I was recently playing with the idea of making a fume extractor and while researching table top units I stumbled upon commercial grade units with tubes and a vacuum/filter unit which seems nice when you have limited work surface area.
They don't seem terribly hard to make and don't seem like they're worth $750+ USD http://www.practicaltool.com/catalog/images/wfe2eskit1.jpg
Here's a source for the tubing: http://www.mcmaster.com/#duct-hose (any of the bend-and-stay tubing)
The problem is how to adapt a fan to a hose... Unless you get a special plastic part manufactured by a mould maker or something which should not be too expensive here, but I need to check.. and would it work ? The hardest part of it is finding a suitable box for the fan and a hose adaptor, you also need to make a power supply to be able to plug it to 220V.
I also doubt that the cheap Chinese version will not be very efficient.
Huh? You can get a hose onto a fan. Simple. No mould no nonsense
Power supply? Do you need that? Get a 220V fan!
On another note i have seen ducts meant for PCs, that's interesting now.
Ok for the 220 V fan. But I do not quite see how you adapt a duct to a fan... The fan is 14 X14 xm or something like that and the duct has may be a diameter of 5 cm. Unless you don't want a sealed connection and lose most of the air flow of the fan.
Seems to me there is mixed talk of smoke absorption Vs smoke extraction, Vs smoke dispersion here.
I defy anyone of reasonable means to show how effective a smoke absorption filter really is, let alone when it is "full" and needs replacing. So I think we can knock that one on the head as an aim.
Smoke extraction is the most ideal, of course, whereby the fumes are moved outside of the work room, and so no longer an issue (to the worker, at least!). But this can involve a degree of bulky ducting, and ideally a permanent installation.
Smoke dispersion is what any fan blowing across the operators' desk is most easily going to achieve - same as a $40 made up "filter" would do, I proffer. Merely moving the smoke away from the operator and then relying on some degree of ventilation in the room will significantly reduce (through dilution) the concentration of any fumes that might otherwise by breathed in directly from a soldering iron, operating maybe 300mm from the operator's face.
Yes, a fancy box will look nice on the desk. But I cannot see it outperforming a PC fan and the crudest of air guides, if even necessary.
To cut the desk space needed, I made a built-in fume extractor using Loc-line segmented tubing, a little PVC, and a $10 bathroom exhaust fan.
The fan is mounted behind the countertop, and exhausts the fumes 6 feet away, blowing it behind another rack of equipment. It's reasonably quiet, running at about 62db. I plan to get a quieter(more expensive) fan.
The loc-line tubing is available directly from them, Amazon, and other sites.
http://www.loc-line.com/vacuum.phpThe tubing is attached to a PVC elbow, 2.75 inch O.D. and is just friction fit into the connector installed in the counter top.
About as cheap as you can get and it works for me. $0
I just used the 12 Volt fan and half the case from an old PC power supply. The fan is already mounted and sits in the bench just fine. Add banana leads cut from a pair of crappy test probes you don't like. I just plug it into one of my bench power supplies and adjust the speed. At 12 VDC it blows too much air across the entire bench. This one is perfect for my use at around 9-10 volts. you can barely hear it. Eventually I'll add a fan guard to the back side. I see no need to spend money on an extractor/filter. If I was soldering all day on a production line maybe but for a hobby bench it would be a waste of money.
PC fans also don't tend to be all that powerful and there may not be enough suction to really pull the smoke over through the filter with one of them anyhow unless you have one specifically made for higher CFM vs to be quiet.
The fans out of most P4s are quite powerful. (Same goes for high end i7 fans, but you probably won't find one of those for cheap...) It's not uncommon nowadays to find a PC fan that spins faster than 3000 or 3600 RPM, giving them more power than a same sized fan based on a mains induction motor.
A cheap and effective solution is to set up your soldering equipment near a window and put a box fan blowing out the window, then open another window to let fresh air in.
Don't larger, slower moving blades cause much less noise while moving the same amount of air though?
My PC fan above works best at about half speed (whatever that is). It does not move as much air at lower RPMs but all I need to do is have enough movement to blow the smoke moving away from the work and my face. If your in a small enclosed space you might want to try an evac system but as stated before they can be a pain to set up and the hose can be cumbersome. I would think the filter systems would have to be cleaned frequently to keep them working properly. Again, I'm not in a production environment so I'm not soldering eight hours a day. Keeping the resin smoke out of my face is all I'm looking for.
Don't larger, slower moving blades cause much less noise while moving the same amount of air though?
While having more static pressure at the same time, they can move more air
AND create less noise.
Static pressure is totally awesome for placing the fan in
FRONT of the filter, having more CFM but less static pressure is better for placing it behind the filter
But still, PC fans run so silently for the sake of people who complain about noise left and right, thus have poor static pressure but decent CFM
I think a server fan fits or being simply overkill a delta FFB1212EH (A 50W fan!)
The best solution I have seen so far is the "bathroom fan" (with or without duct) or whatever it is called, it must be in another thread because I cannot find it. I shall try to see if such systems are available locally. In the meantime I got the cheap Chinese one mentionned in this thread
The best solution I have seen so far is the "bathroom fan" (with or without duct)
One of my guys at work uses a 100mm ducted fan kit on his bench. The inlet end of the flexible duct is suspended (with a bit of wire) from one of those positionable work lamps (pictured below). This way he can position the inlet along the back edge of a PCB loading frame, or anywhere on his bench.
