read the simple manual, twice even, and get an understanding of the chemical aspect of this type of extraction. It's amazing if you have no chemistry background and the machine is a piece of functional art if you do.
flowers at ambient temp extract best. the slower your butane is released the more waxs you'll have in your oil. no biggy for newbies, but we taste the impurities, and so will you , soon.
I freeze my empty vessel, warm my butane vessel, and extract within minutes, wait about an hour, when the temp of the mj vessel stabalizes(no more tane in the weed), freeze my empty tane vessel, warm the "oil holding tank" and recover all of the liquid butane in two hours, for next time. as instructed i got the siphon for the large 99.5%(you cant afford 99.9%) butane canister, like a bbq propane tank, so when the valve is cracked no gas comes out, it sucks liquid from the bottom of the tank, so we only deal with the liquid, not gas.
I use 10-20 ml , splash, of 99%rubbing alcohol from meijers to put in the holding tank prior to extraction. no scraping, yuck. my oil pours right out when done, heated, evap,decarboxylated, and charcoal stirred/filtered all in one shot. any other alcohol has icky sugars in it that dont evap when heated, like everclear, which is great for a thc spray, or tincture, but not for smoking.
have a blast man, be very very respectful of this machine. with 400grams of liquid butane, not to mention any butane stock, if you had a leaky o-ring, and a flame, you will die, and that end of your house will fall. no flames, no leaks, make sure.... comes with dozens of o rings, good for about 10 extractions each. then to home depot in the big blue drawers ! I could extract in my sleep now,( Not really, for the pic mongers) but it is second nature after a month or two. works good with herbs and lemon balm, and uh....other yard flowers too, ahem.