Softrim 1000 Trimming Starter Guide

1. Confirm Material Condition

Before starting, and before ever making Softrim more aggressive, confirm the flower is properly conditioned. If the remaining unwanted leaf bends, folds, rolls, or stays soft or leathery, return it to the dry room for conditioning (see the Dry Room Starter Guide). Excessively wet material should be conditioned rather than compensated for with increasingly aggressive settings. If the leaf is already dry and brittle but the trim is below specification, then use machine adjustments: spacing, belts, Draw operation, and oscillation.

2. Startup Check

Before processing, confirm the machine doors are closed, both cartridge connectors and the machine-to-HMI connectors are connected, the E-stop is disengaged, and the green indicator light is solid.

Table 1. Green Light Indicator

3. Recommended Starting Settings

Table 2. Starting Settings

These settings are a baseline. Final settings are determined by the actual flower and the finished trim result. Recording what works for each cultivar and flower category turns tuning into a repeatable manufacturing procedure.

4. Starting Spacing by Flower Size

Table 3. Starting Spacing

Larger flower needs more room through the trimming area; smaller flower generally benefits from tighter spacing to stay engaged with the belts. Keep the size separation established during bucking whenever practical, because different flower sizes may need different settings.

5. Belt Selection

The two belts have different jobs. The Primary (FAST MOVING) focuses on flower protection and controlled engagement; the Draw (SLOW MOVING) provides trimming aggression and leaf-removal force. Whenever practical, use a softer Primary and control most of the trimming aggression through the Draw. Belt durometers: 55D (pink) soft, 65D (blue) medium, 75D (orange) stiff. The preferred starting configuration for ideally prepared indoor flower is 55D Primary / 75D Draw.

Table 4. Quick Belt Selection

Moisture rule: Slightly more moisture gives flower flexibility to flex and conform rather than break, which can allow stronger belt engagement, and more pliable leaf may also need stronger interaction to remove. Very dry flower is less flexible and carries greater breakage risk.

Poor defoliation and two-pass processing: When significant defoliation is required, run a defoliation pass at 75D Primary / 75D Draw to remove heavier exterior leaf, then a final trim at 55D or 65D Primary / 65D or 75D Draw, chosen by flower size, structure, moisture, remaining leaf, and how much trimming is still needed.

6. Draw Mode: STITCH vs. CONSTANT

STITCH (the normal starting mode, 1–5) runs the Draw belt in short, staggered movements. At 1 on STITCH, the belt moves about two inches every 2–3 seconds and stays relatively still in between, which increases trimming interaction and surface contact. Each movement also advances the belt; as the silicone fingers pass through the lower cartridge they spread apart and release captured leaf and waste. The result is a cycle of trimming interaction → belt advancement → waste release → trimming interaction.

CONSTANT keeps the Draw moving continuously, reducing prolonged stationary contact with the flower. That helps extremely dry or fragile flower avoid unnecessary breakdown, and reduces extra touches on heavily defoliated flower that needs less trimming.

Table 5. Draw Mode Starting Rule

7. Oscillation

The oscillator adds a horizontal, side-to-side scrubbing motion to the Draw belt, creating an additional plane of motion between the silicone fingers, flower, and remaining leaf. This can expose different areas of the flower, increase leaf movement and its range of motion, and improve interaction on certain flower structures. Begin at 0; if needed, start at 5 and increase in increments of 5, evaluating the flower after each change.

Table 6. When to Use Oscillation

Cultivar names are examples of flower morphology, not cultivar-specific required settings.

8. Feeding the Softrim 1000

Feed the chute in small handfuls, let the material move down naturally, and add the next handful as the previous one begins to clear. Keep a steady supply and maintain size separation where practical. Do not force, push, or tightly pack flower down the chute.

Single-piece flow: The Softrim 1000 is designed to pull approximately one row of buds at a time into the trimming area, so each piece of flower receives more consistent treatment, the same principle behind single-piece flow in any manufacturing line.

9. Sample, Check & Tune

Once starting settings are in place, process a small amount of flower and evaluate how much cleanup would still be needed in QC. Make one adjustment at a time, then run another sample and reevaluate.

Table 7. Tuning From the Sample

When to increase belt stiffness: Spacing is the first fine-tuning tool, but past a point, tightening adds breakup without enough extra leaf removal. Near 0.5, increase Draw stiffness first, run another sample, and reevaluate; only if a 75D Draw is already installed and more engagement is needed, increase Primary stiffness. The 0.5 reference is a tuning rule of thumb, not a hard mechanical minimum.

10. Production Run

Run the batch only after a sample meets specification. Keep feeding consistent and flower sizes separated, and send output to quality control. Repeated QC findings come back to Step 9 as tuning feedback (see the Quality Control Starter Guide).

11. Re-Processing Flower

Flower can be run through the Softrim 1000 as many times as necessary to reach the desired finished trim, with minimal to no damage to trichomes or overall bud characteristics when the flower is properly conditioned and the machine is properly tuned. Let the remaining leaf, the finished-product requirement, the material condition, and how the flower is responding set the number of passes, not a predetermined maximum.

12. Throughput Reference

The Softrim 1000 processes approximately 1,000 lb per 8-hour shift. A useful active-processing reference is approximately 20 seconds per pound. Treat the two separately: total shift throughput also includes loading, sorting, tuning, QC, handling, and the normal production workflow.

Next Step: Quality Control Starter Guide

Trimmed flower moves to quality control, where the Picker routes each bud to pass-through, stem work, re-run, or larf conditioning, and repeated findings feed back into Softrim tuning.

Read the Quality Control Starter Guide →