So I have a 100ml flask and I’m pretty sure I can get it to a little more than halfway with crude at some point. My question here is would I still need to have all the essentials of a short path like an edwards or a leybold. Or can I cut corners and go with an extractor depot full bore 12 cfm and distill at the BP of thc and go right in on a spd from China. Put a cheap ass cold trap between the pump and spd.
Jw
you don’t need to suck that hard (edwards/leybold) to get the job done with a 100ml boiling flask.
you might could get there with a $100 harbor freight pump…just
In my experience, yea you can get the not so expensive pumps to work with a small setup like 100ml. I wouldn’t expect it to pump out large amounts of phenomenal product, but for personal medicine it will work and won’t drain your wallet which is a plus. I have gotten pretty decent results with the 150$ harbor freight pump (3cfm) and a 100ml sublimator rig like the one @Beaker used
What’s a sublimator rig? And how would I go about building one
You’ll want to do some research but you can get a used Edwards E2M2 for $250-300 that should get down to at least 20micron. I’m sure you could get other decent pumps used in the same range.
Dont just grab the first one you see, but theres plenty of rotary vane pumps on Ebay that just need a little TLC that sell for cheap
Edit: for some clarification I own several quality rotary vanes that needed minimal work to run smooth purchased used for under $400
https://www.amazon.com/Chemglass-CG-3038-01-Complete-Sublimation-Apparatus/dp/B005WX5MMQ
If you are a talented glass blower you could make one yourself I suppose lol I bought a different brand but this is the one @beaker used with amazing results. Definitely would check out his posts about it if you’re interested. In regards to the pump if you can find a good deal on a used Edwards I would not hesitate to get it. You will have more options for the use of it other than extremely small distillations.
I’m honestly too lazy to look for the posts can you redirect me to one of his old posts. I will look into one of those pumps off ebay and have someone help me restore it to full glory at some point when I have the funds.
What I really want to know is, what exactly is sublimation in terms of consistency changes as well as distillate in general. Does it have a cleaner and easier effect on distillation? I’m interested af.
This should give you a pretty good idea. I’m not sure how to describe the sublimated distillate product vs other distillate. I guess I would say it turns out (in general) a little more runny and clear than most distillate I see coming off other systems. Not to say that this way is superior, I have seen excellent distillate from other systems and they all have their own advantages and disadvantages and generally come down to the skill of the operator as well as quality of input material (although lately I will say I have been pushing it in terms of using very poor input material and having some very surprising results, may post a thread about it in the near future if people would be interested in seeing how I’ve been going from the black garbage goop to some light yellow distillate in one step. Lmk)
I kind of like to think of this system of sublimation as the shortest possible short path combined with a wiped film. Someone in the thread I linked used the phrase “vacuum deposition” which may be a better term to describe this process, but the apparatus is called a sublimation apparatus so we’ll stick with that name I suppose. I do not process huge batches so the crude ends up being a thin layer spread across the bottom of the boiling flask/chamber. Heat at the lowest temp that will actually boil the thc (for myself using the harbor freight pump, usually around 146-150c) and the thc vapor travels all of an inch or so and condenses (actually more like freezes, I keep the cold finger very cold) on the cold finger that is within the boiling flask/chamber. I hope this explanation and the link to @Beakers pics and explanation helped you understand it better. For my intended result of extracting/distilling this system works fantastic and is exactly what I was looking for. You may have different end goals for your distillate so I would take that into consideration before you abandon your small scale spd for a sublimator.