Graywolf said:

http://www.gd-thomas.com/workareashowcontent.aspx?id=10970

Nice compressor/Vac pump. Looks like you are limited to -25" Hg on the vacuum side.

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Hiceratops said:

Just made this beautiful stuff out of an 8th of a pretty potent indica strain.

Got that oil after first vac.

Got it to wax after more vac and heat.

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woodsmaneh said:

Well you guys got me all excited so I went looking for a vacuum pump and look what I found for next to nothing. I don't think they knew what it was as I got it cheap, $100.00. Turns out it's a $1800.00 1 hp pump 6.2 CFM which is kind of big but sure I can use it with your help. Sound like the size greywolf used. I just don't want to collapse my container, lol, looks like it will suck a golfball through a garden hose. Once I find a container I'll get started building, thanks for all the great info.

View attachment 315159View attachment 315160

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MulberrysMeds said:

suggestions from someone with only a Foodsaver vacuum?[/quot

Don't Evan bother with it. I tested the vacuum on a foodsaver and I believe the best it could do was -23 hg

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yo Ace said:

This is the pump kit I got. It works great for extractions I opted for the smaller chamber because it works best for my setup.
Brand: Best Value Vacs (www.bestvaluevacs.com)

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Hiceratops said:

First off, let me sayks to Glab120. Without your help there's no way I'd be sucking nearly as hard. In all seriousness, this guide has been an awesome jumping off point and encouraged me to spend the money and time to take on such an ambitious project. I had a fair bit of frustration, but mostly an enjoyable weekend project for my roommate and I. Thanks again for your initiative in posting this guide and for your continued prompt and relevant responses. Just wanted to post my results with the pump and vac chamber. Ran our first batch of trim tonight, lets just say looking forward to doing the process with some real green.

Here she is in all her glory
View attachment 305206
Just doin' what she do.
View attachment 305208
Thanks again to Glab120 and everyone that posted with questions, solutions, comments and laughs.

-Dankasaurus and Hiceratops

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Graywolf said:

DIY Vacuum Purging Chamber​

To perform some of the desirable alchemy with cannabis essential oils, requires some sort of vacuum chamber that you can control the heat and vacuum levels in, as well as see what you are doing.

These are readily available as vacuum desiccators and vacuum ovens, but all are pricey, so how about just building your own?
We already have a glass desiccator with a hot plate inside, and picked up a new used vacuum oven, but alas the temperature controls are ineffective in the low ranges that we operate, so we are in the process of refining its controls.

More on that subject on a separate thread, but this thread is to show how we punted when the vacuum oven capacity that we had counted on, eluded us, with meds to process backlogged.

To that end, we used a old 22 quart Mirror pressure cooker that was gifted to us, and after removing the gasket, we tossed the lid.

I then drilled a 1/4" pilot hole through the side wall wrapper, about 2.5" below the top flange, followed by a 3/4" bit, to enlarge the hole to fit a 1/4" NPT brass bulkhead fitting.

I then inserted the bulkhead fitting through the side wall from the inside out, installing a gasket on the inside flange, and tightening the nut and lock washer on the outside of the pot.

To this I added a close nipple, a cross, with two 1/4" ball valves, and two 1/4" MPT to 1/4" flare refrigeration hose fitting. One for the vacuum pump and the other for the vacuum gauge hose.

As it is temporary, and we needed it immediately, we reused the existing gasket, and made a new lid out of a 1" X 16" acrylic plate. At -29.9" Hg gauge, there is about 1/16" lid deflection in the middle, so a thicker plate would be better to reduce high cyclic fatigue.
If it were permanent, we would have a new Viton gasket cut by Paramount, or Gaskets Unlimited and use 1 1/2" polycarbonate, for the lid.

Hee, hee, hee, after telling me that they didn't have any, and after having them cut the 1" acrylic plate, I found a 22" X 29" X 1 1/2" Polycarbonate remnant at Multi Craft Plastics, which I scored for $72. It has one 6" hole in one corner, but that is $2/lb for bullet proof polycarbonate panels, like those used at teller windows. Snicker, snark, snort, more projects to come!
Here are pictures showing how we made and how it turned out. We are able to easily control the temperature with an outside hotplate and reduce the pressure to -29.9 with one of our 6.2 cfm single stage AC vacuum pumps:

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