Recommendations - Solder Fume Extractor?

[Bazz4CQJ]

Can anyone recommend a fume extractor for home bench use, something fairly basic but adequate for purpose? I made one using old PC cooling fans, but it's not great.

Thanks
B

[joebog1]

You need add a "screen" to funnel the fumes into the fan.

I once had a factory with 30 girls all soldering circuit boards. They all complained of the fumes. I asked the boss for a couple of grand to fit a commercial unit. I can still hear the laughter !!!!.

So I took an old plastic house fan and built a cardboard "chute" that ran to an open window. I used second hand air con alloy ducting to fit above all the assembly benches. It was FAR from perfect, cost very little ( ALL out of my wallet) and worked "well enough ".

A bigger problem was gluing nylon using acetic acid. A VERY dedicated setup using the same idea stopped the tears. ( Acetic acid is VERY aggressive to the eyes !!!! ) It's just an idea, but a bigger fan ( from a Chinese shop, a bit of 1/8" cardboard sheet, a Stanley knife, some gummed paper glue tape and you have what you need. Cost should be LESS than $40 or about 30 quid your value.

It works and is pain free!!.

Joe

[joebog1]

I should add, IF you live in old blighty with constant rain, a bit of tin used as flashing above the open window will keep out the water. I dont know about your heating, I live in a warmer place than England.

j.b.

[Electronpusher0]

We needed fume extractors at my last job. We found the type that RS sold, a fan unit with a carbon filter in front were pretty useless, you had to get them very close to the work before they had any effect at all and all they did was move the fumes around so they affected more people!

We installed pipework to a commercial central extractor unit with proper filtration and outside exhaust. There were taps into the pipe to which silicon rubber tube was attached. This in turn connected to a 6mm stainless tube on the iron with the opening directly above the bit. This was a little cumbersome but effective.

For home I used the same 6mm stainless and silicone tubes to a pot with cotton wool in to catch the worst of the flux followed by an in line hepa filter and then to a modified aquarium air pump.

I found you can open these air pumps and reverse the valves so it sucks instead of blows. I used a double one and ran the two units in parallel by T adaptors.

I will see if I can post a picture later.

Peter

[Bazz4CQJ]

This is the sort of thing I think might be OK https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264622457524 which is available from various online sellers and I'm using that listing only as an example for something to talk about.

That has a 23W fan (my 2 PC fans consume 3w), doesn't say anything about face velocity or volume air flow. This is just a hobbyist requirement, so we're not looking for workplace performance. It's very rare that I spend more than 2-3 hours soldering). What I've got at the moment (with a front cowling) is not great and before that I didn't use anything, so even if this type of thing lacks real umph, it must be step in the right direction.

B

I find it a lot easier to blow the fumes away, the aircon in my workshop can be set to blow in the right direction.

[Lloyd 1985]

Those things like the one in the eBay listing are useless, we had some at work, they all got binned! We now have some units the size of a waste paper bin that live under the bench and are connected by big black hoses.

If you want to make your own then look for some decent sized centrifugal fans, much better airflow than a bog standard PC case fan, then you just need a box to put it in, some filters and a length of flexible pipe!

Regards
Lloyd

[Bazz4CQJ]

Originally Posted by Lloyd 1985

Those things like the one in the eBay listing are useless, we had some at work, they all got binned! We now have some units the size of a waste paper bin that live under the bench and are connected by big black hoses.

If you want to make your own then look for some decent sized centrifugal fans, much better airflow than a bog standard PC case fan, then you just need a box to put it in, some filters and a length of flexible pipe!

Regards
Lloyd

That's interesting. I recently bought a 75W centrifugal fan that extracts dust in my grit blasting shed. Maybe I should have bought 2?
B

[duncanlowe]

I have one like the ebay link. It's better than nothing, just. But it suffices for what I do.

[chriswood1900]

I bought one of these when it was on offer, it is ok but not great, and would not buy another. I would probably just get a more powerful fan and make a funnel or duct out of plastic cards, the carbon filter does not add much I think you just need to move or disperse them away from the bench.

[Bazz4CQJ]

Looks like we have consensus that a homebrew with a decent fan is a better way to go. Thanks for the advice.

B

[Bazz4CQJ]

So, I've forgotten about the sort of stuff discussed above selling for £25 and for £13 bought a 16W inline extractor fan which shifts ~100m3/hour through 4 inch ducting.

Based on the performance of the inline fan I used for the grit blaster, I suspect that 16W will very easily exceed what I need and will have to have a speed controller on it. But I think I'll just about manage to stay in a £25 budget and get something that really works.

B

[G0HZU_JMR]

I made my own solder fume extractor many years ago. It's too ugly to show an image of it but I bought a few metres of white springy and floppy aircon ducting that is about 4" diameter and the far end of it is a cardboard box with two holes in each end. Obviously the ducting feeds into one hole and a large PC fan sits in the other. I chose a box size that neatly wedges into the smaller tilt window in my workroom.

I think it is a 12V fan but I run it at something like 15V to get the best airflow. Because the fan is at the far end of the box and it is effectively outside the room the whole system is essentially silent in the workroom. I just sit the ducting near the work area and it does a really good job of venting the fumes outside.

I don't use it as often as I should though. It works much better than the noisy boxes at work. These consist of a very noisy vacuum cleaner box with a flexible hose that is supposed to be pointed near the work area. They are extremely large, heavy and noisy. They hardly achieve anything unless the soldering is a couple of inches from the hose nozzle.

[Bazz4CQJ]

It's interesting that I managed without any fume control stuff for 50 years, but in my dotage, I seem to be bothered by fumes much more. Breathing in flux fumes may not be (immediately) lethal, but I'm sure that avoiding them will be better! They probably don't do eyeballs any good either and I have real problems with dry eyes these days

B

[Anthony]

Has anyone else used colophony-free solder from RS? I became quite sensitive to ordinary solder fumes and the RS stuff completely sorted it. I always found small bench fans with a charcoal filter unhelpful.


.

[Bazz4CQJ]

Not tried it, but worth knowing about

B

[Bazz4CQJ]

I've got the results for the new "extractor" which seems to be a bit "out (below) of spec". It's a 4" dia fan from Russia, running a tad under 24 watts. Air flow at the face is about 2.4m/sec which I think corresponds to shifting ~70m3/hour (no absorber present yet). It's acceptably quiet.

With a small shroud around the fan front, and placed about 12 inch from the point of soldering, it sucks in all the visible smoke pretty well.

I expected 24W to do much better, but I guess that's what you get at a budget price. My expenditure is about half the money I initially looked at and I think the performance is appreciably better, (judging by the comments made above) than I would have got from the items of initial interest.

B