Luckydevil said:
I'm thinking of dryer ducting from home depot and some sort of small/high power inline fan. It may not be pretty but it should work.
When it comes to health and safety, I don't believe in compromise. LD, as an "Engineering Student" according to your profile and a future engineer, you need to ask yourself the following...........
Are you trying to simply ventilate the room or capture fumes at their source?
What type of particulates and fumes are your extracting? Welding? Vapors...what type? Are the vapors explosive? Particulates? Oil, dust, etc?
What is the static pressure of the system?
What's the best type of fan to use? Does the fan need a starter with overload protection? Is the fan motor isolated from the exhaust stream? What about switching and control? Speed control? (note - order a 3phase fan and a nice frequency drive ....I like the AC Tech units....see
http://www.actechdrives.com/home.htm ) if you need to vary your motor speeds. As you probably know, there are no speed controls for single phase fan motors.
What type of source capture system? Rubber nozzles, steel collector hoods?
What type of hose? What diameter hose? Temperature rating?
Is the garage attached to the house? Is there adequate make-up air?
What about exhaust fumes and the neighbors?
What about noise levels and the neighbors? Fans can run for extended periods as needed (15 minutes to hours at a time). As you live in Tampa/Hillsborough County, anything over 60db (at 63hz,125hz,250hz & 500hz) between 10am and 7pm as measured at the property line is a problem. Go to the property lines of all your adjacent neighbors and with a hand held spectrum analyzer, record the noise levels of your fan system to make sure you're in compliance. Florida is tough on noise pollution. Conversely, if you lived in Charlotte NC, heart of Nascar, you could probably run open exhaust cars on dynos day or night with the doors open.
And finally and probably most important...........What would the building inspector say? If commercial, would OSHA approve of the work environment and equipment?
As an engineer, a simple anamometer will help you evaluate the performance of your system. This will allow you to measure air velocity (ft/min) and air volume flow (in cfm).
There are all questions and issues I have to take into consideration with every project and why my systems start at around $2000. Good luck........Steve