So I’m working on making some water soluble THC (me and everyone else) using a TEK posted on here. I’ve got all of the other precursors except a sonicator. Was using Amazon, Google, Ebay, and kept coming across a company called U.S Solids.
Does anyone have experience with this company? I’m sure it does what it needs to but I don’t want to make this investment if it breaks down with no ability to be fixed in 6 months.
Here’s the link
Did you ever get it?
Im looking at one of their models aswell, seems the best priced option out there
I got the 600W, and it works well for nano. I’ve made about a dozen 6L batches with it and it’s been fine so far.
The horn became Swiss cheese after a few uses but I haven’t seen a drop off in performance so I just sterile filter really well. (pulse use to on for ~1 min, off for 3s to extend horn life). Not sure if the horn issue is only with higher wattage units, I had a heilsher 100w and it took a bit longer to get the eroded look but that could be because of the lower power. Anyone have experience with higher power ISM, Qsonica, or Heilsher units?
I too am crawling down the rabbit hole of water soluble. Can anyone else vouch for the US SOLIDS brand unit? I got one of their induction sealers and it works pretty good. Not sure how long these sonicators hold up.
Figured I’d drop this in the thread, my sonicator broke; it just stopped producing ultrasound. I thought it was the horn/transducer, turns out it may be the power supply having a day. Still having to troubleshoot, we’ll see if it’s worth it but it only has a few hundred hours and the fact the controller shit the bed first and not the horn is a bad sign.
Not sure if anyone is a wizard at fixing these, but I’m not sure what to do at this point
What type of generator? Crest or anything name brand should have wiring diagram, might make diagnosing easier…
More details than “broke” would help… is it turning on? Or just nothing power wise?
Fair enough I suppose that’s a bit vague; it’s turning on, I can program everything, I hit start but no ultrasound is produced. I’m not sure what I should be looking even for an output voltage. I assume I’m looking for a kind of AC output where the horn connect but there’s a lot of steps in between
Here are the three boards. I have no fucking idea what I’m looking at besides the in and out.
I have one of these but its very lightly used- how long did yours last before it shit the bed? Would it be helpful if i opened mine up and took pics?
Have you checked that fuse? Looks like you’re pointing at it but just in case you missed it.
@Josh.Schlotsky a few hundered hours, maybe 400-500.
I blew that a few minutes before the picture, I tried switching to 220V but didn’t switch it on the machine (it can do 110 or 220) so that fuse blew when I switched it on, but it was still having issues. It still turns on and I can program it. That probably fucked it but still wasn’t doing that before. Probably just blew a capacitor.
Do you have a multimeter and know how to use it? Troubleshooting the capacitors on that board would be very easy, they probably have the resistance values printed on them. Start there and checking the solder plates, that doesn’t look very well assembled.
Update!
I just replaced the power supply for $35 on Amazon, which worked great. I also figured out why mine stopped producing ultrasound. The power supply was over heating. I would find when I came back in the morning from running all night, it wouldn’t be on even though there was time left in the program. I disassembled it and stood the power supply in its side and it ran for the full 18hr no problem. I need to figure out how to get more airflow through the controller box because it gets hot but a great step in the right direction!
Edit: Make sure your power supply is big enough for your process. I realized I need about 2x the amps for this one. This is an issue the manufacturer made. Really pathetic.
The power supply overheating is probably why my first one shit the bed as they likely nerfed or got rid of the over temp shutoff circuit. US solid, if you read this, your designs are terrible; adequate cooling is circuit 101, especially since this thing is dumping 600W into solution, the losses from the power supply go right into the box, this is a problem in a basically new unit. All you need to fix this is a few case fans.
You can make it up to me by sending me a new one at your highest power 
. I’ll still gut it and make it work better but hey, at least I’ll be less salty.
So to answer the original question, these are probably fine for r&d, but for production scale, these ain’t it unless you really know what you’re doing. I make quite a bit of nano and while the price point is quite nice it’s not reliable enough. The troubleshooting guide is like 2 pages that tells you to replace the signal or power board if an indicator light shuts off. Btw, if your power board breaks, buy it off Amazon, not from them. They wanted to charge me $200 for a $35 power supply.
I’ll have to look if the signal board is an off the shelf board but I assume no so Im not sure when that is going to break. If you need to bootstrap, go for it as this can get you enough money to get a better unit but it probably will break.
Update.
After doing some quick math, a 48V 7.5A power supply = 360W. My model is 600W. I think I figured out why my power supply shit the bed. Turned the output power to below 50% and that seems to have solved the main issue.
I now do not recommend this company period. You get what you pay for.
How does Q sonica work for people?
Update.
I purchased a Q soinca Q700 after being fed up with US solid and I ran into a very similar issue. Fortunately, Qsonica’s equipment is much more intelligent, and I was able to understand what exactly was going wrong with my system. After ensuring my horn was on tight, I was experiencing a similar issue where ultrasound production would stop after 15 min or so. After reading the troubleshooting guide it seemed like I wasn’t giving enough cooling to the transducer. If the piezoelectric crystal gets too hot, it can crack and will stop working (similar to what I saw).
Now Q sonica tells you to do this and has npt ports for you to thread a hose barb on there, US solid does not do this and just has several holes on top so it can air cool itself. This is definitely inadequate cooling because Q Sonica’s calls for like 4CFM at 10 PSI and needs at least that much.
Now the power supply still shit the bed on me and is undersized, but if you introduce air cooling, upgrade the power supply and provide proper airflow to the transducer, you might actually have a piece of equipment that lasts you a while.
No promises.
