Industrial sourcing · China to Europe

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Buyer guide · Cannabis & hemp

Cannabis sorting machine from China

The name covers two machines, a size grader that splits buds by diameter and a camera sorter that rejects mould, stems and discoloured pieces, and quotes for one are often compared with quotes for the other.

Ask about this machine ↗Where the numbers come from

Written and listings checked 30 September 2026. Every figure on this page names its source.

What you are actually comparing.

Two quotes, one machine name

What hides inside the price

Sorting principle

Size graders use vibrating decks, a drum or a conveyor with widening gaps. Camera sorters look at each piece and blow rejects out with air. A grader sets your price per size class; a camera sorter protects your quality claim.

Handling damage

Every tumble and drop costs trichomes. Ask for internal drop heights and whether contact surfaces are silicone or bare steel. Compare sorted and unsorted flower under a loupe.

What the camera is trained on

Colour sorters are built for grain, tea and nuts. Ask whether the reject rules were set on dried flower, and whether you can adjust them yourself.

Air supply and ejector count

A camera sorter needs clean, dry compressed air all day; oil in the air lands on your flower. The compressor, dryer and filters are often outside the quote.

Cleaning and resin

Resin builds on decks, rollers and camera glass. Ask how often the glass needs wiping to keep reject accuracy.

Before you ask for a price.

Send these with the enquiry. Without them, any number a factory gives you is a guess dressed as a quotation.

Which sort you need: size classes, defect rejection, or both.
Your size classes in millimetres, and so the number of outlets.
Hourly volume of dried flower, and its moisture at sorting.
The defects to remove: stems, leaf, seeds, mould or foreign matter.
Your compressed air supply and quality class, or a request to quote it.

Turn the claim into a demonstration.

Require this	A pass looks like
Sort a weighed batch of your dried flower, or a hemp stand-in, and weigh every outlet.	Outlet weights add back to the input within the contract loss, and each size class sits inside its diameter range on a counted sample.
For a camera sorter, add counted stems and marked defects to a clean batch.	The added defects are rejected at the contract rate, and good flower in the reject stream stays under the agreed share.
Run for an hour, then inspect the contact surfaces and camera glass.	Resin has not changed the sort result, and cleaning takes no longer than quoted.

The documents that must arrive with it.

EU Declaration of Conformity naming 2006/42/EC, or Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 from 20 January 2027, with 2014/35/EU and 2014/30/EU.
Declaration of compliance with Regulation (EC) 1935/2004 for contact parts, if any output goes into food.
The software version and a backup of the accepted reject settings.

The one people forget. The accepted reject settings. After a software update, they restore the sort you paid for.

When this is the wrong machine.

Buy something else if

Named, not hedged

Your problem is leaf and stems still attached to the bud.

A trimming or bucking machine first. A sorter separates loose pieces; it does not remove leaf.

You process only a few kilograms a day.

Hand sorting on a lit table with grading screens. A camera sorter needs volume to pay for its air supply.

Where the numbers come from.

We name the kind of source, how many and when, and never the factory. Listed prices are asking prices, not landed cost. Where we do not hold a fact we say so: that is a GAP, not an estimate.

Listings · 3Three listings for size-grading bud sorters, checked September 2026, stated about 90 to 180 kg an hour (200 to 400 lb) and gaps from about 3 mm to 25 mm. The one priced listing asked US$5,000.
Listings · 4Four camera sorter models marketed for dried flower, checked September 2026, stated from 40 to 60 kg an hour at 0.75 kW up to 800 to 1,200 kg an hour at 2.3 kW.
Listings · 1One colour sorter listing for dried flowers and tea, checked September 2026, asked US$11,000 to US$14,000 and needed compressed air at 0.4 to 0.6 MPa. An asking price, not landed cost.
GAPGAP - no supplier quotations logged for this machine yet. Three to five quotations for one configuration would give a real price spread.

Related machines.

Cannabis trimming machine. Choose it if leaf still clings to the buds, because sorting comes after trimming.
Hemp bucking machine. Choose it if flowers are still on the stalk and need stripping first.

Every machine we source in this area is on the Cannabis & hemp page. How a project runs, stage by stage, is on how it works, and what it costs is on pricing.

Straight answers

Questions buyers ask about this machine.

Chinese vs European cannabis sorting machine: what changes?+

Camera sorters from China use the same sensor and ejector principles as European ones. The difference is software support: ask who adjusts the reject rules after delivery, and in which language.

What goes on a cannabis sorting machine inspection checklist?+

Outlet weights against input, size checks, defect reject rate, air quality at the ejectors, guarding, and manual language.

What CE documentation and EU compliance does it need?+

A Declaration of Conformity and technical file under the machinery rules, whatever it sorts. EU industrial hemp must come from Common Catalogue varieties, and Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 sets a 0.3 percent THC limit for cultivation. Whether you may run this machine, and on what material, depends on the licence your business holds where the machine will be used.

Who is the EU importer?+

Usually you. Your name and address go on the machine or its documents.

Contact

Tell us what you need.

Send a machine, a quotation you want checked, or a question. We reply with what we would look at first.