3 Ways to Optimize Your Cannabis or Hemp Trimming Workflow
With any new technology, there can be a bit of a learning curve, and commercial-scale trimming is no different. Sure, you’re an old hand at using a Twister or a Centurion, but those old-tech machines just don’t function the same way as the next-generation Mobius M108S Trimmers. Mobius offers comprehensive, on-site training to get your trim team familiarized with their new Mobius gear, and we teach you how to run it like a Hot Rod!
We get asked, “What’s the best way for me to get the most out of my Mobius Trimmers?”, and the answer is simple; be coachable! With hundreds of hours under our belts in many dozens of trim-rooms globally, we have insight to share! From setting up your work-flow and deploying your staff to their greatest effect, to feeding the trimmer and dialing in the settings, our primary goal is to get your company as productive as possible, as quickly as possible.
STEP ONE: Material Preparation
Just like the guy in the old oil filter commercials from the 80’s said, “you’re gonna pay me now or you’re gonna pay me later”. So how does that apply to material preparation and your bottom line?
The Mobius M108S can trim just about anything you can throw at it, and deliver beautifully consistent, tight trim, but the better de-leafed your product is, the more value you will get out of your trim-session. People ask us all the time why the seemingly wide range in our stated through-put volumes, and this is the perfect time to explain it.
Our stated through-put volumes are data reported back from end-users, and their habits range greatly, therefore, so do their reported through-put rates. While other factors such as the density of the cultivar and the moisture content are also contributors, up-stream preparation, i.e. de-leafing and bucking, translates to down-stream results in a couple ways.
First, the more up-stream prep, the more mass your pre-trim will have because you’ve removed all the relatively light and spacious fan leaf. Better up-stream preparation will result in higher through-put volumes by weight.
POORLY PREPARED PRODUCT
OPTIMALLY PREPARED PRODUCT
Second, and this gets overlooked a lot out there, is the fact that the trim has value, too. So if you’re sending all your fan leaf and related stem through the trimmer, you’re going to degrade the quality of your recovered trim. The potency and therefore value of fan leaf-laden trim will be greatly diminished compared to trim comprised mainly of sugar leaf.
On the topic of material prep, the Mobius M108S will probably surprise you when you see the volume it processes for the first time. It’s pretty tough to buck in parallel to trimming unless you have multiple buckers bucking some serious volume. The most important person in the trim room is the person feeding the trimmer, and that person should have support from their trim team in ensuring a constant supply to be trimmed. Interruptions in supply to the trimmer may result in inconsistency and lower volume through-puts. Have at least one hour’s worth of material bucked and ready to trim before you start your trim session.
STEP TWO: Priming the Tumbler
Unlike other trimmers, the Mobius M108S runs best when the tumbler is packed with lots of material. When wet trimming, we recommend filling the tumbler to about 2/3 of its total capacity, and when dry trimming, we recommend filling the tumbler to about 3/4 of its total capacity. When firing the M108S up at the beginning of a trim session, we “prime the tumbler”, which means we crank up the input rate to get the tumbler to the appropriate fill level as quickly as possible. Once the tumbler is at capacity, we relax just a bit and settle into the feed-rate that will maintain the tumbler fill at that level and we endeavor to keep it there throughout the trim session. This approach delivers consistent trim results all day long!
PRIMING THE TUMBLER
STEP THREE: Dialing In
Once you have some Mobius hours under your belt, you’ll learn to get here pretty quickly, but for your first trim-session this may take several minutes, as each adjustment in your settings takes half a minute or so for the results to be seen on the outfeed end. With all variables available to you in real-time, a few tweaks of the infeed speed and tilt angle, and perhaps the vac if you’re processing less-dense material, and you’ll have your feed rate figured out. Maintain this rate and you’ll see consistent results all day long!
Of course there are a number of nuances that just have to be experienced, and each operator comes up with their own secret sauce on how to Hot Rod the M108S and squeeze the most performance out of it, but if you’re coachable on these three main topics, and ask any questions you have as they come up, you’re well on your way to big gains with the Mobius M108S.
