So I have 3 screens- one at the very top of the material column in between the vent, one at the bottom of the material column and one right beneath that between the terp conical reducer and the ball valve. I’m so new to this I’m honestly just speculating. It probably is my tank. The residue at the bottom of the splatter platter after 4 dry runs is getting pretty thin, but I’m still getting that black crumbly residue.
Once I get more funds, I’m going to get new hoses as it’s possible the issue is with the hose. I’ll probably spring for the stainless steel chamber but for now I have 1 dual valve(which is what I’ve been distilling, and has about 14 pounds of butane), a full single valve and an empty single valve.
Thanks for the links, I will read them thoroughly.
Your hoses look like the stainless wire over a ptfe liner type. The ptfe tube will be translucent white. Shine a pen light in the end of one. (Be sure there are no solvent vapors first).
You sir need a clean tank. A 6”x**” spool two clamps a blank off plate and lid with a prv, vapor port/valve, dip tube/valve. Probably cheaper than a stainless “tank”
As suggested, you have a TR-21 or a TRS-21 recovery pump, condition unknown. The bane of those pumps is running dry or ingesting liquid LPG with dissolved concentrate. The latter gums up the rings and requires a rebuild. Your pump has an inlet filter to guard against that, but I would change it out.
What vacuum level does the TR-21 pull when you recover? I never pull them below -22” Hg because you are essentially running the rings dry and they will wear excessively. If it won’t pull -22”, I suggest a rebuild.
You didn’t share the diameter and length of your column, but it typically would have a 1 ½ “ and it looks like a 24”. If that is the case, three volumes would be 127 cu/in, so with your 6”X12” lower tank at 339 cu/in, that is more than adequate, leaving about 7.5” of clearance between the boiling liquid and the pump intake. It would easily handle a 36” at 190 cu/in, leaving about 5” clearance.
Depending on the material and prep, your column should handle around a pound.
Bidirectional flooding is a plus but not required. Especially flooding from the bottom so that everything gets evenly wetted.
There are approximately 24.9” Hg atmosphere at 5000 feet. Evacuate to about ~25”Hg for full vacuum. You are showing mm Hg, but typically gauges supplied by Terpp were calibrated in inches Hg. You should be able to pull close to 29.92 inches Hg, or 760 mm at one atmosphere.
What does the gauge read at full vacuum using your vacuum pump? What does it read if you hook the gauge hose directly to your vacuum pump?
The system should work whether you have a condenser coil between the pump and storage tank or not. It just takes heat out to keep the pressure lower, not necessarily condense the vapor to a liquid at that point. What is the ID of the tubing used in the coil?
We used Viton or PTFE, depending on the temperature we ran at, because they will both handle LPG, as well as being cleaned in alcohol. Butyl works for LPG, but not alcohol.
The above comments regarding your holding tank are spot on. The odds are high that is the location of your residual contaminants. The carbon steel one’s work, but you do accumulate some water during recovery and it pools below the pickup tube, where it rusts the tank. You can invert it and vent the water, or indeed run with your tank upside down and the hoses reversed, but there is no easy way to regularly clean them.
Tank hygiene is important and a stainless tank with a 6” Tri clamp lid is a good choice. When sizing it, include 20% additional capacity for expansion.
The guage is absolutely fucked, I have another one coming in. I just ran a 5th run and im still getting a massive amount of black residue and I don’t have the money to drop $500 on a stainless steel tank right now. Frustrating I have 3 tanks and can’t use any of them. Probably going to shelf this project until I can afford the tank. Sucks but thank you for your help
The guy who sold me the system had his solvent feed hose connected to the red valve and the recovery hose was connected to the blue intake valve. Is this right? I’ve been keeping the tank upright and using the red valve to flood the extraction column(it is 1.5in) and connecting the MT69 Molecular Transformer from the recovery pump to the blue nozzle. I tried looking online but couldn’t find anything to the designation of which nozzle was the liquid and which was the vapor. Could this be contributing to the amount of times I have needed to distill or is it just just the tank/butane is contaminated? I’ve seen people talking shit about how dirty Ecogreen blend is so maybe it’s just that. Maybe I should flip the tank upside down when filling my column.
Usually the valves say it on them. Some tanks differ between manufacturing and so some could say red for liquid and blue for vapor or red for vapor blue for liquid.
The side with the dip tube is usually the side that your liquid will be coming out from and the side with no dip tube is where you’ll be recovering back into.
Flipping your tank isn’t safe imo but some people here say those carbon steel hvac tanks are meant to be flipped, you’re better off learning about hot vapor loop or [better yet] getting a stainless tank and blasting in freezing cold solvent via nitrogen push | https://youtu.be/Ze2FDkhR0Ac
The pre-applied vaccum to your system before you run should usually be enough to suck the liquid from the tanks dip tube through your system without needing to flip the tank.
The black flakes are pretty common with the 20lb tanks. EcoGreen states that they clean their tanks now, but I doubt that was the case when your friend bought them.
