The Honey Oil Thread: From Raw Bud & Trim, To RSO, Through An SPD, To Golden Love!

SPD Rig, purchased part by part.

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After considering the part by part approach and knowing that it would be a struggled to get the glass to mate properly, I priced out glass kits from different US sources and settled on one, USA Labs.

The kit includes everything except the vacuum pump and the heatbath/chiller.

For $1,199, it was worth it. I did have broken glass during shipping. Replacement parts showed up three days later. Mating the glass together does require vacuum grease, but everything slides into place.

I did wind up with a flask from Stony Labs, it didn't fit correctly at all, even though it was the same 24/40 connection. I also have a few glass pieces by Dischem, they fit fine together, but require allot of extra vacuum greased when mating with other manufacturers.

Remember, USA made glass that mates perfectly, it costs $4k just for the glass!

SPD Kit for USA Lab, which is what I went with:

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Ok, so now that I had all my glass, stands, boss heads, and heat mantle. Just needed a vacuum pump and heat bath and the vacuum tubing and water lines. Note, I got the vacuum pump from a friend who is a AC repairmen. Just needed to change the oil!

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On the vacuum pump, you really do need a rotary vane pump. You want it to have a block off valve and a ballast release valve. The common one used on the cheap is a Welch pump. The high end is an Edwards pump. Cheap is $1k, high end is $3k. I figured I would experiment with what I had, and it paid off. A free rotary vane pump did the job of both the recommended low end and the recommended high end. Brand new, the pump I use is $570, half of the used cost of the cheapest pump folks usually use, and 1/6tht he cost of the big guy.

Note on buying used pumps: You really want to be at the lowest pressure you can get. When buying a used pump, you can guarantee it isn't going to pull down to the pressure it did when it was new. This usually requires a rebuilt kit. Depending on the manufacturer, a rebuild kit can go anywhere from $500 to $1,000. So, factor that in if you are buying one of the big guy pumps used. Add the rebuild kit to your cost if you are comparing to a new pump.

Also, MAKE sure to get a decent pump. In my opinion from what I learned, the specs on the Yellow Jacket 6hp pump are perfect for home use like us. It gets you down to 50 microns, and is reliable as long as you change the pump oil when needed.
 
Lastly, the upgrades. You can go ahead and run through a pass without a vacuum meter or digital thermometers. You can use a $5 analog head temp thermometer, and forget about the vacuum meter. However, you won't know if you have vacuum leaks (no vacuum gauge) and you won't get precision in your head temp (the most critical piece of data). In other words, with out the upgrades, you are flying blind, no instrumention, you are flying visual reference.

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Ok, so there are the parts and pieces. I'm hoping the last few posts give you an idea of your options. That all being said, this is what I am flying with at the moment:

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Again, pump was free to me, so minus $570.

Yup, lots o cash. But for a guy who prefers not to combust, and loves to share with everyone geographically near, 2500 is nothing, and the ROI will hit within a year.

Example, I pumped out 49 grams last run. If I would have purchased that in my state at a dispensary, it would cost me 49 grams multiplied by $110 dollars/gram, or $5,390. Now, I'm not smoking all that oil, 5 people are, each with different medical issues ranging from anxiety, to heart issues, to full on cancer. I'll share tokes with folks, but will donate gobs of weed and oil to those I know that are medical, but can't afford the medication at the state rates!

Anyway, that's my crazy ass math. Let me know if anyone has any questions. It might seem totally random, but there is method to my madness!

Work Instructions / SOPs coming this weekend!
 
A note on Chinese glass. If you go out and research the shit out of Short Path Distillation, and then boil down all of the data to actual trusted info, you narrow down to 2 specifics sources of truth. Sure, there are a ton of Yourtube videos. There are also lots on Reddit, mostly people making fun of other people trying to try new things... Anyway, my point is, you'll almost always see people bashing Chemistry Sets from China. If your goal is to go and setup a legit extraction lab and you have the investment, sure, quality glass is the way. I don't agrue that at all. I've witnessed setting up an SPD kit without using any vacuum grease at all, that pulled down to 8 microns. Cost? It was an $85k rig. I was on a tour.

I'm guessing most folks are sticker shocked at $2k for a home setup, let alone the perfect setup.

If I had it all to do over again, I'd buy the glass, the heat mantle and stands/etc off of Alibaba as a kit for $500. Then buy a new Yellow Jacket vacuum pump for $570, and a the same Heat Bath and Circ Pump for $150 on ebay.

Hope that makes sense.
 
lovin it ! Yes @zeroday I have been browsing around glassware, pumps, water baths ..the whole nine yards . One big question is how big of a heated water bath is sufficient for the set up . The average on ebay is about 15L . Through my searches I was thinking it was going to be around 3k for a good at home setup which like you said would pay for itself in the long run ..kinda like growing your own does . The initial invest may seem steep but looking at it broad spectrum its really not if you use the oil on a daily basis .
I didn't even think about the possibility of mixing glass manufactures creating issues ..Thank you for pointing that out .
 
