Website says 1100$ when you go to buy it, but on the comparison page it says 1400$, I can't find a cheaper mk111A and a lot of the parts are out of stock.
Gotta say, ice cold n-butane produces some beautiful product.
But is kinda hard to work with...
Ice cold? Do you mean dry-ice cold?
What makes "ice cold n-butane product" harder to work with then other forms of oil? I'm assuming you are talking about shatter/sap?
I ended up just ordering from SF. After 2 months of trying I could not wait anymore. Plus glacier wasn't very responsive, But thanks.If you special order the parts from Glacier, they will hold them for you when they come in, so that they aren't immediately sold out from under you. That is how I've built my last two, since the design went viral.
Machining and welding was about $80 when I set up the first Mk IIIA's, and is pretty easy, so shop around.
It probably depends on where you get your Mk IIIA. I built mine for under $1000.
When I licensed Specialized Formulation, their kit price was under $1000's, because the Mk IIIA was intended for ma and pa.
They've added personnel, and I know they've raised prices to cover both expenses and spending long hours on the phone with owners, but I think that their more expensive kit price may include extra columns and bottoms, etc.
There are other folks out there building Mk IIIA's for sale, so you might shop about for pricing of a base system.
I'm still working on arranging a side by side shoot out between a Mk IIIA vis a vis a BHOgart and think I'm close, but we've experimented with the rainfall design using a Mk IIIA, simply by moving the injection tee from under the column, to the top of the column.
The difference in yield between a bottom flood and a rainfall are not profound, so I would look long and hard before paying double for a Mk IIIA, if indeed those two prices are apples and apples.
I'm confused. Kcar fit almost a pound into his BHOgart. If the MK2 fits a pound to 2 pounds, why aren't you testing the MK2 next to it? I thought the MK3 was for smaller runs of less than pounds?
An update.
1) The refrigerant tank started leaking again. It may be that the dry ice/acetone bath was too much for it? Maybe cracked a weld? Or it could be a fitting? I don't know--but the guys are already using a robinair refrigerant tank instead.
2) The rubber o-rings in the hoses are gross and need to be removed. Ok, we removed them. But even on pristine starting material our outcome was black. What gives? I ran some water through one of the hoses and black stuff came out the other end. Probably my fault for running solvent at -44F through it. Maybe the lining is leeching? Maybe it's just some broken up o-ring material. Either way--the guys asked for stainless steel hoses and I opened my wallet to the tune of $400.
3) Brass 3-way valve on one of the hoses snapped. Ok...not BHOgart's fault but still annoying. I'm sure BHOgart would replace it but we already moved on to stainless braided hoses.
These kinds of problems aren't isolated to the BHOgart--but it does bring up the point that no matter what you do you're going to find yourself troubleshooting your setup. I knew all this stuff was going to have to be replaced from the start--but I wasn't expecting it to cause so many delays in the short term.
At the end of the day--the guys love the machine(they've also never seen a terp) but it's already nearing $600 of upgrades in the first month. That's actually not even a drop in the bucket compared to other expenses like appion rebuild parts, vac ovens, pumps, etc.
All of this is fixable. Just add an option for a 'deluxe kit' with a standard refrigerant tank, all stainless hoses, and a bigger recovery hose(1/2") and then I wouldn't have had complaints.
The hoses I got from BHOgart are yellow jacket 1/4". Am thinking of upgrading
to 3/8ths and a bigger holding tank.
The hoses I got from BHOgart are yellow jacket 1/4". Am thinking of upgrading
to 3/8ths and a bigger holding tank.