Another Fume Scrubbing and or Extracting thread.

[Xamm_]

Hey guys,

About a year ago we got all of our machines (Agfa Anapurna M, Seiko H-104s, Roland VS-540) all in one sealed room in our factory to protect them from dust.

The room is absolutely toxic, the machines all run 12 hours a day and the room has barely any airflow save for the Seiko vents connected outside and an industrial extraction unit that does nothing in the roof.

Since my brother and I mostly worked in there, we never had the time or willingness to fix this issue despite how dangerous it is, but with increasing workload we have a new print technician who mainly works in there now
and it isn't fair to her to keep it like this so I'm frantically researching what can be done.

First of all we live in Australia so that makes a different in buying some professional equipment.

Current plan of attack:
1. Install fans in the walls to suck fresh air in
2. Drop the industrial ceiling extraction vents to the ground to pick-up the denser than air VOCS
3. Get 4 of these (below), one to scrub the air directly from the Seiko and 3 to sit around the room
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-4-6-...ng_Hydroponics&var&hash=item1e7b5deb3f&_uhb=1

Any help/ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[player]

This style of blower will move a ton of air. They are probably not rated as explosion proof, but your fumes should not be at that concentration. So if you want to vent the room quickly, as well as cheaply, a squirrel cage blower will fix you up.

http://i1.squidoocdn.com/resize/squidoo_images/-1/lens18072597_1308646704squirrel-cage-fan-463-cfm

(I tried to insert about 4 different images and I kept getting invalid errors and none would insert.)

 

[Xamm_]

This style of blower will move a ton of air. They are probably not rated as explosion proof, but your fumes should not be at that concentration. So if you want to vent the room quickly, as well as cheaply, a squirrel cage blower will fix you up.

http://i1.squidoocdn.com/resize/squidoo_images/-1/lens18072597_1308646704squirrel-cage-fan-463-cfm

(I tried to insert about 4 different images and I kept getting invalid errors and none would insert.)

Thanks for the reply mate.

So no air scrubbing is necessary? Would these be inline or outline for best performance?

 

[Biker Scout]

If you are trying to have a dust free room, you don't want to blow air in... you want to suck it out. Keep it low on the floor on the wall to outside. Then opposite the room, up high, you want to install just a grill or louvered vent that will allow you to attach at least two stacked air filters. This will allow for positive ventilation and keep dust under control.

 

[player]

Thanks for the reply mate.

So no air scrubbing is necessary? Would these be inline or outline for best performance?

It depends on where you are, who will smell the fumes outside...

You will need make-up air to come into the room as Biker suggests.

Can you just vent to the outside without anyone being bothered? If not you can run a stack to a higher level outside and disperse the fumes up. You can also use high quality furnace filters to trap dust coming in for your make-up air. Depending on how you do it, your make-up air could just be a vent, or for better volume a fan of equal size pulling air in. I am talking about a quick, cheap solution here, not the "up to code" way...

You don't have to worry about cold weather where you are?

What is your shop like? Is it your own separate building or are you in a multi-business building?

Are you in industrial or retail?

 

[Xamm_]

Thanks for taking the time to reply (again player) guys

We are in our own light industrial zoned building.

Weather isn't a huge problem - averages 48-68 F (did the conversion) in winter and 68-95 in summer

We can vent outside, I just got some carbon filters and blower fans on eBay, I'll use one to scrub the air from the Seiko (smells the worst) and one to scrub the air near the flat bed.

I'll now modify the industrial extraction fan so that the ducts come to bottom end of our print room where we hang prints to dry and cut vents at the other end up high and put filters there. If this fails I'll try add a few more extraction blower fans to get some serious CFM moving through?

All of this runs at about $300

 

[Techman]

If you are trying to have a dust free room, you don't want to blow air in... you want to suck it out.

Then why do clean rooms use positive pressure????

Change the air. that is best. use airfilters to clean it. Wood workers use air filter systems to remove the micro dust from their shops. That works good.

If I had all those VOC's in my place I would have air exchangers , and use micro filter machines just like a wooed workers shop.,

 

[artbot]

this
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Web-Abso...Control-FPR-5-Air-Filter-WABSORBFPR/100011568
and a box fan if anyone is ever in a pinch.

 

[MikeD]

Air scrubbers take care of the VOCs after they have contaminated the whole room. It's best to trap them at the source, before they have a chance to spread out. I'm running some material that fumes VOCs as it passes over the printer's 3 heaters. I made an enclosure out of flame retardant plastic sheeting that surrounds the printer with a magnetic flap for a doorway. Using the same material, I made a drape on the back that corrals the fumes from the pre-heater. There is an IR drier in the front that also has a flame retardant sheet stretched across it's frame to corral the fumes from the post heater. On the bottom of the frame there is a strip of computer fans that gently blow the fumes under the printer, where there is a perforated 4" PVC pipe. The pipe is connected to a Predator 600 (Abatement Technologies) air scrubber that vents clean air out of the work area.
I tried all types of techniques before the realization that the real challenge is to get the bad air out, instead of trying to recirculate the work area air. I've got a very sensitive respiratory system that has put me in the hospital 4 times in the 12 yrs I've been printing, and with the technique above, I don't really have any problems.

Good Luck!
Miked

 

[Tyler Durden]

Both positive and negative air can be filtered but if you have negative air then when a door is open or other cracks in the building it is sucking in unfiltered air. With positive air you filter it coming in and it pushes out through vents etc.
It depends on the area you want to control. For instance in a kitchen you would suck air out and have makeup air. Same with a paint booth.
I would think you need to suck air out very close to the printers area and have a makeup air or vents away from the printers. You dow want a bunch of air blowing in by your printer and stirring up the fumes into the clean air. You want to suck that air away quickly and never smell.
Hopefully you are in a good climate for this system so your hvac is not always running when that cold or hot makeup air rolls in.

 

[Bradbusman]

Pictures

Sounds like im trying to do what you have already done... any chance of getting some pictures?

Thanks Brad

Air scrubbers take care of the VOCs after they have contaminated the whole room. It's best to trap them at the source, before they have a chance to spread out. I'm running some material that fumes VOCs as it passes over the printer's 3 heaters. I made an enclosure out of flame retardant plastic sheeting that surrounds the printer with a magnetic flap for a doorway. Using the same material, I made a drape on the back that corrals the fumes from the pre-heater. There is an IR drier in the front that also has a flame retardant sheet stretched across it's frame to corral the fumes from the post heater. On the bottom of the frame there is a strip of computer fans that gently blow the fumes under the printer, where there is a perforated 4" PVC pipe. The pipe is connected to a Predator 600 (Abatement Technologies) air scrubber that vents clean air out of the work area.
I tried all types of techniques before the realization that the real challenge is to get the bad air out, instead of trying to recirculate the work area air. I've got a very sensitive respiratory system that has put me in the hospital 4 times in the 12 yrs I've been printing, and with the technique above, I don't really have any problems.

Good Luck!
Miked