Is there any way someone can tell me if you can condense butane back into your solvent tank without using dry ice?
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Normal ice and salt lots of both, poor mans recovery
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I usually run without dry ice. Salt, ice cubes, water will get you there but it will take 4 to 5 times as long as if you used dry ice. I recover like 5lbs in an hr that way 
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Your best help if your not gonna buy dry ice is to get 100% PURE N BUTANE ONLY!
It’s +32f to condense N butane but mixed gas is much colder to condense, like -40f
But Google local dry ice distributor, you might be surprised.
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hit up any local dulceria with Mexican ice cream they usually have dry ice cheap
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This is one of the first thing i tell potential and new customers getting into the Closed loop arena. It was one of the most costly mistakes i made when starting to extract and i TRY to prevent any of my customers going threw this pain.
Look up Co2 distributors in your area as they usually have dry ice. A few years ago after a hurricane there was absolutely no dry ice at any of the supermarkets ive been purchasing at for years. Like a dumb ass i had been paying $1.80 a lb for dry ice for maybe 5 years straight. After spending upwards of $400 in dry ice a purchase; getting all types of questions like what do you need all that dry ice? what is all that used for?
I decided to find dry ice somewhere else. I found a gas supplier near my house within 5 miles. The first year we dealt together the price was $1 a lb about 40% off. Over the years…Ive found out these guys blaze and the price dropped to .80lb. I give them some oil here and there and they became friends over the years. Ive tolled for people they “SELL CO2 gas for various reasons” LOL. Now if i order dry ice on monday’s when they get their deliveries. I get it for .60 a lb.
This is how you build relationships. These guys are really cool people. They always have good material to run. On fridays or if they are closing early that week for a holiday like this week. they will call me and ask if i want all the remaining dry ice for free.
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Damnit that’s brilliant.
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The place by me is a gas/dry ice spot and it’s .75 cents a lb over 100 lbs. not too bad
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yes, its called evaporative cooling. By off gassing some vapors in your tank you can condense a lot faster. Bhogart uses a needle valve on the solvent tank to loop vapors off the tank and back to the inlet of recovery pump. You still need to cooll your solvent tank’s incoming vapors with a high flow of cold water through a “heat exchanger” this can be accomplished by using a shell and tube heat exchanger or by using a coil that is submerged in a large insulated container.
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We never use dry ice. And we run a big bitch.
We have our coils sitting in tap water that is flowing constantly and draining constantly.
Active we are doing about a lb every couple minutes this way.
If passive then ignore
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5lbs of gas an hour is not bad for that method
What size is ur collection
Do you use a condensing coil?
This is for active systems?
Yes. Or you can utilize this on passive by having a second tank acting as a cold trap
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Explain
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My solvent tank is too big for dry ice so I tie in a small tank that goes on dry ice and pulls all the pressure off of the main solvent tank
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how big is ur tank?
I’ve seen ppl take 50lb tanks.set in ksg cooler thats insulated foamed to inside of big trash can…w grate on bottom they set the tank inside tbag leaves about 2-3inchea all way around…fill 2/3 way w denatured alcohol then start tossing dry ice in…it’ll work in a pinch might makes recovery faster to w pasive
I just realized what u mean and it works like that…how fast do u recover this is active though righr
do you use chiller coils?
Duh…
Or a tube in shell. (But I’m guessing coils)
I have like 4 coils and 2 tube in shells. Different heat zones for different heat transfers
Lolz
I heat my closed loop with gerbils running in a hamster wheel
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