$275 DIY Rosin Plates, PID Controller, and Press

first press just done right now. took about 15 min to heat up. i only prepared one small 4.8g patty of nug to press. not real sure what to use to get it off the paper. i see you scraping it off in the video with something and it looks like it comes off real easy. is this at room temp or cooled off in the freezer?

another q is do i squeeze the living hell out of it or do i just go to a certain point? i put some force into the squeeze and timed it for 45 seconds.

i think the plates were too hot. the finished product is runny and wont collect. i couldnt find my IR thermometer. my guess is they are way hotter than what the PID said. i'll get this thing dialed in soon! may have to get a nice thermometer like yours.

15 minutes seems like a long time to heat those plates. You might want to see if any parts making physical connection are sinking heat away from the plates which would increase heat up time. Possibly use some phenolic or some other material with low thermal conductivity for mating the plates with the press, maybe some ceramic washers/spacers.

In my limited pressing experience, cooler+longer brings a better product.

Your material on your parchment looks good n tasty. Try to place it on a cold surface and then it should chip off like shatter. Some oils I've pressed will get gooey in moderately warm and humid ambient temps, just laying the parchment at the bottom protrusion of the freezer when open works for me to get the gooey stuff.

My best stuff was coming out at < 200F, and I would cold press it until I found pressure, apply heat and slowly press allowing oil to be extracted and only when the bubbles or oil slow down would I add more pressure, kind of a touchy feely process but it would bring the best results vs just slamming it shut at various temps.

CannaBruh said:

15 minutes seems like a long time to heat those plates. You might want to see if any parts making physical connection are sinking heat away from the plates which would increase heat up time. Possibly use some phenolic or some other material with low thermal conductivity for mating the plates with the press, maybe some ceramic washers/spacers.

In my limited pressing experience, cooler+longer brings a better product.

Your material on your parchment looks good n tasty. Try to place it on a cold surface and then it should chip off like shatter. Some oils I've pressed will get gooey in moderately warm and humid ambient temps, just laying the parchment at the bottom protrusion of the freezer when open works for me to get the gooey stuff.

My best stuff was coming out at < 200F, and I would cold press it until I found pressure, apply heat and slowly press allowing oil to be extracted and only when the bubbles or oil slow down would I add more pressure, kind of a touchy feely process but it would bring the best results vs just slamming it shut at various temps.

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The heaters are only 100w whereas most commercial plates are using 500w for this same size of plate. I don't really care it was more just a note to anyone building one of these. If you are gonna do 5x6 plates upgrade the heating elements

I will try as you said above. I've got a nice thermometer and proves coming on the first

Did a couple presses tonight since my 37 micron bags came in. Yield is around 30% so far with with kief. Still tinkering with temps and times to try and coax more out but so far so good. My shit was running super hot. Way hotter than it said. I got a nice rated thermometer with a probe and I have to in one of the flange holes with a piece of foam holding it in place. Now I have my PID set to 70c and I'm sitting right at 180f on the dot according to my probe. Gonna make a big mold to press trim and see what happens. If the yield is shit I'm just gonna blast it for edibles

i have been spending more time working on my air cooled COB setup instead of working the press but here is some kief pressed at ~180 degrees for about 60 seconds

I just ordered 100 bags. Time to get to squishing again.

SHe Squirts!

does anyone know what rh% nug/trim should be when pressing? got some nice trim i wanna press but its a little moist yet. i can air it out overnight and it would be at your standard bud % around 55-62%

gonna build a bigger mold for pressing bud/flower after work tomorrow

On one of the most recent of one of the stream nerd shows (cannot recall but I think it was Subby?) they had on Mystic Grower pressing with her Harbor Freight 20ton. At some point, @Airwalker16 came in and was like "put your buds in water and press" and she did, and seemed to be somewhat impressed with the results.

I have not done this, but it is worth investigating, and would lend to inform that you might get away with pressing moist trim (don't hold me to that)

Being the ever-experimenter, I'd isolate a small amount and give it a shot.

I prefer dry buds, just as you would prefer to smoke them...nice and cured.

But, I have heard of some guys "rehydrating" somewhat. And shoot fo 70%+ RH. Boveda makes 72% packs now and many guys are using them. My guess is it helps by creating more of a steam extraction vs more just pressure based.

Wet buds make runny extractions, properly cured and dried buds work the best.

Yodaweed said:

Wet buds make runny extractions, properly cured and dried buds work the best.

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So you have cured at 70%+/- and compared it to 50% and can show us?

Greengenes707 said:

So you have cured at 70%+/- and compared it to 50% and can show us?

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Ive done fresh buds, cured buds, and buds i left to totally dry out, i prefer cured , dried makes the dabs too shattery in my expereince and can be difficult to collect, wet makes the dabs too runny from my experience, i don't have pictures on hand but i have hundreds of pictures on my instagram of dabs being made. @colorado4weed2love0 here's a 2.2 gram slab i made last night with cured buds @ 62% humidity

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSuF0wdD94V/?taken-by=colorado4weed2love0
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSuF_ljDhBn/?taken-by=colorado4weed2love0

Here's a video of me collecting the slab

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSpyu_xDjX2/?taken-by=colorado4weed2love0

Yodaweed said:

Ive done fresh buds, cured buds, and buds i left to totally dry out, i prefer cured , dried makes the dabs too shattery in my expereince and can be difficult to collect, wet makes the dabs too runny from my experience, i don't have pictures on hand but i have hundreds of pictures on my instagram of dabs being made. @colorado4weed2love0 here's a 2.2 gram slab i made last night with cured buds @ 62% humidity

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSuF0wdD94V/?taken-by=colorado4weed2love0
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSuF_ljDhBn/?taken-by=colorado4weed2love0

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So that is a NO, you just press what you normally cure your flowers to. You haven't pressed 50% vs 60% vs 70% and compared. Let alone in a controlled manner.
So thank you for your contribution of opinions. Just know that it's ok to just say what you do, and have to not bash or even bring up, something you have not done.

