between mantel and glaswear to check temps reading of mantel pid
It is inderd strange
Distillation processes find equilibrium so the spin bar neefs to spin for some time to see its effect
Ahh sorry, F. I’m not used to including the c or f 
Obefore all keep vacuum until crude is below 90C
Decarbing at 90 is a low temp i decarb at around 140C with slight vacuum
Are you sure al was decarbed well ?
Narowing it all down
Check your cvac linea think one is plugged and the pump wich is a lausy pump for the job (sorry to say)
Is your main isseu
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Using a temp gun (and I know it’s not meant to read throuh things) I was picking up 200-250+f temps on the crude, flask and such. After I shut I think down and took the flask off the mantle it was reading around 250f
At this moment, 20 minutes after removing the boiling flask it’s reading 208f
Are your mantle temps C or F?
I know the pump, or the whole setup for that matter is sub par. But why did I have a ton of great runs, including my first ever, and now all of a sudden I can’t pull a fraction
When I was running successful runs, my vac was worse than now as I had some leaks I didn’t know. So I’m actually running with the better of the specs and failing
Mantle temp is in F as I’m sure 200 c would’ve been frying my shit from the start
It s not the opperator relax
It will be figured out
As for the decarb, it may even be a bit higher. I get tons of bubbles for a while and they eventually stop. But up until my new failings, I wasn’t decarbing at all and just pulling tons of vapor and volatiles in my spd. So even if I’m not fully decarbing, shouldn’t I still see some vapor, or heads, or something? Infact today, just for a moment, I saw a ton of vapor in my cow being pulled out. And then that vanished too
Dawg you need to switch to celsius. Go up to 220C first pass, 200C second pass for main body & run a hot condenser.
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East !!
Your head fraction at those vacuum levels will start coming at a head temp of around 195 C ( celcius)
Your mantel temp will be around 210C
Your mains will arive at around 202C to 215 C with a mantel temp around 230 C
This. Is with a vac leveel of around 300 microns
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