I’ll second that, if you’re looking for a smaller system he generally has those ready to go. He has some on his site too https://qualitystainlessparts.com/
I’ve heard a lot of stories on BVV assembly of parts and how they leak and don’t hold pressure like they should. Killa pressure tests all his complete systems that go out and he does a damn good job at making sure you don’t have any leaks in any of your gear. I’d highly advise checking out his stuff.
To the OP, if you’ve only ever open blasted and don’t really have a handle on how the CLS works, I’d recommend starting with a passive system as there are less things that can go wrong, and it will give you a better understanding of the thermodynamics involved in running the system. If you want to use pumps in the future, upgrading to active isn’t difficult at all.
I use a regular vac pump for pulling a vac on my system, the same pump I use for purging. I only use this when the system is empty and doesn’t have any residual solvent in there though.
I essentially do what you’re describing - vac the entire system down from the collection pot with the line connected to the material and solvent tank valve that is closed. Once I reach full vac, close the valve on collection to keep the vac in the system, and it’s ready to open the valve on the solvent tank and start injecting. You need at least 2 lines for this, but it’s the better way to go.
Back when I only had one line is when I did the “bleed the lines” trick.
Thats like comparing a ford to a mercedes benz ( haha you patriots)
Bet you can even use the extra tank as mol sieve with some straw diptube
So yes @Killa12345 has a way better option
Go with killas 1300$ system over the bvv.
Bvv stuff is hit or miss. Usually cheap fittings and valves.
So your going to have a line running from your liquid port to the top of yoir column. And a line running from your collection to your vapor port. And the 2nd valve on the collection is for vaccuming down the entire system with all valves open so lines vac down also.
I think @Killa12345 seems to be the way to go set up for the price.
The $1300 would be comparable, we were looking at the “Professional” which costs $1850, because the Apollo set comes with a recovery tank as well, but not as nice of one as Killa’s and I would need to add a gauge to it as well.
Also you are right about the valves and clamps with the BVV. I was going to replace the tri clamps with HP ones right away, but that’s another $300-400 cost for 3" and 6". Also the valves are definitely nicer on Killas as well.
An update, I ended up getting @Killa12345 QSS Extractor. One thing I have to say is that his packing job is top notch. It was like Christmas unwrapping each piece.
I finally started to distill n-butane for the first time today to run tomorrow. It was an experience I will tell that you. I did make a few mistakes along the way. The biggest one was I messed up which was the vapor port on the recovery vessel. I learned from them all and also marked which valve which was which to always know.
From my calculations I ended up with approximately 6.26lbs of n-butane to use. I’m about to go dismantle and clean the extractor to see what was left behind.
It seems like I wiped out some stuff with a paper towel.
nice job! One thing I tend to do since I’m not pushing with any assisted gas like N2, in order for all of my solvent to come out of the tank, I need to inject using the vapor port and holding the tank upside down to get all the liquid to drain into the system. I then recover using the liquid port as a tip from @Killa12345. What this does is forces your recovered gas through the liquid tube which will send the gas bubbling through the liquid that’s already in the recovery tank. It’s said to help recovery go faster. I haven’t tried the normal way (inject from liquid, recover to vapor port) but I’m doing it this way and having great results every time.
I guess I need to show off my first run since you’ve helped with it. I didn’t get much of a yield, the strain was only Boss Hogg and it tested at about 14% packed just about 2-3 inches to the top of the 1lb dewaxing column. I did about 5.1lbs of distilled butane (about 85f-90f water bath temp) through it.
During the run though I ran into some issues because I was using regular 5 gallon buckets, I had some issues with the time of recovery which I eventually figured it the water was getting too cold at the bottom. I got some 5 gallon igloo coolers to use now instead of the 5 gallon buckets.
I made some tweaks but I think that was mainly the only issue.
I still need to work on flipping though, I failed and agitated it too much and it ended up sugar. Though there is still a little bit that is shatter that I have purging till tonight.
Distilling gas is unnecessary when you buy gas in cylinders that are cleaned before refilling. Just like “clean coffee” served in a dirty mug at the diner.
How would you feel if a bunch of coffee sediment laced with benzene was sitting at the bottom of a dirty mug with someone else’s lipstick on it when the waitress fills the mug with “clean coffee”?
Want to see what we built to prevent these industrial chain of custody standards from contaminating clean gas?
Is a more detailed video available? Those quick edits really make my head spin. I get the gist it’s just I would like to understand more and I learn best with slow narrated moving pictures… diagrams help too…
Where are you based? Would you like to come tour one of our cleaning facilities? Or stop by the office in LA and we can walk you through it step by step. WIth every welding and industrial supplier in the game talking about “cleanings” it’s important to understand what you’re actually getting. We appreciate your interest. Hit the office any time at 1-833-Pure-Gas.
thats currently what im using, sieve to pump, pump to coil, coil to recovery tank. I keep getting butane in my coil after i think i have recovered everything. So I think I want to add an additional coil and mount in a freezer then have another coil outside the freezer in dry ice. My thought is it will slow the consumption of dry ice since it will be cooler by time it gets to the second coil with the dry ice. Any thoughts? or should i just get a new pump? Also can a trs21 pull a full vacuum? I stop reclaiming the butane once it gets to aroung .15 because it never seems to get past 15. even though i start at a full vacuum of 30. Sorry for the ramblings
Yeah that should lower your dry ice consumption without a doubt. But I’m not sure that would solve your problem of having butane left in the coil. Is your recovery tank chilled?
But I wouldn’t worry about getting your system back down to a full vac. Your BHO is sitting in your collection pot purging excess solvent so it is creating small amounts pressure so don’t worry about getting back down to -30… That pump isn’t really made for that. Whenever I got my CLS down to negative pressure, I would call it good.