I think he has some sort of filter on the the outlet side which is on a shelf above (and to the back of) the bench. The motor is mounted pretty much at the outlet end of the duct.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/XYtronic-426DLX-Small-Personal-Desolder-Fume-Smoke-Exhaust-Vent-extrator-/350571843797?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item519fb5d0d5(mine doesn't have that brand name... just enter "426DLX" into ebay, without the brand name, to search for better prices...)
I have that one, and it does its job, if you have it standing directly on the bench (not on e.g. a PSU on a croded tiny "bench" like mine ^^ ) and the PCB you're working on not much further than a hand's width or two away, at about the height where the coal filter starts (bottom), i.e. in some PCB holder with croco clamps or something.
I have tried stuff like just using an old PSU fan hung from a microphone stand, but that's not really working :-D
The way that device is designed makes sure the smoke gets drawn through the filter, and cleaned air exits on its top opening.
It's probably not the strongest device of tat sort, but also not the noisiest one!
I'm happy with it.
Btw, bought new, it comes with a few extra coal filters.
Hi Guys,
Lately I've been soldering more than usually, and its really about time I've got myself one of these smoke absorbers. I don't want to spend lots of money for a Hakko branded unit, the way I see it its just a fan with a carbon filter, and I shouldn't have to pay more than 50$ delivered for such a thing.
Anyway, I've seen this one on eBay. Its 40$ delivered, and seems to be similar to the Hakko 493 physically, so getting replacement filters will probably be easy. Anyone has any experience with that unit? Is the fan very loud? Is it any good? Should I avoid it? Any better recommendation for a reasonable price?
BTW, I know I can just make one myself, but I don't really have the time right now, and it probably won't save me that much money anyway.
Thank you for your help
Hi Toli,
I don't know if you bought the smoke absorber form that HK guy wfei-shop or whatever. I also bought it and he sent it to my address. But when I opened the box I realized he sent an Australian plug instead of the European one I had asked for 3 TIMES. I had a universal adaptor so I plugged it into the wall socket... It doesn't work. I attached another power cord directly to the terminals to make sure that it is not the plug adaptor doing that. Again it did not work. It is out of order. How do you call it? DOA (Death on Arrival?). Sending it back costs $28 for an item which costs $39.99. I suppose he had a broken item with an Australian plug and he sent that particular one because he knows it is faulty, despite my 3 reminders that I want a European type plug.
Now the worse of all: he turned the original packaging inside out and sent it directly in that packaging so that you have to tear it open to get it out of the box therefore you destroy the packaging, despite Hakko mentioning on the original packaging to ship it inside another outer box. On ebay his refund policy states (I repeat with all the grammatical errors): "for any exchange or refund, we need the product must be in its original condition, including the box".
Many other people said on ebay feedback, he sells faulty products.
What to do?
I am attaching the pics of the famous box taken by my phone.
I wonder if the power cord is faulty or the fan itself.
Australian plug ... i think you mean china plug. Where it is reversed!
Australian plug ... i think you mean china plug. Where it is reversed!
Right! It is like the one on your pic, a China one then... The plug is not a problem. The device does not work...
cheap one from unreliable source what do you expect?
Not much but not that much!
His poor score on ebay says something.
Now I shall ask him to send the fan at least so that I can replace it myself. I wonder if there is any circuit inside or if it is directly connected to the mains.
I don't know if you bought the smoke absorber form that HK guy wfei-shop or whatever. I also bought it and he sent it to my address. But when I opened the box I realized he sent an Australian plug instead of the European one I had asked for 3 TIMES. I had a universal adaptor so I plugged it into the wall socket... It doesn't work. I attached another power cord directly to the terminals to make sure that it is not the plug adaptor doing that. Again it did not work. It is out of order. How do you call it? DOA (Death on Arrival?). Sending it back costs $28 for an item which costs $39.99. I suppose he had a broken item with an Australian plug and he sent that particular one because he knows it is faulty, despite my 3 reminders that I want a European type plug.
Reichelt offers a similar smoke absorber for 25 Euros (2 replacement filters for 3 Euros). It's a ZhongDi ZD-153. Looks like those HK sellers starting to join the we-rip-you-off sellers over here. Few good bargains from garage sales, but tons of power sellers with insane prices, especially for vintage electronics.
I wish I had known them before... thanks. This one is more powerful: 23W. Mine is 15W only.
Same as author of topic I have encountered problems with lots of smoke from soldering, flux and solderwick usage. Since those purpose use smoke absorbers come with price tag of 30€+ I have decided to make one as my next little project. From Conrad I can get 3 aktive charcoal filters for 5.5€, I allready have 80mm fan. What I am going to do is take tobaco can which is perfet for 80mm fan, cut of bottom part and on one end install filter on other end fan with voltage regulation.
Hope that it helps a little bit. Only problem I see is that I should install filter right behind or infront of fan, since I dont know if smoke will be held inside tube because of the 20cm space between fan and filter.
I'm pretty sure all the commercial ones I've seen have the filter in front of the fan (inlet side).
If you have a high static pressure fan like a Delta FFB1212EHE, install it at the back but if it's low just install it upfront