DYI fume extractor ideas

[GeneV]

Guys, who built their own welding fume extractor? I put this one together on the fly yesterday, using a wet/dry vac. It works ok, but I'm not super thrilled with it. Here's it here:



I was thinking one of those inline duct fans with ductwork could work. The 6" ones move 240 cfm. Would that be enough for a fairly short run of duct exhausting out the window. Would even a 4" 100cfm duct fan work here?

 

[mapper]

Look at portable dust collectors the smallest will move about 500 cm, remove the dust bag to reduce the fire hazard and replace it with a length of 4 - 6" duct.

 

[chim]

Monkey Arms - At work we bought one to try and then bought two more. We built a sort of flexible jib to mount them and used flex duct at the joints. With a homebrew swivel at the wall, the duct drops into an inline fan and exhausts our of the sidewall. My guess is they cover at least a 20' radius. I can get pics and fan data if anyone's interested.

Fume Extraction - Welding & Grinding - Monkey Industrial Supply

 

[GeneV]

No no guys, on the cheap, gotta be on the cheap. I don't even wanna go past 100 bux on this, I don't think I should have to for my amateur butt, doing amateur welding.

 

[MF RED in MT]

No no guys, on the cheap, gotta be on the cheap. I don't even wanna go past 100 bux on this, I don't think I should have to for my amateur butt, doing amateur welding.

I'm with you Gene, Harbor Freight or Amazon are likely vendors for a value fan/duct.

A variable speed fan would be nice to regulate the flow of CFM.

KC

 

[aczlan]

How much risk is there of you sucking up sparks or hot bits of metal with this fume extractor?
If there is, I might see about running through a bucket of water to cool off any such bits of metal.
Could also use that to reduce the nasties in the fumes going out.
If that little Shop-Vac wasn't enough, I would get a bigger one that has an actual 2-in hose and use that. I have one made by Rigid and it is amazingly quiet.
If you are going to mostly welding at the table like that, you could put a piece of 2-in metal conduit together with a 90 and a 45 to connect to your filter bucket.

Aaron Z

 

[dragoneggs]

Hey Gene, thanks for starting this thread. Been wanting to do something similar on the cheap. Have been looking for a used fume extractor but they ain't cheap. I think I want the extractor hose to be metal and something inline to knock down the sparks before entering the fan, and of course exhaust to the outside. Looking forward to DIY ideas here.

BTW...I have the same HF welding table. I really like how portable it is and I use for plasma cutting as well.

 

[GeneV]

I'm with you Gene, Harbor Freight or Amazon are likely vendors for a value fan/duct.

A variable speed fan would be nice to regulate the flow of CFM.

KC

Those duct fans are pretty cheap, the 6" one is around $25 at home depot. With that and some rigid and flexible ducts, it would be a under $50 build. Variable speed would be real nice, yeh.

How much risk is there of you sucking up sparks or hot bits of metal with this fume extractor?
If there is, I might see about running through a bucket of water to cool off any such bits of metal.
Could also use that to reduce the nasties in the fumes going out.
If that little Shop-Vac wasn't enough, I would get a bigger one that has an actual 2-in hose and use that. I have one made by Rigid and it is amazingly quiet.
If you are going to mostly welding at the table like that, you could put a piece of 2-in metal conduit together with a 90 and a 45 to connect to your filter bucket.

Aaron Z

Thanks man, sparks are a good point! Well wet/dry vac, I guess I could just suck some water into it, right? Yeh, this vacuum is loud! Would love a quieter one. Also, it doesn't seem powerful enough, I want it to suck up more of the fumes. Another problem is the sump pump hose I'm using to exhaust out the window makes a whistling racket. I'm thinking a smooth long hose would be quieter if I stayed on this route of using a shop vac.

 

[GeneV]

Hey Gene, thanks for starting this thread. Been wanting to do something similar on the cheap. Have been looking for a used fume extractor but they ain't cheap. I think I want the extractor hose to be metal and something inline to knock down the sparks before entering the fan, and of course exhaust to the outside. Looking forward to DIY ideas here.

BTW...I have the same HF welding table. I really like how portable it is and I use for plasma cutting as well.

It is a great table, and HF's price for it is great as well, right?!!

