So I've been working on purchasing the stuff to finally setup my work area. I've had a rough patch with money after moving into my own place away from a past relationship and I'm finally to the point where I have some extra spending money. I wanted to start a in depth documentation of this sort of thing since it took me so long to figure out and buy all the right equipment without shelling out more than I care to, while still staying safe.
I started off with searching for a fan. I spend close to 2 weeks research HARD and doing calculations and reading up on what others have used and I decided on
THIS fan since it's rather inexpensive (Wasn't looking to spend $600 on a fan) and it pushes roughly 1400 CFM. The fan is also 14 inches (15 inch duct around fan) so it wasn't something astronomical that I'd never find ducting to go to and from. The day I got the fan in I got to work taking it apart and setting up the way I needed it. Since the fan was meant to blow from the duct portion through the square opening, I had to turn the fan around. I also removed the louvers since they would just shut from the air flow being reversed. After reassembling it and testing to make sure it moved air the way I wanted, I took a short video of it sucking up rather large vape clouds on the work bench, which you can see
HERE. I actually think the fan works better with the motor turned around the opposite directly, maybe it's the square collar.
My next task was to put together a fume hood to capture all that bad air from the torch and colored glass. I also spent a good 2 weeks on this portion also, since I had the time off work since we're in quarantine and wanted to plan as much as possible before starting to build. I'm very meticulous when it comes to this stuff so of course I was worried about the small things. I came across
THIS post here on these forums and I loved the idea and knew what I was going to do. I set to work today building the hood after running to Home Depot to get the materials.
HERE is an album of me building the hood. Home Depot only had 3/4 side panels, so I have to wait till they get more in stock, but it's mostly built!
The ceiling of my garage is 96". The hood is 8" and the fan without the square collar is 9" equaling 19", then add a 70" human in the mix means I have 9" to work with if the hood is right at head level. I also need to add a 12" 90° elbow duct, which is roughly 16" in height as well as a 16" to 12" reducer, which is 8" tall, I'm looking at having to lower my hood quite a bit. This has me really thinking if I should just attach the fan to the wall and run a short amount of ducting from the hood to the fan, then resume my exhaust ducting out the bottom of the garage door. I don't want to put the fan too far from the hood, since the further away, the lower your average CFM will be, and I don't want to mess with lowering it too much. Any ideas that could help keep the brainstorm going would be appreciated. I really wanted to just attach the fan to the hood to allow for absolute direct airflow, but am worried I'll have to lower the hood much lower than planned and have it effect my working area and possibly bumping my head into it. I also thought about cutting one side of the hood so it was 4" - 5" shorter on the working side so the elbow would be pretty butt up with the ceiling. I currently have the 90° Elbow, 5' run of rigid duct, 16" to 12" reducer as well as a small amount of flex tubing to go from bottom of rigid out the bottom of the garage door on order from Home Depot, will be here next week. I chose flex tubing because I'll be moving it in and out of the way whenever I work. Won't be too long of a run, maybe 2' - 3' at max. I understand Flex Duct is VERY frowned upon, but I didn't have many options.
My current idea for a setup is Hood > Fan > Elbow > Reducer > Rigid Run > Flex Ducting
Purchases to date (Will update):
Running Total: $2175