Butane extractor/recycler

Way too busy days so I can't do this all in one shot, but over a period of a week to a month till finish.

Started with a top plate. I call it the lid for lack of a better term, and because it is the topmost piece.

Steel,
4 perimeter holes to bolt it down to the body of the upper tube.
Guage is a standard pressure guage which goes to 160psi. I have never ran over 90psi so it is really overkill.
the silver fitting is a gas/refrigerant fitting from Harbor Freight/Princess Auto.

total price breakdown for this pc is ... 5.00 for guage
7.00 for 1/2" thick round plate
1.50 for gas fitting

13.50 into this so far....plus my time and machining

Can't wait to see this go together. Id like a reclaiming system myself.

flange on the uppermost portion of the material (upper) tube. Welded top and bottom.

flange cost came to 8.00

lower chamber (evaporation chamber). O-rings top and bottom

this was pricey...45.00 for material and 13.00 for the O-rings
total was 58.00

these pcs will be the upper and lower ends of the evaporation chamber.

2 pcs cost 32.00 for the pair
fitting was 1.50

total was 33.50

$113.00 into it so far just for materials. ......making your own BHO=priceless

Damn these recycling units are very inspirational!

More progress....screen set-up to prevent plant material from falling into the evaporation chamber below. A coffee filter gasket may be added as well.

opposite side of the screen part...aka the lid of the evaporation chamber

whole unit so far. Upper tube is larger than should be for the size of the lower evaporation chamber. I will be making a larger evaporation chamber to match.

The upper tube though will have an inner sleeve of smaller diameter for when I am running with this evaporation chamber. If that makes sense...king of tough to describe.

Only real thing is to add the bolts and machine an o-ring groove in the very top lid.
That I will have to have done by a buddy with a larger lathe.
Hopefully in a week or so I will run this. -BB

total cost in materials is roughly 125.00....should be able to get the parts machined and welded with some haggling for 150.00 or less. Which would make this under 300 bucks for this pc.

to run this you still need a refrigerant recovery system 250.00 ebay
refrigerant lines 40.00
refrigerant tank 75.00
butane.....I don't worry about the cost of this because you would burn through this stuff making bho the usual way anyhow.

Do you think it would be possible to build a smaller reclaiming unit that doesnt use the AC recovery pump? Reason I ask is I saw this video for the Tamisium extractor, and the dood reclames/moves the tane by just using hot and cold baths. I'm guessing the difference would be collection and purging process would take longer?

As far as posting plans for this, i wish you would get 'permission', I'd love to see them. I found Foafs plans on icamag, that helped me to grasp the concept, I was pretty confused up til then. His system uses a 'steeping' bucket, which I'm guessing people have long since stopped 'steeping' weed and butane, giving birth to this column design… thats my guess.

But yeah awesome shit, nice work, you're seems to be the cleanest unit so far, thanks for walking us thru yer build. Def gonna build one of these things for myself before too long.

FOAF's plans were the ones I modeled my first unit after but I found that by the time you filled the steep vessel with butane and then pushed it through to the evaporator part...too much time had passed. By then the oil was pretty dark (although quite potent).

Probably the easiest was to do it would be like Graywolf did and make the paint pressure pot your evaporator chamber and build a tube on top to hold the material. The only thing that I am not keen on is that doing it that way limits you to the size of the passage between the two chambers. I want the butane running as freely as possible between the chambers with no major time to pick up impurities.

I would love to see the link on youtube about the hot and cold baths. I could maybe see it work on a small scale but not the size we are looking at here.

This is my guess......
Once the oil/resin is in the evaporator chamber it is warmed which causes the pressure to rise (lets just say to 80psi). Then a valve is opened that allows the vaporized butane into the cold vessel (because it is relatively free of any pressure). The gas then condenses as butane and falls into the bottom of the cold container as a liquid. Process would have to be done over and over. But quite possibly it could be an ongoing process of flow from high to low pressure.




Maybe if you kept one container within a freezer and drilled a hole to allow the lines to go through....you could keep the evaporation vessel in a warm bath and connect it to the collection vessel in the freezer. This means as the pressure rose in the evaporator vessel it would force butane gas into the freezer container, where it would condense and fall to the bottom as liquid. The process could keep going until all the warm butane traveled into the freezer container because of the continuing pressure differential.

Interesting concept when you think of it. I will try an experiment. (not today though....next week)
I will hook up a can of butane (left in a warm bath) and run a line into a vessel in the freezer. That way we can at least verify if it could possibly work.

The single biggest drawback to this though (besides maybe not working) is that now you have to do this in your house because of the freezer. Winter in cold climates, you could just run a line out your window if it worked.

I do have though the thought of running butane in a closed area. But the quest for science moves on!!!
Any thoughts on this please feel to shout out...will it work or not???

Here is what I will use....called a can tapper

This device punctures the butane can and forms a seal with a rubber gasket. Then a pressure line with an inline valve, is connected . The other end will probably be just a modified small pressure vessel, in the freezer. I will let you know how it works for sure.

budboy299 said:

would love to see the link on youtube about the hot and cold baths

Click to expand...

NP, its a 3 video series:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvdedWvpUiU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTn5rJ_gBWk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajDkBlw_jYs

As u can see from those vids you basically chill and warm the evaperation chamber and the butane tank to move butane. Instead of creating a vacuum with the AC pump, you would chill the tank. To push air out of the evaporation chamber you would heat it up. Those vids show how a mini reclaim system might work without an expensive AC pump.

Personally, I sell buds and smoke oil. I'm into this for personal use, so reclaiming a small amount would be great, 3oz runs would be perfect. Mini reclaimer… thats what im after :banana1sv6:

Ok Rusty that is totally cool! No need to run the experiment after seeing that.


BUT...I did some homework and came up with the first part.
The tank to hold the butane.

1 lb empty propane tank
Mr. Heater F273754 1″-20 Connects to 1lb tank
1/4" ball valve connects to Mr Heater pc
1/4" gas fitting connects to other end of ball valve

other than the actual tank which most ppl will have a half used one kicking around....total cost "should" be around 15 to 20 bucks.

Propane tanks are higher working pressure rated so butane would be no problem.

More thinkin' to come!

Nice Work

Well done, very mcguyverish of you



mal

How do u determine material tube volume vs. evaporater tube volume? And then how much butane would be required for that much material?

Love what ur doin homie!

Deacon...my old system had a sight tube on it that I could see the liquid level.
This system I think you would have to run on weight or something. The video that is in rusty's link shows them doing that. before and after weighing to determine what amount of liquid has passed through.

Sadly in my area I cannot find the Mr Heater part....ordered a few online though to make a couple of these up.

Hopefully by the end of the week I can at least have the storage tank up and filled by way of temperature transfer. -BB