Home made air cleaner

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DBT85

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19 Dec 2015
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Pershore, Worcester
So, I've seen a few threads on here recently about air cleaners and what's been recommended and so on. As usual Google are listening and suggested this video to me. Now, you might have to close your eyes at times on the safety side. He says he shot this 4 years ago and has made lots of changes to his practises since then.



He explains why the standard units you can buy are not suitable for him and instead makes his own, but actually takes into consideration that adding a filter in front of a fan will reduce its throughput and makes what appears to be a half way decent air cleaner, compared to many that seem to think just putting a wad of material over a regular fan will somehow do...anything at all.

A 300mm fan with a similar grunt rating (2719cfm or 4620m3h) can be had here (as well as many others I'm sure) for £143 at time of writing.

For reference, the Record AC400 claims to chuck out 409 cfm (695 m3h) down to 1 micron for £160 on Records own website, usually £187.

Naturally you'd also need to factor in the cost of filters and actually finding the things. Not nearly as easy over here as it seems to be in the US. You could always go to someone like DJN UK and ask for a cartridge filter to do the job or maybe someone can find a solution. The MERV13 filters he uses in the video are about an F7/EU7 on what you'll find over here. Most I can find are only as high as EU3 or 4.

Here a page comparing MERV ratings to G M ot H ratings
https://www.emw.de/en/filter-campus/comparison-of-filter-classes.html
And here's another comparing G M or H to the EU numbers
https://www.addfiltration.co.uk/filter-guide
Anyway, I thought I'd share. My workshop is around 82m3 volume (2900ft3), so the AC400 would take 7 minutes to cycle the whole room. If I could get one of these going it would be less than 70 seconds.

Naturally you don't need to go that large, you could do the same with a smaller fan, finding the right filters would be the key.
 
I have spent a couple of months mulling this and watching umpteen videos on the topic. In the end I opted for the ready made solution and Axi Craft one is sat in workshop waiting to get unpacked after a Black Friday purchase. That video has set me off wondering again!
 
Interesting thread... comes along at the right time 😊

I've got an old B&D garden leaf blower/sucker - big orange thing - that I've been wondering if I could somehow adapt it for a workshop fan extraction unit. Seeing the one @Doug B has linked to has me thinking I've little to loose by giving it a go - Thanks Doug 👍
 
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