Yes, generally what Hank has asked. Real world usage reviews. I actually like overkill.
There is a recipe part of the software. I only used 2 settings. One for frozen material and one for not
One chiller is for the solvent tanks and material reactor. The other chiller is for the passive solvent recovery. The water cooling tower is for the chillers.
It has a timer on the software to remind you to change molecular sieve
All of the sensors are out of the way and donāt get touched. I clogged a certain 3 way valve frequently and pulled oil into the vac pump a lot. I think they may have fixed those 2 issues or figured out a work around. I had some other issues with clogging in other places but that could have been user error on my part.
Itās a nice system in that I can run it from my phone while Iām at lunch or doing other lab crap. I felt like the volumetrics of the machine needed some changes, material column too wide and collection too small. There are a few other things I would change but those donāt really affect overall usage.
For the money Iād just buy a BZB big boy
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We do provide pre set recipes built into the HMI on shipment. During an included 2 day commission of the system we devote an entire day on-site training your extractors; helping you dial in pre set recipes or create new for any of the end products your business specifically needs. You have total control over the 7 recipe parameters to adjust as needed both prior to a run or during a run. The system if you wish can be operated in full manually or switched from auto to manual at anytime during your run. We also give you robust SOPs and allow access to a customer portal once purchased that gives you a Lunaverse of information.
The chillers are perfectly paired with the automated system to reduce recovery time for optimal efficiency. The larger chiller is 100% dedicated to a condenser that keeps the solvent as cold as you desire when pulling from or moving into the solvent recovery tanks. The second chiller is dedicated to the rest of the system to ensure a consistent temperature throughout every inch of the IO Extractor. This way to know the temperature youāre reading on the HMI is not just the temperature at the chiller; itās the temperature at every stage of the extraction process.
We have two molecular sieves on the system to remove moisture from the solvent. The IO Extractor runs dry material with amazing result, but the system was built and designed to do a killer job with fresh frozen. We also have a meter on the touch screen HMI (located outside of the C1D1, the interface with the system) that tells you when you need to swap out for a new desiccant cartridge.
We very rarely run into sensor issues, but sensor are sensitive and just need care when cleaning.
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Hey man you can get a lot of opinions on this site but you know what they say about opinionsā¦
The fact of the matter is that Luna is transparent. So bump the hear-say and come out and check us out in person. I could very easily set up a tour of the Luna facility, in Portland Oregon, where the Luna IO is designed, fabricated, and assembled. We could also go and check out some customer facilities that actively use our IOās. The fact is we have happy customers. In fact, if you wanted to, I could probably arrange a tour of the facility that @anon16547145 is referencing so you can make your own opinion on our equipment. That is if the current operator @ALLDaat would be down for it.
So by all means, get the advice from the people. But if you want to see it first hand, then slide into my futuristic DMās and Iāll set that up.
Much Love @hankthetank
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Thanks for the quick replies all!
Is there a cold trap attachment I can get for the vacuum pump? Or reroute through the chiller?
I guess my question about chillers, why do I need -80c glycol chiller for a water chilled system. Considering water tends to freeze at 0cā¦and if these chillers are so powerful why do I need the cooling tower. I understand the effeciency of a cooling tower but its just another thing to break. Or fill up with bugs(i have a laser chiller tower that fills up with bugs).
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Why do you feel you would you need a cold trap on the vac pump? Why would you consider the re-route through the chiller?
With the Luna IO the Water Cooling Towers are located outside of the facility. They cool the chillers. The Chillers Chill the IO, the Water Cooling Tower chills the chillers. This is designed such that there isnāt an abundance of heat in the environment as you would see with indoor air cooled units. This is also to avoid your chillers overheating as they are working to chill the Luna IO. This only applies to the US model.
The Canadian Luna IO comes standard with an outdoor air cooled chiller. If you dm me your email address we can reach out to you directly and go through everything.
Are you located in the US or Canada?
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Stop talking all sexy! Even if you did take all the steam punk out of extraction. That rig looks like it belongs in the engineering section of the Enterprise with Scotty screaming about not having enough biomassā¦
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I guess I am not being clear. Basically just saying a -80 chiller seem like way to much horsepower for just chilled water. I understand how towers work. The chiller unit still has a secondary chiller that uses Freon on top of the towerās cooling function. Just trying to say with that much horse power is the tower actually needed to maintain desired water temp. It would be a lot ācoolerā (see what I did there) if the tower was not neededā¦just saying. Not to mention, cooling towers (of ALL sizes) have problems at times. Floats get stuck. Ambient outside temp fluctuates. Storms. Algae. Bugs. Bugs are the worst really ime.
On a side note. Prolly a dumb question. But why not use Glycol to chill/heat on double jacket stainless systems. I understand it can be corrosive on stainless but supposedly not on 316l stainless per the scientists. Is the luna tech gear 316L stainless?
While iām on my soapbox. Is the IO systemās skid square??? I mean true square. Even the pope skids are never square. Seems like such a crucial function in many applications in this industryās lab gear but I always end up having to add seal shims or something. Just looking at the welds in the pictures. I am going to bet not. Robot welders are everywhere btw. Just sayn.
Regarding the cold trap. A previous poster mentioned pulling solvent into the vacuum pump at times. It happens. I get it. Seems like a cold trap of some sort would cure ruining a high dollar welch or whatever. And since there is already a chiller (with clearly additional capacity) could one rig up something? Seems easy enough. Just thinking out loud. Thereās a way to convert compressed air into a vacuum pump. The industry should really look into that.
Thanks for being on the ball though Luna. Our team is actually already talking to you all. Just curious what the community had to say. Call it aā¦āchannel checkā.
What you smoking @hankthetank?
Solvent temp -50 to -70C. Not a trick done with āwaterā.
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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Itās 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? Thatās not something you should really do and as ācoolā as it might look having all your equipment lined up ready for battles itās actually really inefficient and makes your lab look poorly built.
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Truth!
I have read some testimonials on future4200 regarding Lunaās 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 Lunaā¦Iād 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 needsā¦
Weāve made some very basic plumbing additions that get me a hot vapor push, most places, manually.
still lacking is fresh solvent āeverywhereā, 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 Illuminatedās Extractor Thermal Control System (Stand-Alone)
Adding a āsolvent columnā 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? Iām 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 itās decided to do something new.
ā¦and it doesnāt tend to go off script, except for the occasional ice plug when runnIng fresh frozen.
Itās not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it certainly gets the job done with very little interaction from the operator, and Iād take it over any of the other machines Iāve run over the years.
Are there changes I would make? Absolutelyā¦and Luna have been working closely with us to explore those.
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Understood, thanks for the quick reply. Iām a long-time lurker but finally made an account to start posting here.
I really like how the system doesnāt require a lot of interaction from the operator, Iām new to CLS so Iām 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