USA Lab Atlas CLS Recovery Coil Clog

Help Support and Requests
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I’m running an Atlas 10 lb extractor from USA Lab and changed out my molecular sieve this morning. I did one fresh frozen run successfully, and recovery time improved drastically from the last run done yesterday.

When finishing the run I noticed water inside my solvent tank, so I decided to do a blank run to empty my solvent tank thinking the water was built up in the very end of the lines before I replaced my sieve. I planned on replacing the sieve again after this. This recovery started out much faster than the previous run, however with about 4 lbs of butane left to recover the machine locked up. I have dealt with this in the past on a previous machine and cleared the clog by allowing the blockage to thaw.

While I do realize I should have replaced the sieve sooner in this instance, we were previously able to run 100-150lbs of fresh frozen material and I was only able to run 50lbs in this case. Our previous cls was a combination of several manufactures parts, however the sieve column was the same size.

Would this be entirely from the material that was ran, due to a questionable vacuum seal job on the material? The bags swell almost immediately when removed from -20f. The inlet to the recovery coil has also been running much hotter than all other material. Or could this be from a leak on the inlet of the recovery pump? The system has been pressure tested multiple times due to bent fittings being replaced, and this would be the first case of any issues.

Operating procedures were virtually the same between the two machines, apart from soak times and butane input. We are currently using a 7-1 solvent ratio, while in the past we were using a 4-1 solvent ratio. We have also cut back on soak times, and implemented a chiller to run cold solvent. We are running N-Butane, which has not changed.

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What’s the current status of the machine right now?

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It is fully functional, and all lines and vessels were cleared other than the solvent tank.

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@cyclopath might weigh in and move this to the help/support request category.

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Moved, but not really seeing a question here.

Although this might be relevant…

If you’re sucking in air with your pump, that would lead to higher pressures, and (so) higher temps on the outlet.

It could also bring water in.

However, one would also expect a noticeable rise in the pressure in the solvent tank in this scenario.

Without such a pressure gain in the solvent tank, the better explanation for higher coil inlet temp would be “occluded coil”…which simply requires water from your biomass.

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This is most likely water frozen in your coil, I would thaw it out, then clean the tank and dry it out with a vacuum pump.

The water usually comes from your bio but as @cyclopath said if your sucking in ambient air into the system it will introduce moisture. A pressure test and soapy water should show if you have a leak.

Keep that bio frozen, refresh your sieve beads regularly and do a weekly tank clean out & you should be fine.

Also with water in your tane you will typically see slightly lower yields as an indicator that h20 is present

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