Does the M108S beat up the flowers?
We get this question frequently, and it’s a valid concern. Cultivators don’t want to waste all their time, effort, and money to grow the perfect crop, only to have it chopped to bits by a trimming machine. Legacy trimmers have the reputation of doing exactly that. Thankfully, the Mobius Trimmer M108S is different.
The short answer is NO, the Mobius Trimmer M108S DOES NOT damage the flowers.
Let’s take a closer look at why.
Less time in the tumbler.
When you pop the hood of the M108S and take a look at the blade system, you’ll see that there are three blade cartridges. They are set side-by-side-by-side. That means that with each pass a flower takes around the tumbler, there are three different potential cut-points. You can compare this with a legacy trimming machine design which has only a single cut point (single blade down the center.) This 3-blade system, which we call the TriFlex Blade System, is part of how we achieve such fast feed rates. Flowers spend much less time in the tumbler. Less time in the tumbler means a reduced chance of causing damage to the flower.
Less surface area for flowers to stick to.
If you look at the AirThread Tension Tumbler, what do you see? Mostly, air. If you compare the AirThread Tension Tumbler to a conventional, sheet-metal tumbler, you’ll notice that there is far less surface area. That means that there is a reduced impact on the flowers as they move through the tumbler because the flowers have less contact with any type of solid surface. There is less surface area to the tumbler for resin to stick to.
Blade cartridges shear, rather than tear.
With conventional wet trimmers, the bedknife component of the blade system is rigid. That means it requires adjustment, trial, and error, to get the bedknife to make proper contact with the cutting reel (the other cutting edge). What you get is more of a tearing action, rather than the clean cut you see when shears or scissors are used. This is even more common in batch-style dry trimmers. The blades actually do very little, and the dried leaves are typically just broken off as the flowers are tumbled around. The Mobius Trimmer M108S has tackled this problem by using a flexible bedknife. The weight of the machine lid presses the flexible bedknife against the helical blade, and the bedknife “walks” along the helical blade as it rotates. This is identical to the way scissors work, and creates a shearing action rather than tearing the leaves. (To learn more about this technology, please read our TriFlex Shearing Action report). The flowers have a cleaner cut, and the trim itself looks like it’s been cut with scissors.
Adjustable everything.
If you’re still concerned about damage to your product, there are adjustments that can be made on the control panel that will reduce impact further. You can turn down the suction. That will reduce the pull on the flowers as they move through the tumbler. You can increase the machine tilt. The greater the tilt angle, the faster flowers will move through the tumbler. The trade-off is that the greater the tilt angle, the more QA touch-up and attention you’ll need on the outfeed conveyor.
Many cultivators have delayed making the jump to trimming machines for as long as possible. Unfortunately, when you get to a certain scale, hand trimming is no longer possible (especially not if you’d like to offer competitive pricing to your customers.) We understand the concerns, and that’s why we’ve designed the M108S to be as gentle as possible on your valuable product, while still offering the industry’s fastest feed rate.
