# tCheck 2 THC & CBD Potency Tester + Flower Testing Kit i thought these things were over $1,000USD. I just checked em out and i see they are only 400
am i about to buy one? are they tried and true? or is tthis a $400 toy ?
I just wrote a message to them stating my credentials and asked them for a free one. 
Cant blame me for trying 
If it works it will be a true hail Mary. My job always gets annoyed when random companies call to ask if iām a real person.
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Hahaha thats sick! Iāve got a friend who does a lot of salmon conservation work and he got me a pretty sick fly rood and reel on the dirt cheap!
If a company gonna sell you something, make sure they stand behind it and believe in it. No easier way than to give them to folks on the job and let that word of mouth spread
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I was thinking about buying one also, if u get it let me know how it works out.
Been eyeing them for a bit too, not been able to fit it in the budget and Iām not really in a rush too. Do want one though Iāve always been curious to see my weeds numbers. Iām no master grower but I feel like mines been consistently better than anything Iāve bought from a dealer and as good or better than anything from a dispo or online vendor
I went on a deep dive comparing this to the Purple Pro. Found out its not āeffortlessā to use the Tcheck on bud, and that it requires a substance that will get used up. Youāll also need to test moisture content of your bud separately and pretty accurately if you want to control for that in results. It took some digging, but they do have their instruction manual online, props to them for that at least.
So the Tcheck 2 gets a ānoā from me, because I would like to test fresh bud. Iāll save up for Purple Pro, which I really can just pop in and get readings on bud with.
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i donāt think iād trust it. never heard of uv spectroscopy until now. i know all about gc/ms due to losing a urinalysis years ago and that was pretty subjective and not really as much of a science as an art when reading the results. same thing i found for this, but it looks even more subjective. i had about 30 hours of research on the gc/ms and only about 15 minutes on this, but it looks really hard to use. iād be extremely wary of something giving lab quality results at that price, but have no idea what the market looks like. i do know i got screwed hard on an otdr that was about a quarter of what they normally cost.
It appears to not be nearly as accurate as that other machine.
In that link, it is 1 star rated, with 39 reviews, but I could not open and read them.
Iām going to pass, AND give them the finger, for the half assed attempt to rip folks off.
But that is just my take on it.
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I cant find a price on the Purpl pro
This is only thing I found besides ebay.
Purple Pro is about 1500-2500$ depending . It works amazing, I know a few people with them and Iāve tried it myself many times, super accurate too
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Spectroscopy is a common lab instrument and it measures concentration based on light absorbance by a substance dissolved in a liquid. It can be a really powerful tool, you can detect subtle changes in reagents that translate to large differences. The tech isnāt new, the application is.
Cannabinoids auto fluoresce under UV light so you could measure using a spectrophotometer. Im working with a friend who is an engineer to see how we can make these cheaply and make them more easily accessible for hobbyists and small growers. The issue is getting one sensitive enough at cost. My guess is the UV one isnāt great because the parts are not as high quality. For comparison, the spectrophotometer I use in my lab cost $25K and we got it cheap.
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itās not the instruments i find fault with, itās the way they compare the results and use interpretation of the graphs presented to identify material. at least thatās what got me busted on a urinalysis almost 20 years ago. i actually had the graphs and could show where the two differed, yet since i was not a lawyer nor a subject matter expert they discounted it. having said that, it is a tad cheap for a good instrument.
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If this is ever an issue for anyone let me know. I do happen to be an expert with this type of analysis and will freely help.
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I picked this up and I have to say I am impressed.
Negative reviews are right though. It is not user friendly. You will do some manual science and math as opposed to just dropping in some bud and getting a good reading. Geek stuff is fun though 
Testing raw bud requires an āexpansion kitā that is really just overpriced test tubes and DMSO. You can get the solvent yourself and save big. Or you can decarb your bud and make a small alcohol infusion, then simply test that. I went for the latter.
So here came my big mistake. I prepped out 200mg of decarbed bud and put it in 10ml of ever clear, shook it up for 10 minutes and tested my bud. Calculated the result (3.6mg/ml) to around 18%ā¦. Which is typical of zkittles. I felt like mine was better and I did not have a control though.
Fast forward a few hours, and my alcohol infusion was actually infused all the way so that when I re-tested, my result calculates out to more like 25% at 5mg/ml. I seem to have not allowed my sample to sit for long enough in the alcohol solution the first time. Repeated test 3 times for consistency.
Next I needed a control so I repeated the test with some dispensary herb, letting it infuse in the alcohol for a solid 45 minutes before testing, and I got some consistent results that were pretty close to the reported numbers on the label.
There is a margin of error and averages are very much your friend, but overall the tcheck gets a thumbs up from me. However you do have to be prepared to put in some amount of your own effort to make it do what you want. If you are cool with that then it is well worth it.
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Very clear and helpful, thanks for weighing in! Thatās exactly what I expected from my reading, except I didnāt realize it was just DMSO that was needed. Thatās nice and simple.
Iām still not keen on putting in effort, but thatās just me.
@ThePotanist if thereās anything other than money that might support your affordable instrument project, lmk!
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