What you smoking @hankthetank?
Solvent temp -50 to -70C. Not a trick done with “water”.
As you were told, the water is to remove the heat from the -80 chillers so they can chill your solvent (chiller one) and your system (chiller two).
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It’s not a water chilled system
The extraction skid is cooled with denatured alcohol from the chiller.
The chiller uses a water cooling tower to cool down the chiller as opposed to air cooling.
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And remove the heat from your equipment room which in turns allows yours chillers to be efficient and not fight against the heat being created by them running.
You know how most labs have chillers running next to their equipment? That’s not something you should really do and as “cool” as it might look having all your equipment lined up ready for battles it’s actually really inefficient and makes your lab look poorly built.
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Truth!
I have read some testimonials on future4200 regarding Luna’s IO, I am wondering if any of the issues that seem to be related to their machines have been resolved? I know with the extractor I am familiar with (ETS MeP system) the difference between one purchased in 2019 and 2020 were actually pretty significant so I am just curious if Luna is the same and have figured out their machines a bit better in the last bit. If not, I am wondering if there are any other extractors that would be GMP compliant and and automated that anyone would recommend?
Thanks in advance.
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I love our Luna…I’d like more design privileges, and the IO we traded for OB1 may have learned more if it had been left in our hands.
There are certainly things it still needs…
We’ve made some very basic plumbing additions that get me a hot vapor push, most places, manually.
still lacking is fresh solvent “everywhere”, auto-magic/on demand routing, and dual CRC.
There are also things they could learn from others.
Pretty sure their vessel jackets are up for using Illuminated’s Extractor Thermal Control System (Stand-Alone)
Adding a “solvent column” bizzybee style would also be helpful. Which is one of the things I would have demonstrated had the IO not wandered off. Using said extra vessel to enable a reusable N2 push is the on the list, and rumor has it another Luna user is already playing that game. (Instituted on my last three systems).
Looking at you @LunaTechnologies
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Putting illuminated skids on the luna sounds 
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We are open to licensing options as we have mentioned it to them before. Getting the tech out there I feel is more important than keeping it all to ourselves. Teamwork makes the dream work. 
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Have you been running the IO for a long time? I’m brand new to the system and would be interested in hearing more about your experience.
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We are actually running an Oberon, which is a smidge bigger than the IO.
I pretty much interact with it only when we need it to do something new, or it’s decided to do something new.
…and it doesn’t tend to go off script, except for the occasional ice plug when runnIng fresh frozen.
It’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it certainly gets the job done with very little interaction from the operator, and I’d take it over any of the other machines I’ve run over the years.
Are there changes I would make? Absolutely…and Luna have been working closely with us to explore those.
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Understood, thanks for the quick reply. I’m a long-time lurker but finally made an account to start posting here.
I really like how the system doesn’t require a lot of interaction from the operator, I’m new to CLS so I’m glad that the system does most of the work for me.
My main concern is figuring out how to distill my solvent efficiently, the gas I got is super dirty. Gonna have to do my research here, and hopefully source clean gas next time
There is a Luna in our lab that will be commissioned soon, I am definitely interested in increasing the solvent capacity, changing the sieve orientation and adding the ability to push with N2!
@cyclopath, may I ask what did you do to the IO to overcome the solvent capacity issue ?
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Soak. For now.
Yeah, N2 is the bit I’d like next. Rumor has it there is at least one group playing that game already. I’d like to reuse the N2, and that requires a couple more parts (additional pressure vessel).
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So we ARE turning on the Luna? Damn. I think we’ll need to do our best to have a cyclopath on hand when we get around to that.
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For high yielding trim (anything over 15%) we had to do 4 full runs with 10 min soaks to get the full yield. Once we switched to top fill we could push both solvent tanks through the column and would end up being able to do just that one run. This stopped us from using most the automation and really just used the panel to manually run the machine.
Was still nice to be able to hit vac on the panel and the system vac it self down.
My biggest issue was if I was not around to fix the problem it was almost impossible for s regular tech to figure it out. (supposedly most of the issues we had are fixed).
The nicest part about the Luna is how the top of the material column opens and closes. Nothing in the market that’s as easy as it.
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That is actually pretty easy to implement. You need an additional pressure vessel between your input solvent and the automagic “fill” port. You can then feed vapor into the system and it will condense as much as it needs then shut off the fill.
Talk to Luna about it.
Edit: 1k word substitutes to go with post below…
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Get another jacketed solvent tank that will fit 100lbs of solvent safely. Liquid fill into it from the DOT tank and use the same heater that runs recovery on the luna to heat the solvent tank, put a few valves on the water lines so you can isolate heat to the external tank then ask luna to kick the heater on while “external fill” is in process, this will heat the external tank and distill the gas automatically, and when the fill is complete the heat will shut off.
Easy peasy gas distills easy.
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What changes would you mkae if Luna hired you tomorrow to upgrade the machine?
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Is anyone running Luna’s ethanol system the elara ?
Whenever this occurs, I’ll be there provided I am aware of the general timeframe, if there is one?
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