heh heh thanks @Canofbusjoe, I’ve been producing medical grade weed for many years now! I will also be extracting all knowledge from the forums as well! I love reading and have probably read 5000 posts. Not all of them are gems, mind you lol!
Now that I have a handle on the cannabis microscopy with my new tool aka digital optics, I am going to combine the enhanced focus with the measuring system and if I can manage, auto-counting of the trichomes. That’s a more technical part I’ll have to master - the auto count and csv output of data. Then I should be able to get a good solid measure of trichome density for estimation of hash output!
I’m excited these new tools will give a much deeper insight into the hash making from the trichome’s perspective. Phew now the old camera method seems like neanderthals hitting rocks together.
Doc Brown strikes again!
hah hah well, check this out. I am testing out the counting just doing a manual one first. Using trick photography and the trichomes ability to bend light, I came up with this scheme using edf.
25 little daddies spotted on that bud leaf surface. I might be able to count the number on the entire surface of a single bud. I have an idea…involving image stitching and edf…with manual counting… hah hah! We’ll see what I can do. I want to image a failed seed, I’ve extracted several nothing seeds with pistil attached.
oh yah the trick was to turn up the light level until the trichomes were really bright and everything else was dark.
ok look at this photo…if you dare!!!
hopefully I did a good job. hmm I think it wasn’t very good and focused. You can see the entire smear though.
Did you also try messing with the shadows and highlights? 
yah sometimes the darkfield can be irritating like that and generate huge bright areas and dark spots. It has to do with not only the topography of the sample, but also how I have turned the screws on the darkfield to target the light source. Flatter samples have less contrast because of the concave nature of the darkfield. That contrast can be handy though when you are trying to spot details.
hah hah hopefully I didn’t just make all of that up. It’s knowledge based on a quadrillion observations through that thing, not something I read.
So is that after the bubble runs only or after a QWISO run too?
Just a bubble run strips all goodies, so it seems. I can’t find a single trichome on the surfaces. I am seriously going to expose it to alcohol and see what happens later.
So then if what you said earlier about an iso run still giving some returns after bubble, that must be trichomes from the interior of the bud?
lol I’m starting to wonder if it’s just dissolving the remaining resins. There must be THC molecules in there somewhere. The interior of the bud…I’m not sure it has trichomes. I can check though! I usually take the bud and cut it in half then put both halves on the slide with the outside layer facing up for imaging. The interior of the bud has a pistil and a seed tip. I will answer your question though, just gimme a bit to drink my coffee Then I’ll warm up the digital imaging lol! That’s my joke, the halogen light needs to be warmed up but not the imaging system!
get ready for some heavy truth! No trichomes present inside the bud.
check the scan yourself, it’s clean.
But what does that mean!? Where can I get myself some hollow buds? This raises more questions than it answers!
Hollow Bud Seeds is gonna be huge, someone throw a trademark on it.
So then it should stand that either the iso after the bubble wash doesn’t really have much if any thc in it, OR, thc isn’t just in the trichomes?
According to research thc is synthesized in the cap of the trichome. There’s the possibility of some thc being in other locations as well. I mean, just think about a trichome head getting smeared all over a different part of the plant during harvest. That kind of crap won’t be turned into bubble will it? I should check the backside of leaves and crap too. Stalks and shit. Perhaps they have a little trace, I know my friend would make stalk-oil, waste of time if you ask me. Also, I agree there isn’t as much thc in the QWISO when you make it from bubble waste. If I make oil from larfbuds it’s chock full of thc goodness.
What about the bulbous trichomes (those without stalks) those would still be all over the leaves and intact. They also contain THC that you can get with a solvent extraction.
I’m going to really scan hard and see if there are any traces of goodness. I’ll get a nice flat sample and go nuts, perhaps I can get a really good stitch image of some bubble waste. There are definitely lots of non-glandular ones left. I’ll be looking hard for bulbous ones.
So how many runs do you do @JoeCrowe to get it that thoroughly cleaned of trichomes?
I do 15min mix, 30min sit, 15min mix, 30min sit, done.