I’m not completely familiar with their whole product line but I think that is the case.
~$3.4m for the biggest one rings a bell from when I looked into these about 6 months ago.
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man I need that VCT distillate. said no one ever.
We’ll the fact that they have sold these to a few people that statement is false.
It definitely has its place in this industry and is a pretty good route if you end goal is distillate.
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it wasn’t really a statement meant to be true or false. was more my opinion that paying 3 million for a machine that produces a product indistinguishable from a short path is foolish.
You don’t feed short paths biomass though, this unit skips crude production.
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True, I do see the value in that.
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If I had unlimited dollars in my pocket, I’d probably have one of these systems, an illuminated extractors one, one of mine, and a [redacted], all working at the same time, spitting out different products.
I’d even have a supercritical CO2 system… but I sure as shit wouldn’t be using it to extract cannabinoids from biomass.
They’re all unique tools that are fit for different purposes and end products.
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It might save $250-500k in hazard compliancy.
There’s certainly a niche. Especially when price comes down.
And you want to waste the terpenes, which are more valuable then the distillate IMO
You still have to winterize before distillation, which is the real kicker IMO
You still need to use solvent so you’re gonna need c1d2 anyways
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imo, it’s all ROI-positivity and scale. if you’ve got the capital, and it’s efficient enough, once it’s paid off i can see it being a moneymaker. opex is enormous yes but capex is claimed to be crazy low (key word: claimed)
i’ve only seen Boulder Creek’s unit, which was open about still needing a Winterization step. this one claims the product comes out wax-free, i’m most interested in how they achieve this (or if that actually,truly means 'wax-free comparable to traditionally winterized extracts)
Is it overpriced, I mean honestly who can say no to that question. I don’t think the system merits 3m. If they can get it down to 1m for the same system (and I think that’s possible, and if anything triggers it it will probably be more competition), then i’d say it’s actually great. Because for that 1m you have finished product coming out and you saved 500k in compliance.
Then there’s the question about winterization. This system will succeed if they can convince people the oil is good enough to put right in a pen without distillation. Even if you have to throw in a little CDT for flavor. The potency can get in the low 80s from what i’ve seen which if you could sell these carts cheaper than any other type might well be a bankable product. It certainly seems more favorable than CO2 carts which still have some market share.
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According to Loxley, their method is selective producing 90-95% cannabinoid oil and a terpene sidestream. their method is significantly different from BoulderCreek’s unit which is not selective and produces more of a “crude” end product as well as oxidized terps. Im awaiting their tests showing extraction efficiency, the energy balance and to see the unit run in person.
Theyve also got a couple of rockstars on their team - one of which, Greg Mehos, literally wrote the chapter for solids handling in Perry’s Handbook of ChemE.
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this is my concern, maybe if there was a scalable way to extract the terpenes prior to running this machine.
what is the price tag on one of those bad boys? is it significantly cheaper than the BoulderCreek?
not sure. ask @Loxley
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My concern is large scale hemp extraction will go to tricrop in the next 3-5 years, even at 8000 pounds a day that’s only 1000 pounds an hour that’s a small system into today’s world where we’re extracting 10%+ material, when tricrop hits and you’re processing biomass that’s1-3% cannabinoids 8k pounds a day isn’t shit relatively speaking. I don’t see this being scalable, plus the acids are worth way more then distillate is.
At 8000 pounds a day 1.5% yielding tricrop would produce 120 pounds of crude a day
Idk how someone could survive on that having to spend 3 million on the machine alone
The seeds and fiber are already worth more then the cbd is at this point, it’s only going to keep getting worse too
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I don’t see any reason this wouldn’t be scalable (obviously again, only if the price goes down)
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@robhartman was the question on vapor capture for Loxley or VCT?
I usually use a glass bong or pyrex.