Maintenance and Cleaning Tips for Pre-Roll Machines

As a cannabis producer, it’s crucial to always look for ways to slim down costs and maximize profits. Taking proper care of your pre-roll making machines will ensure you have a constant flow of products heading to the market, while also lowering your overhead on equipment repairs.

Regular upkeep and cleaning will help extend the lifespan and optimize the performance of your pre-roll machines. In fact, a set maintenance routine will help you avoid costly issues like jamming and inconsistent weights in your pre-rolls. An important part of this upkeep process is knowing how to troubleshoot common issues and keep your pre-roll machines clean.

As the top pre-roll supplier in the cannabis industry, we wanted to walk you through the basics of cleaning and maintaining pre-roll machines.

What are Recommended Upkeep and Cleaning Procedures for Pre-Roll Machines?

To ensure your pre-roll machine is properly maintained, we recommend integrating cleaning and upkeep practices into your operation’s workflows. Once maintenance becomes a routine duty at your operation, your pre-roll machine will always work at near 100% capacity.

Standard operating procedures (SOPs) are written workflows that outline how team members should accomplish specific jobs. Creating an SOP for pre-roll machine cleaning will ensure your employees know exactly how equipment upkeep should be done. When you hire a new employee, you should train them in pre-roll maintenance and cleaning using your SOPs.

After you have SOPs and training in place, you should develop a regular cleaning schedule for your pre-roll making machinery, as well as processing equipment like grinders, sifters, and trimmers. The goal is to normalize cleaning to the point that it is simply part of the job for your employees. Some companies opt to clean machines on certain days of the week, while others opt to clean when a certain number of joints have passed through the machine.

At Custom Cones USA, we encourage our customers to keep spare parts on hand at their production facility. As soon as one set of spare parts is removed for cleaning, you can insert a clean set and reduce downtime during production. Any time that pre-roll machines are not running should be considered lost profits.

What Cleaning Products are Recommended for Pre-Roll Machines?

When cleaning pre-roll machines, it's best to use noncorrosive materials like dish soap, warm water, and isopropyl alcohol. Other important tools for the job include wire brushes to get into crevices where resin can gunk up, as well as air-dusters or compressed air for final cleaning.

Certain parts can be soaked in soapy water, but it's always a good idea to check with the machine manufacturer before doing so. The manufacturer will likely have other helpful tips about which agents can be used on their machines or certain parts of the pre-roll machine, as well as the best techniques for getting them clean.

What are the Benefits of Regular Upkeep and Cleaning for Pre-Roll Machines?

Properly functioning pre-roll machines will ensure your production facility is operating at 100% output, while also reducing overhead costs. When pre-roll making machines get dirty, they often run slower. Resin build-up keeps flower material from moving smoothly through the machine – a situation that slows overall production, but clean and well-maintained manufacturing equipment will always be the most efficient.

If your pre-roll machine breaks down due to a lack of cleaning, it will bring joint production to a standstill, and, when you can’t get products to market, it negatively impacts your bottom line. The best way to keep pre-roll production at 100% is to ensure your equipment is properly maintained. This notion is particularly true with an automated pre-roll machines that have many moving parts.

Tips for Cleaning Pre-Roll Machines

Filling Machines

For your King Kone pre-roll filling machine to work properly, it must be able to complete a full up-and-down motion without getting stuck. If too much resin and plant material builds up between the housing and skirt, the motor might overheat from working too hard. In worst-case scenarios, this can lead to your motor getting burned out.

To clean the motor housing, you need to remove the skirt so you can access the motor compartment. Use an air canister to blast out dust, debris, and material that found its way into the motor housing.

Metering Trays

Metering trays use volumetric measuring to provide uniform product weight across the board. However, if your metering tray gets coated in resin, flower material can get stuck. When this happens, your metering tray will lose its accuracy and produce pre-rolled cones of indeterminant sizes. If your metering tray is caked up in resin, the holes may also hold varying weights now, leading to inaccurate pre-roll weights.

Your best bet for cleaning metering trays and cartridges is to remove them from the rest of the machine and spray them with isopropyl alcohol. After that, use a narrow wire brush to get into the holes and break loose resin and plant material.

Grinder Blades and Screens

Your first line of defense in keeping your grinder functional is to clean the grinder blades and particle-size screens. When your cannabis grinder is working as it should, it will produce a uniformly ground flower that is easy to pack into pre-rolled cones.

Grinder blades and screens are easy to remove for cleaning. Since they are made of stainless steel, wiping them down with isopropyl alcohol will quickly loosen resin and plant material. After that, give your grinder blades and screens a quick scrub and they are good to go!

If it has been a long time in-between cleanings, you can soak the blades and screens in isopropyl to make cleaning easier. The motor housing contains electronics and the motor, so never soak the entire grinder body in any liquid, but it can be wiped down completely. Additionally, the cap that holds in the grinder blade has Japanese ball bearings, so that piece should also never be soaked in alcohol.

Sifter Screens and Funnel

Once the flower is ground, it then needs to get sifted to remove unwanted stems. Not only do stems ruin the flavor of pre-rolls with harsh smoke, but they can also easily puncture rolling papers and damage joints – this is why we strongly suggest using a cannabis sifter.

Sifter screens and funnels are simple pieces of equipment that are very easy to clean. These stainless-steel pieces of machinery can be wiped down with isopropyl alcohol to quickly loosen resin, and the bottom tray and funnel can be easily cleaned with a brush. Just be careful not to get the motor wet when cleaning. If the sifter screens are clogged with resin and flower material, your sifting process will be less accurate and significantly slowed down.