I am looking for ideas about different types of exhaust/ventilation systems. Even homemade systems.
Right now I use an industrial fan and some smaller fans to move the smoke from cutting out my garage doors. This is fine during the Spring/Summer and a portion of the fall but during the winter months in upstate NY, I want a better solution.
I have a window directly in back of my table which I was thinking I could pipe the exhaust out of. My CNC Plasma table is equipped with a water table but it is still pretty smokey.
I should mention I am on a budget…I know some of these systems can get pretty pricey
I put mine next to a garage door to help with the smoke but it has never really had any. I figured it was the water table controlling the smoke. You can get a 50cfm bathroom exhaust fan from home depot for $15
I have the Pro with the water table so it controls the smoke a little but not enough when doing multiple long cuts. Im also about 20" from the garage doors
rty finding a heat exchanger for a house…it can work well as an exhaust fan and save heating costs on the cool air being sucked in…that is what is going in my shop in the next few months before Canadian winter…
I have installed an 14 inch by 5 inch down-draft duct going into a 8 inch round galvanized HVAC pipe based on an 8 inch Harbor Freight fan. The down-draft vent sits behind the table. The duct picks up the smoke and exhausts it out the garage wall through an existing 14 inch by 5 inch vent about 6 inches above the garage floor.
Very interesting. Clever idea. How does it work? I cut all my sheets in half to fit on the table but they still hang over the back until I use up the front of the material. I’m not sure how that would work with that system.
It probably wouldn’t. I don’t plan on having sheets any longer than 4 feet. My table is almost against the wall. There is about 6 inches between the Y rails and the wall. The way it could work with down-draft is to put the down-draft intake to one side or the other.
The fan and suction is strong enough to pull the smoke and particles over the back of the 4 foot sheet into the duct. One could put the duct back a little further if they were concerned about the smoke having to loop around the edge of the sheet.
Here’s what I use with the Langmuir pro table. There is a home depot furnace filter on each of the 4 sides, and an 8 inch Vortex VTX 800 Series fan with a lot of air flow. I share this over with the welding table and with our milling machine which can generate some smoke when machining with oil or coolant.
I’ve included a spark arrestor - which I made from multiple layers of stainless steel screen in the duct. I’m not certain that this gets rid of all the sparks, so I’m extremely careful when we run it.
I extend the duct out with some extension pieces when I need to.
We have the table set up in a large shop and have really noticed clouds of smoke coming off of all the jobs we do. We really needed a fume extraction system. Commercial systems are thousands of dollars and may be the best solution for your environment.
I was just thinking about the same thing… I want to set something up before winter. I know some ppl use a couple high power bathroom fans, but one of those freestanding stove hoods have about 5x the suction and have the power bottons right on the hood. I think thats going to be my route.
I use a 12” 1000cfm inline fan with speed controller in a 20x20x8” 18g housing. There is room for a 6” stack of filters. I chose 20x20 because it is a standard paint booth filter size and there are also lots of residential a/c filter options. Presently using a MERV 8 filter with charcoal followed by a MERV 13 filter. I’m still experimenting on that part. The unit hovers above the rear third of the table and is angled so that the bottom extends further back to give the cable pole room to move. So far, so good. It falls behind on smoke from really oily HR, but catches up reasonably quickly. I still usually use a Miller LPR100 while cutting.
