80mm Activated-C Air Filter
Description
With an optional cap to direct the exhaust over your the top thick-sheet electronics on a RepRap Mendel, and an alternate inlet barrier with little feet to slot over the top bars on a Mendel.
UPDATE 1.1: Reduced fillet at the outside corners slightly, as the previous outline was so close to the hole that skeinforge wouldn't generate any lines between the outer wall and the wall of the bolt holes, so the holes were only supported on one side, weakening the part when being reamed.
Instructions
* 80mm square PC case fan and somewhere to power it from
* Muslin cloth or the lightest cloth you can get hold of
* Granulated or coarsely powdered activated carbon
* Self-tapping 5mm OD 4mm ID case-fan mounting screws or M4x50 bolts and nuts
* 1 print each of barrier A, B and the mid-section
- Other parts/versions are optional for use on a Mendel
Cut a couple of small sheets from your cloth, so that they can be sandwiched between the flanges either side of the filter chamber. You might want to make them slightly above 80mm squares and cut holes out at the corners for bolts/screws to go through, or you might want to cut the corners off so they don't interfere there, or even some other arrangement with bits hanging out the side that you can pull to make sure the cloth is taut when you screw the filter assembly together. Go with whatever seems to work easily for your material.
Ream out the bolt holes on each slice; I found that you can force them wider with a case fan screw, or ream them out with a 3.5mm drill bit and then tap the remaining hole with a 4mm bolt. By doing this with the roof part I was able to tighten it on using M4x45 hex cap bolts, without using any nuts.
Clamp one sheet between the inlet (barrier A) and the spacer, fill the spacer full with loose granules, and clamp another sheet over the chamber exit using barrier B along with the inlet to your fan.
Now slot it on top of your mendel or bolt it in an appropriate place on any other 3D printer.
Once the activated carbon catalyst is exhausted and you start to smell fumes again, disassemble the filter and replace the carbon.
Dispose of the old material in a fire that will completely combust any styrene or butadiene present.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
used fabric softener sheets for clothes dryers are decent hair filters for this sort of thing.
Well, it's making a difference alright, it cuts ABS fumes down from being overpowering when right next to my printer to just a slight stink that lingers in the room for a while afterwards until the system catches up and clears it.
That's running at about 50mm/s, and the stink gets worse as you go faster and make more fumes than this tiny system can cope with.
I don't know if a more powerful fan or another chamber length of filter material would improve this significantly, but I'm happy enough with it.
Hopefully I'll get round to constructing a chamber for my printer, as that might help with both the fumes and the heating.
License
More from 4ndy
More from 3D Printer Accessories
This looks perfect for the soldering filter hood I'm planning to make. Who has recommendations for the carbon filters? I"m thinking aquarium supplier, but what brand has a "best fit" for the 80mm fan?