The reason for this is thread is not to give into BS and myth.. to go your own path and DIY whatever your methods and styles require. So please do not attempt to imply any superior method against methods you have not put anytime into.

Greengenes707 said:

So that is a NO, you just press what you normally cure your flowers to. You haven't pressed 50% vs 60% vs 70% and compared. Let alone in a controlled manner.
So thank you for your contribution of opinions. Just know that it's ok to just say what you do, and have to not bash or even bring up, something you have not done.

The reason for this is thread is not to give into BS and myth.. to go your own path and DIY whatever your methods and styles require. So please do not attempt to imply any superior method against methods you have not put anytime into.

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Ok whatever you say boss, i was just trying to help by providing my previous experiences, do whatever you want not here to argue with you just here to share some knowledge.

Yodaweed said:

Ok whatever you say boss, i was just trying to help by providing my previous experiences, do whatever you want not here to argue with you just here to share some knowledge.

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That is all that was/is asked. So let's keep it to sharing experiences. Not making blanket statements based on, no to limited experience on certain matters.
You do it very often, just recently in thread I showed silicone that companies are using...showed with no assertions of anything. But you had to chime in to imply I said something other simply linking a product. So check yourself before you go crying victim. Just keep the facts as facts, and the opinions as opinions.


Lets think out loud about it...
-Wet fresh bud=full of gooey chloroplast and fresh chlorophyll. Don't hink anyone was talking about wet buds.

-Cured bud, cured to a state of 55-60%. Dried chloroplast and degraded chlorophyll. That are then rehydrated up to a still cured state at 72%.

That is what some of the full time producers of rosin are doing...major extraction companies.I have not done any test of it, so I can only report on that is what some people/companies are doing, not what the results are.


Temp has been the major stability factor for me.

Greengenes707 said:

That is all that was/is asked. So let's keep it to sharing experiences. Not making blanket statements based on, no to limited experience on certain matters.
You do it very often, just recently in thread I showed silicone that companies are using...showed with no assertions of anything. But you had to chime in to imply I said something other simply linking a product. So check yourself before you go crying victim. Just keep the facts as facts, and the opinions as opinions.


Lets think out loud about it...
-Wet fresh bud=full of gooey chloroplast and fresh chlorophyll. Don't hink anyone was talking about wet buds.

-Cured bud, cured to a state of 55-60%. Dried chloroplast and degraded chlorophyll. That are then rehydrated up to a still cured state at 72%.

That is what some of the full time producers of rosin are doing...major extraction companies.I have not done any test of it, so I can only report on that is what some people/companies are doing, not what the results are.


Temp has been the major stability factor for me.

Click to expand...

Temp and pressure been the best two factors that i can control as well, i use a high5vape 1 ton arbor press with duel plates and a PID controller, usually pressing between 180-230F . I have personally done wet buds fresh off the plant, partially wet buds, bone dried buds , cured buds, and a lot of different strains, i'm going to try your method if i can find some 72% humidity packs, but i know a lot of the companies out here in colorado press using an electronic ram type press and don't re hydrate, my friend runs a rosin company and has a hard press electronic press, he doesn't re hydrate.

https://hardpressco.com/product/hard-press/

This is the press he uses it works really well compared to my manual press , wish i could afford it .

From my experience the way to get the best product is to use really high quality buds, organically grown and press at the proper temps with a lot of pressure.

@Greengenes707 or anyone else. Do you think this 6 ton mini press will suffice?

http://www.harborfreight.com/6-ton-a-frame-bench-shop-press-1666.html

I see that this has been discussed somewhat, but nobody seems to have a solid answer, that I can see, other than that it supposed to take 2000 psi, but others say 4-500 psi should be fine. I just like to get it right the first time, and not have to buy a second press. I'm guessing it probably depends on the size of plates, and the size of the pucks you are trying to press. But for the purpose of the pressing done in this video.

I have taken the measurements it looks like space will be tight, but the plates will fit with just enough room to work between. but the question is, is it sturdy enough or should I spend the extra cash for the 12 ton. Money is obviously an issue, but I'd rather spend twice is much to get something that works if the little ones won't. Easter sunday (today) they have a 25 percent off coupon, so if anybody has any insight at all on the subject, please don't hold back. Gotta make some sort of decision today if I want the extra savings, which I clearly do, haha
Thanks, and nice video!

12 ton:
http://www.harborfreight.com/12-ton-h-frame-industrial-heavy-duty-floor-shop-press-60604.html

Edit: sp. Typed this whole thing on tab, so apologize if there's any more major spelling errors or wrong words for that matter

I can say, when I press dry cured bud, I get nearly nothing. when I dunk it before pressing I get substantial yields. I just live in around 20% RH all year so it's a must .