What about the Chinese system @EndlessOps is currently unboxing?
has anyone else picked up their WFE from Alibaba?
As far as “bang for you buck” goes, I did have the Chinese made chiller that came with my name brand hydrocarbon extractor catch fire while I was doing shake down & pressure testing prior to first use (they’ve since switched brands)…so I have hard data that getting what you pay for has real world consequences…
The system we got wasn’t one one you can just buy offline. I have a lot of custom things I’ve done to mine to make it better. Also on Alibaba.com u can find many manufactures of the wfe however they all all knockoffs like literally. While I was in Asia I visited everyone with my agent there and we came to the conclusion they Werner what we wanted. Thankfully my agent took me to several others and we found a company who has excerpt what we are all looking for. Things to think when buying for Asia that doesn’t include in the price tag
Import fees
Agent fees
Shipping fees
And delivery fees
I gotta say I’m super happy with the quality of the system I honesty think thisbshits all over the pope. The glass is thicker (we upgraded) I have a 10l feeding flask instead of the normal 2 or 3l. And it’s s true continues sysem. Pics and videos will be added very very soon. The pope runs 65kish I can have the 6inch 150mm same design I have dropped st your door step for 55k with in 4 weeks or less and have full warranty. Everyone complains about the turn around time with Asia but I have had no issue when using a agent there.
I have the KDL5-Mini from Chemtech. It works extremely well. Around 700g/hr. I have fed it with 1 year old 60-70% THC -20 wash ethanol oil with no post extraction winterization and have been getting 85-95% single pass. Only issue with running this non-winterized is the build-up of fat/wax material on the evaporator, which sometimes gets thrown off into the distillate receiver (looks like carbon). ChemTech is great to work with. Any monkey can run their machines.
I have been trying to get my hands on a mini to play with! I know a thing or two about wiped film, and wanted to see if I could get good results tuning up a small rig. Sounds like you nailed it! That’s your feed rate?
If you are only doing a single pass, I’m guessing you are removing all the lower boiling point volatiles in your decarb step? I have noticed the same thing with unwinterized material, you can still get high potency distillate, but it gums up evaporator walls. Cleans off with polar solvent better than non-polar.
700g/hr is distillate amount, not feed. Most of the terpenes/ volatiles come off in decarb. I replaced the regular evaporator with a KDL-6 evaporator, it’s still glass but has jacketed residue and distillate collector. I also run a KDT-6 that works well. The stainless steel evaporator is better as far as heat transfer goes. But I love to see the wipe happening, and if there is an issue somehow and the wipers get jammed you aren’t going to do major damage by continuing to run.
Did I forget to mention I set two of these up along with the 300 liter co2 extraction
haven’t used it enough to get the full picture of it yet but I’ll let u know
Hi All…I’m totally new to this forum, and am already a big fan! I have been doing thin-film distillation for quite some time. My gear has included:
Home-brew (well, glassblower built!) falling film still, based on the design in old Kontes catalogs, but upsized about 3x. Welch duo-seal, air-cooled diffusion pump, mercury-filled tilting McLeod gauge for vac sensing (and got ~25 mTorr). ca 1979.
ca 2016: 2" Pope and ~4" Leybold-Hereaus WF units. Both of these are at least 35 years old. 1" bore vacuum manifolding with Varian M-2 diffusion pump, Alcatel and Savant roughing pumps, vac sensing with Kurt Lesker convection gauges, data logging via LabVIEW. Pretty flexible setup that allowed either still to be high pressure (terp stripping) or low (3-8 mTorr for cannabinoids).
…after which I graduated to these two 4" Popes, mostly doing terpene stripping in front of a ChemTech KDL-6.
…which brings me to my comment regarding vacuum. Earlier in this thread mention was made of turbo pumps vs diffusion pumps. I’ve worked with turbos a fair bit, but only in ‘dry’ systems (mass spectrometers, gas sampling systems), and I really don’t think they work for distillation systems. Mainly because their controllers almost always shut down the turbo if there’s a pressure pulse, which can be relatively small. Then, the controller will not allow a restart until the vanes have come down to a slow speed, then they can rev back up. That would considerably bollocks a distillation! Moreover, servicing or rebuilding these things is a shop visit. I’ve seen turbo pumps in the salvage yard of my previous employer that had failed…the vanes had turned into something that looked like steel wool pitched into a blender! Besides…the things are expensive…
I’m currently running a 6ft pfaudler from 1965. We have re-engineered it 4 times. Basically. I have two super low high precision chillers. one running tertiary condenser. and another running two liquid cooled vapor traps. I have two decently sized alcatel vacuum pumps and a diffusion pump. Honestly I’ve extracted 53kg of cbd dist post Degas in 24hrs.
Worked with a stainless CTS KDL-6 for the better part of 2 years.
Pros:
-Quality Build in USA
-stainless models allow faster wiper speeds and in turn lower viscosity feed stock mixtures
stainless doesn’t usually end up in a $15k+ “uh oh”
-Jualbo chillers and wiper motor (love these)
-very modular for modification
Cons:
-Customer Service can be a bit hit or miss, however John Hart is pretty amicable with cannabis. Cannabis has risen sharply from the 15% of their business in prior years
-Not a huge fan of their default cold trap setup. Usually just one trap between turbo/diffusion pumps and roughing pumps
-Very pricey IMO
-Feed pump is an expensive European gear pump that can be damaged easily on metal-metal vacuum exposed surfaces by operator mishandling. Definitely want to keep this pump well maintained and do not let a rookie rebuild one.
I’ve had great success with their products in conjunction with some basic sample prep, however ensure your feed rate and wiper speed is effective for your feed viscosity, and definitely degass and strip high volitals (although that’s true of any WFD really.
I agree, I love the Edwards RV28 and their 10iC dry scroll pump. Both do great on their own. I especially like the 10ic for things that have solvent or terps in them, as it is a chemical-duty pump.
