The time came to finally replace the furnace in the house this fall which left me with a squirrel cage fan. Between late nights in the shop smoking cigars or welding the smoke would get pretty thick.
I took the fan and attached it on a small cart my dad brought over. He was at a high school having a sale to get rid of unwanted stuff. I think it's an old overhead projector cart, he paid 50 cents for it. Figured it would be easier to move the thing where I needed it than having hoses and ducts all over the place.
A buddy gets surplus electrical boxes in from time to time so I got one 2' by 2' by 8" deep and bolted it to the side.
After looking at some other extractors on the net I decided to get a merv 3 filter, merv 8, merv 13 and a HEPA filter. Also got some activated charcoal and placed in a screened frame. Made them all 1" thick since it's a common size. The filters needed to be modified to fit the box but that wasn't as miserable as I feared.
I also got a sheet of aluminum mesh from the concrete section of home depot to cut up and layer to act as a spark arrestor. Will be putting a piece of stainless steel screen below that as well.
I had some galvanized duct sheet laying around so I cut pieces up and bent into a framework to hold the filters in place. Was definitely the most tedious part of the project. I also needed to make a short section of duct to connect the fan to the box.
As time goes by I hope to find a decent extractor arm somewhere and build an enclosure box for the fan. Decided to use as is for the time being until I work the bugs out.
It's a work in progress but thought someone might be interested.
I took the fan and attached it on a small cart my dad brought over. He was at a high school having a sale to get rid of unwanted stuff. I think it's an old overhead projector cart, he paid 50 cents for it. Figured it would be easier to move the thing where I needed it than having hoses and ducts all over the place.
A buddy gets surplus electrical boxes in from time to time so I got one 2' by 2' by 8" deep and bolted it to the side.
After looking at some other extractors on the net I decided to get a merv 3 filter, merv 8, merv 13 and a HEPA filter. Also got some activated charcoal and placed in a screened frame. Made them all 1" thick since it's a common size. The filters needed to be modified to fit the box but that wasn't as miserable as I feared.
I also got a sheet of aluminum mesh from the concrete section of home depot to cut up and layer to act as a spark arrestor. Will be putting a piece of stainless steel screen below that as well.
I had some galvanized duct sheet laying around so I cut pieces up and bent into a framework to hold the filters in place. Was definitely the most tedious part of the project. I also needed to make a short section of duct to connect the fan to the box.
As time goes by I hope to find a decent extractor arm somewhere and build an enclosure box for the fan. Decided to use as is for the time being until I work the bugs out.
It's a work in progress but thought someone might be interested.
