I’m currently getting quotes from Lab Society and Summit Research for a 5L spd system to add to my bag of tricks. I was curious if anybody had any suggestions of other companies to look at before I pull the trigger. At this point I’m leaning towards Lab Society. I currently run their high-efficiency head on my 2L system and love it. However, I’m always looking for the next best thing! Any other companies that stand out in terms of quality, throughput, yield, customer service, etc?
Summit could improve on the customer service.
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I love all of my LS gear. I’m currently running a 5 liter setup comprised mostly of LS stuff. I do have an across international mantle that i like but Ive never used any other brand of mantle. We use an across international cold trap as well i believe its a T40. And my pump is a CRV PRO 8 from Welch
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LS customer service is great too i call them with wackey questions all the time and they do everything they cal to help answer them. The same can not be said for welch. They get weird every time i say CBD.
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I agree. I’ve had nothing but great experiences with the LS team. The ole GLG discount is pretty nice too.
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This thread is a goldmine. I’m leaning towards Summit myself for the glass. LS is a bit pricey for my current resources, but I also don’t want to order Chinese from what everyone is saying. It’s almost always cheaper to go with reputable equipment no matter what you’re doing, and it seems to be especially true with short path.
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Lab society is okay for extremely small scale processing but if you are wanting to produce >1-2 kilos of distillate per day per short path you are in trouble.
I disagree that lab society is a great company and I would not buy their products for large scale production. They gauge people in the industry and make false claims about productivity. Also a rather arroggant staff where many are not trained chemists.
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Lab society has great gear. The full bore kit and h.e head clock some impressive speeds on our 5L
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I’ve used summit glass exclusively for the last 2 years… You are seriously better off with LabSociety. Here are my reasons why:
- Price-point. You will get more for your money with LS than summit. If you are hell-bent on summit-style glass (I do admit it’s very pretty), go to Rocco Scientific directly… The same $2k head at summit can be procured from Rocco for half. New and warrantied.
- Distillation Speed. My biggest gripe with summit has always been the abismal through-put and even though they are now making shorter heads with larger aperatures, I still feel like the LS heads preform better.
- Customer service. I’ve first-hand witnessed how terrible summit is with taking care of their customers after the initial sale. Good luck getting anyone on the phone after you’ve given them your money and your items have shipped. You are on your own. With Lab Society you get everything you need down to the individual kek clips and lab stands, vacuum grease etc. They also offer an instruction manual… What a concept!
- For all summit’s talk of having American made glass, they still use the same shitty Chinese mantles that you can buy direct from Ben @touchscience for 60% the price of Summit. Oh and they are not UL listed, so if you are planning on using the Summit kit in a licenced facility you will have to buy a LS mantle anyway.
- Ease of use and Automation. Lab society has digitized all of their data-collection instruments to work together on a mobile platform which graphs your temps, and vacuum pressure in real time which allows you to understand what’s going on during the run and when to ramp your temps etc. Summit will sell you a $5k fraction finder (which you can put together for $300 on Amazon), and you still have to rely on subjective data to interpret wtf is going on.
- The owner of summit is a peice of shit. DM me if you wish and I can explain why you shouldn’t spend a single cent with that company.
Edit: 7. LS offers all their gear in either 110v or 220v 
Cheers!
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I have numerous labs producing 5-6kg/day with one LS 12L, and a handful producing double that in a long (16 hour) day.
The owner of the company is a trained chemist, and we brought on an extremely well trained and intelligent chemist named Brian to fill in the gaps.
You are right though, all the sales and warehouse people are not trained chemists. However I have a deep insight into the inner workings of the company and can assure you they are not gouging anyone. Their margins are less than Summit hands down, mainly because they actually have a appropriately sized customer service and warehouse staff
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I keep hearing about Rocco glass but I can’t seem to find anything on the web about it. Would you happen to have a link where I could check out their equipment and possibly order?
Edit: I see their Instagram, but no official website.
Google Rocco Scientific. You can so reach them via Instagram DM and see a small selection of what they offer there as well. I would heed @Future though and grab the majority of your gear from LS even if you get some custom stuff from Rocco, but never spend money with Summit unless absolutely nessisary.
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Don’t forget about us! Our pricing is fairly competitive and we have quality equipment and USA made glass. We have great customer service and our sales staff does distillation too so they know how to help.
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I have asked you to put me in contact with someone produces more than 5 liters a day of cbd distillate and you have not produced a single person.
Im convinced they do not exist.
I do 2-4 a day with one 5L
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Nor will I. Not really my business to pass around clients contacts for some guy to call and verify. Now if @labsociety wants to chime in, I bet they have a couple of people running their setups that’d be happy to chat.
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That seems somewhat reasonable. Im saying at the very least over 5 per day which is still very small scale for a processing facility.
Props to the smaller facilities out there however anyone who wants to achieve industrial processing levels of above 10 liters of distillate per day please do not buy any short path whether it is LS or not.
I simply have slight animosity towards lab society because of how they gouging this industry and take advantage of those who do not know any better.
I state again I have no ties to any procssesing company I am a freelancer that simply wants to avoid people from getting ripped off by these “giants” in the industry.
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As someone who has used and recommended LS gear to multiple clients, I have to disagree. I would rather have 1 LS 2 liter than 3 summit 5 liters. I’ve had problems with summits glass multiple times.
As for scaling up, if your going to ramp up production and not have one big apparatus break down effectively shutting down your production capacity for the day/week … your going to want multiple 12L systems going.
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Agreed… But op asked about a 5L spd
You are correct. I would suggest skipping the 5L and going for industrial wiped film and make better material more efficiently.