 

[GeneV]

I'm in a tricky position here in regards to cfm's. On the one hand, needs to be powerful enough to get the smoke/fumes out of the shop. But then, not too powerful so that it's sucking out all my heat in the winter, or my breathing air for that matter. This is a longish 1-car garage I'm working it, heating it with electric space heaters in the winter.

Here's a quick vid I made of my shop vac extractomajigger, so you could see how it's working or not working. And yeh, looking at my vid, I think the concern about sparks is legit guys, thanks for pointing that out.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Just for what it's worth. Would be no good for MIG.

That seems like a really nice surface to be welding on.

 

[dragoneggs]

Gene, a couple of suggestions. Not sure what your neighbor situation is but you might want to consider moving your shopvac outside and add a remote switch. That noise would drive me crazy in short order.

 

[MF RED in MT]

Yes you do need more CFM's for exhausting fumes, and I had to put ear plugs in to watch your welding video, ha.

KC

 

[yomax4]

When absolutely needed I use the same shop vac idea but I have beastly vac with with a 3.5" hose. I don't use a filter and sparks are out ( I hope ) by the time they get outside where the vac sits. Instead of a remote switch I just have a cord running in under the overhead and just plug in when welding. It's pretty effective and yet I seldom use it. It takes a bit to get it set up and the small projects are done by the time I would get it set up and the bigger projects would require a lot of moving it around. There's no good way on the cheap unless you are patient and forgiving. Good Luck !

 

[Gordon Gould]

A bigger "hood" and bigger vac will make it quite effective actually if you can set the hood up right where you are welding. I have a smoke alarm about 18' away and it doesn't set it off. But as the others said I hate the noise and it is a tight area not really good for welding so I only use it when I have to in the middle of winter. I remove the filter from the vac and place a cake pan of water in the bottom. I use a foot switch to turn on and off. I also stay down there for a half hour min after I am done welding just to make sure. Never thought of putting the vac outside - that is a super idea. Wonder if it will run at 20 below....



gg

 

[GeneV]

Just for what it's worth. Would be no good for MIG.

That seems like a really nice surface to be welding on.

Naw, I don't have a mig, just stick. Had a flux core too, I sold it.

 

[GeneV]

Gene, a couple of suggestions. Not sure what your neighbor situation is but you might want to consider moving your shopvac outside and add a remote switch. That noise would drive me crazy in short order.

Ha, that's what I did at first! That rocket vacuum cleaner you can catch a glimpse off in the video, that's what I used at first, and I just stuck it out the window and ran the sump pump hose from it. I had 2 problems, first the longer hose made a ton of whistling noise, it was so annoying! And then...it started raining. :shocked:

 

[GeneV]

Yes you do need more CFM's for exhausting fumes, and I had to put ear plugs in to watch your welding video, ha.

KC

Here's my other idea. This fella uses a 4" vent fan, says it works ok for welding fumes if he puts the hood close. I'm thinking of using a 6" fan, it's moves like 200 cfm's.

 

[GeneV]

When absolutely needed I use the same shop vac idea but I have beastly vac with with a 3.5" hose. I don't use a filter and sparks are out ( I hope ) by the time they get outside where the vac sits. Instead of a remote switch I just have a cord running in under the overhead and just plug in when welding. It's pretty effective and yet I seldom use it. It takes a bit to get it set up and the small projects are done by the time I would get it set up and the bigger projects would require a lot of moving it around. There's no good way on the cheap unless you are patient and forgiving. Good Luck !

Do you have it enclosed outside, what do you do about rain and stuff?

 

[GeneV]

A bigger "hood" and bigger vac will make it quite effective actually if you can set the hood up right where you are welding. I have a smoke alarm about 18' away and it doesn't set it off. But as the others said I hate the noise and it is a tight area not really good for welding so I only use it when I have to in the middle of winter. I remove the filter from the vac and place a cake pan of water in the bottom. I use a foot switch to turn on and off. I also stay down there for a half hour min after I am done welding just to make sure. Never thought of putting the vac outside - that is a super idea. Wonder if it will run at 20 below....

View attachment 669563

gg

Oh that's a bigazz hood, yeh that's a great idea! The vacuum noise is annoying though, I'm with you right there. I'm curious what a 6" duct fan would sound like, that's where I'm starting to look with this fume exhaust thing.