You need a consult
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I second this
How about some basic information here. What size of unit do you have? 5kg per day isn’t unreasonable on a 2".
150mm, so 6".
Taking us about 10 hours to do a 6kg run of crude.
Then yes, you’re doing something very wrong. Please DM me I do wiped film consultation and routinely get high 90%s on first pass.
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I heartily agree that trying to run unwinterized crude through a wiper will only bring you grief, particularly if your crude is from, say, a room temperature ethanol extraction. Here’s an example of what can happen…
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Search for the VTA sop I posted, that’s a good place to start for temps and vacuum levels.
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I don’t think that’s the only thing going on with that run. I’ve got beautiful results on non-winterized run. If it’s warm ethanol crude, the far larger problem is polar crud, which that looks like to me (and winterization doesn’t always solve).
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Warm (room temp) ethanol is the worst, as lots of gummy sugars get pulled out, that persist through standard winterization…CO2 crude seemed devoid of these interfering compounds.
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I have run “dirty” crude through a WF apparatus, and it’s a challenge, to be sure. The entire feed path into the column has to be kept warm enough for the crude to flow without cooling, often requiring liberal application of the heat gun to spots where waxes and such like to hang up, such as pumps, joints with dead space, etc.
The worst part, though, is the waste fraction you generate. All your lipids and waxes pass through the column into your receiving vessel, which will never be fully clean again. The only way to remove the stuff is lots of heat and time, and even then it’s not 100%. Be prepared to do a lot of cleaning of glassware as well as the internals of your system itself.
Running less than clean crude can be done, but the effort required is one of the reasons I’m lobbying the guys I work for so hard for equipment and process changes that will give us a cleaner extract and crude.
I’ve had succes with warm EtOH crude if winterization was followed by hexane/brine washes, so polars get washed out.
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Temps were pretty close to what we’ve been running.
Only difference is we haven’t been varying the vacuum pressure from first run to second, we’ve been doing both at Max.
Will try dialing back the pressure f and see what that does.
Thanks!
Only first pass you should limit your vac, and only if it gets too deep and you start pulling cannabinoids instead of terpenes. Second pass max vac is best for achieving best seperation. Where are you located?
Wow. Don’t do that!
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Located in KY.
Just ordered a valve to control the vacuum depth, will give that a shot as soon as it comes in and see if that helps.
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If your running a 150 China unit you need a proper feeding pump as gravity fed will never go fast enough. You also need diffusion or turbo for deeper vac. You should never need a bleed valve.
If you’re doing first pass and stripping terpenes you can start to pull cannabinoids if your vac gets too deep, theres a reason root science puts one on there units.
Are you decarbing /deterping before loading the machine? Winterizing will definitely help
It’s all relative as you can adjust other parameters to compensate. If your running the correct vacuum for system, you’ll never need to add air to your system. At the very least, nitrogen should be used over pulling air.
Most SPD units wont seal anywhere close to as good as a wiped film, I understand where you’re coming from but a fraction of a micron of air every so often wont hurt your vac pump.