Budget - less of an immediate concern, my main goal is not to be at the whim of these companies and retailers - I recently had some bad experiences both with quality and price and also don’t like the potential for cheap/random quality carts. That being said I believe the market will mature so I’m not looking to spend thousands or anything crazy.
Current Equipment (Centrifuge, Vac Chamber and Vac, Kitchen Stuff, Semi Functional Homemade Rosin Press, Some Cartridges, a set of small 1ml “glass” syringes which are glass sides but not glass plunger )
Available starting material - right now the most affordable starting material by THC/A content is thca and resins. I also have the ability to produce flower seasonally but i’d probably just have that run by a lab for me into resin and in any case isn’t available right now.
End goal is being able to count on some nice consistent carts I don’t have to worry too much about. Ideally I would be able to turn out like 12 a month in a few hours on a weekend, something super small scale. I realize at this scale the whole thing probably sounds stupid but I’ve always liked being able to do things myself and control all inputs.
@HowToWeed - Thank you for your work on this and your video. The underlying method of separation ended up working very well.
I used a 25 micron rosin bag turned inside out and stuffed most of the way down the tube. Using a high speed 15ml centrifuge I was able to achieve quite remarkable results in as little as 30 minutes.
Removing the thca from the filter bags was very easy, the HTE was a different matter.
Most of the HTE flowed out quite easily, some stuck to sides and stuff, I tried to avoid heating it. I put some parchment paper over the tube and screwed the cap on then set the tube upside down.
Eventually almost all of the HTE came out of the tube and ended up on the parchment paper. Then I realized actually trying to move HTE from parchment paper into something else is a disaster.
Presumably I could find a holder for the tube and just have it fall into a vessel.
A proper glass syringe set up that was well warmed I believe would have helped a lot.
I think transfer loss is my biggest concern with these small scale attempts. I ran a total of like 3.5g of live resin and by the time it came to fill things up, idk that I was even at a gram. Granted I ran things extremely poorly.
Peace - thanks for everyone’s insights and information - I hope my info will be able to help someone else in the same boat avoid some of my mistakes.
are you extracting it or are you buying it already made? like are you able to pour off the majority of the HTE or are you working with retail ready stuff?
Retail ready unfortunately - the quality, cost and availability of live resins is fine for me - just looking for a way to get it into a cart. The carts that are available retails are priced to hell, shotty quality carts and largely mystery oils.
@WakeNBakery - you asked some very good questions about what I have tried. My biggest issue is it seems almost impossible to find out how the carts are made. Some manufacturers are transparent but definitely not all so I am sure i’ve probably tried all of these various recipes but I have no idea what was what.
I like the single vessel solution the best. Decarb whole in a vessel intended to handle expected heat and pressure, no separation, minimal process loss. Figure a way to limit/eliminate O2 from headspace. Decarb, cool, re- warm, flatten(remove entrained CO2), syringe, fill carts. Viola.
Does separating THCA and terp fraction make a better cart? Potentially, but how much better? If done properly, you may not be able to tell the difference and you’ll have wasted as little as possible.
@cyclopath I definitely appreciate that thread on Decarb under pressure. I have read over the whole thing a few times and I think I understand most of it
Combining that thread with @Dannywarbucks commented suggestion leads me to my current plan i’ll lay out along with some questions.
Find a strong vessel that will give me room to work but not enough to become inefficient.
What kinds of pressure are we talking about here? Is there a size, material or make that would be well suited to my scale (half ounce runs max) ?
The SOP there is obviously intended for large scale production but the crux @Anonymouse seems to describe well with this
“By placing the material indended for decarboxylation in a pressure rated vessel and creating a vacuum environment, the material may be fully decarboxylated while preserving the natural terpene profile due to the available headspace and oxygen-deprived environment. The additional pressure created by the CO2 gas will allow any volitalized terpenoid compunds to reflux under pressure while cooling, thus allowing the preservation of the unique terpene profile.”
Take my appropriate vessel, add material, go to full vac, place vessel at full vac into warm water bath at 110c 230F for roughly 2 hours allowing the c02 created by decarbing to create pressure in the vessel. Cool the vessel back down to room temp, release the pressure. Hold material at full vac for an hour or two to remove co2 from product. Heat vessel to 35c / 95f to get liquid and load into carts.
Simple two step process
Again thank you everyone for responding, I will keep you all updated about how this goes that it might be helpful for others.
The rule of thumb is large scale cart making usually boils down to:
Isolation
Formulation
Reconstitution
Or
Cooking the fuck out of that shit
After these the mix is a hot oil sitting in a reservoir and the process is largely the same.
Dispense
Cap
As for how, most people use either a heated glass/plastic syringe or a cartridge filler.
The reason they aren’t so forthcoming with info is because the best all round cart equipment for the modern era can be purchased for less than $1000. They don’t have much of a gate blocking you so they got to keep it secure and hidden.
Thank you all for your kind responses and information despite my poorly worded posts.
The search term that seemed to get me into the right category of equipment was “tri-clamp”
Revised/detailed plan:
Buy a tri-clamp welded bottom base, a tri-clamp cap with welded fittings, add valve and prv (prv probably not needed if sticking with small amounts of material), get some gaskets.
It seems like I could do most of this for around 100 dollars but i’d love a sanity check.
Yall are such a good influence, the prv valve will be used - what PSI would you all get? It seems the triclamp bases and clamps can hold crazy pressure - that said obviously i’m only working with small amounts of material. I can’t imagine a situation in which anything above like 75 psi should occur and I also think that should provide plenty of room for safety.
Thanks again everyone - Peace - Will be assembling materials and posting an update ASAP
You’ll want your PRV to be lower than your stated vessel ratings, obviously. I don’t like to take any vessel past 150 psi regardless of the rating, but the setting on your PRV will influence how much you can cook at a time. Our decarber PRVs are set at 225psi and the vessels are rated for 250. I start getting the heebie jeebies above 150. That’s a lot of energy behind that steel.
To piggy back off of @Dannywarbucks … I’m sure it’s been discussed but going through the theoretical calculations with regards to your vessel’s pressure rating, how much input material you’re working with and your set PRV rating are important. Although the PRV is there as a safety measure… if it does activate, that is not only CO2 off gassing but gaseous terpenes. Do the math and don’t lose them terps
For decarb under pressure a 6" diamond miner is good for about 200g of BHO or rosin.
Put a 125 prv in there for safety.
Pick up a cheap rotary vane two stage pump, some fittings and a hose. From there you need an oven. Then you can basically follow the steps laid out in aforementioned threads.
Here is what I have been able to find a source for:
Tri-Clamp Base Welded Bottom Base - BVV had a 4x4 for like 50 Dollars - As mentioned elsewhere larger sizes would allow for more starting material. I am not in a situation where I would need to process any more than a half ounce at a time.
4" Tri-Clamp Top with Two 1/4"-18 FNPT - ~40 from BVV
4" High Pressure Clamp - 20 Dollars
Tri-Clamp gaskets - Various qualities were available with some featuring specs suitable to my ranges for less than 10 Dollars
1/4 MNTP Branch Tee x 1 - Have one already
1/4in MNPT Pressure Release Valve x 1 ~10 Dollars
Combination Vac/Pressure Gauge x 1
1/4in MNPT ball valve - Have one already
Vac + hose - I have one, it is one stage unfortunately however I have used it previously and got quite a good vac with it.
Decarbing temps and terp adding temp/ working are two different temps. After decarbing id think u would want to get the thca under 90c at least before adding terps…
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