No Pain said:
One big question is how big of a heated water bath is sufficient for the set up . The average on ebay is about 15L .
Click to expand...

My heat bath is 2 liters, and heats up to 100c. But its just a "bath", it doesn't circulate on its own. I use a solar circulation pump to circulate the water from the heat bath to the condenser head and then back to the heat bath. The condenser head itself will only hold about 100ml of water at a time, as it is circulated constantly.

The larger setups are assuming you are going full on pro. The big units do heating and chilling and circulation. They look like a desktop tower PCs. I'd love to afford one, but those alone are like $2k.

My specific model is an ISOTEMP 202. If you google it, you'll see what it is. Very basic, but it will get the temperture of the water up to where you need to be to get oil.

Again, spend more money, get a better result!
 
zeroday said:
My heat bath is 2 liters, and heats up to 100c. But its just a "bath", it doesn't circulate on its own. I use a solar circulation pump to circulate the water from the heat bath to the condenser head and then back to the heat bath. The condenser head itself will only hold about 100ml of water at a time, as it is circulated constantly.

The larger setups are assuming you are going full on pro. The big units do heating and chilling and circulation. They look like a desktop tower PCs. I'd love to afford one, but those alone are like $2k.

My specific model is an ISOTEMP 202. If you google it, you'll see what it is. Very basic, but it will get the temperture of the water up to where you need to be to get oil.

Again, spend more money, get a better result!
Click to expand...
gotcha .. the ones I have been looking at are circulating and in the 500 dollar range on ebay.
 
No Pain said:
gotcha .. the ones I have been looking at are circulating and in the 500 dollar range on ebay.
Click to expand...

Sounds like the one you are looking at (based on the price) can circulate, but also heat much higher then what I have. I bet you can also run glycol, I can only run water. Its also important to note if it heats and chills, or just one or the other. Some of them go from ambient up to hot temps around 150c and up. Some of them go from ambient to sub freezing temps. Some circ pumps do both. This is what drives the price. At $500, I'm guessing the ones you are looking at are ambient up to 150c or somewhere up there.

Note on the higher temps on the water, it will make it much more difficult to visually tell when the fractions change. The pros use UV light to tell. When the heat gets up above 100c in the circulation fluid, the oil is much thinner, just like the heads, and it comes on much more sudden, due to the condensing liquid in the head being much warmer, ie thinner.
 
Hey man. Well done! Top job extracting the goodies.
I really love that so many people are benefiting directly and their health is in better hands than the corporates. Hopefully they read your directions on caring for trim and set you up with better stock next time.
zeroday said:
A Micron is a unit that can be used to measure pressure. The lower the value, the better. To provide scale, at sea level average atmospheric pressure is around 760,000 Microns. We are shooting to be under 150 Microns. My last run, I was at 140 Microns most of the time, but it did bump down to 130 Microns here and there.
Click to expand...
Just quietly though: a micron is a unit of length, not pressure. The OED has it at a millionth of a metre. I have micrometers that measure to 100th of a millimeter. That’s about where a micron lives.
Barometric pressure is typically measured in bar or kilopascals. When you talk about a micron I suspect what you mean is either millibar or pascal.
Also the grease. Is it food grade? You know it’s only a small amount but you can be sure that small amount is getting into your product. Food grade greases are around, just typically more expensive.
Loved the rig, the science, the result. Not nit picking. Hoping to help.
 
DonkeyDick said:
Hey man. Well done! Top job extracting the goodies.
I really love that so many people are benefiting directly and their health is in better hands than the corporates. Hopefully they read your directions on caring for trim and set you up with better stock next time.

Just quietly though: a micron is a unit of length, not pressure. The OED has it at a millionth of a metre. I have micrometers that measure to 100th of a millimeter. That’s about where a micron lives.
Barometric pressure is typically measured in bar or kilopascals. When you talk about a micron I suspect what you mean is either millibar or pascal.
Also the grease. Is it food grade? You know it’s only a small amount but you can be sure that small amount is getting into your product. Food grade greases are around, just typically more expensive.
Loved the rig, the science, the result. Not nit picking. Hoping to help.
Click to expand...

Yup, you are correct on the microns. I just skipped the explanation of how pressure is measured. Agreed, in the context of pressure, a Micron is the distance mercury moves in a column when it is displaced by pressure.

But no, I mean a micron, a thousandth of a millimeter, or a millionth of a meter, A.K.A. a micrometer:

1 pascal is equal to 0.01 millibar, or 7.5006156130264 micron of mercury.

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No, my grease is not food grade. However, a trick is to use the grease on the boiling flask joints (BF thermometer and BF to head) and then use crude oil on the joints from the head to the cow, as well as the receiving flasks to the cow glass joints. That way if something sneaks into the receiving flasks, it would be crude oil.
 
Hi @zeroday ! I really appreciate the work you did here! Man you knocked this out of the park! I think I asked you originally how you did this and then lost the link! Sorry about that! This was and is just what I was hoping to learn 2 years ago!

I'll be reading it again and understanding more as time goes by and maybe someday can join you! Thanks for putting it all together and making a parts list! It couldn't be better! :bravo:
 
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