cigarette smoke grabber for solder smoke?

[Jim Horton]

Saw this at Walmart yesterday and wondered whether or not it could be
used for solder smoke or fumes/ smoke obtained from poking holes in
plastic with heated nails?

https://bit.ly/31WxvY2

I usually do both of the aforementioned outdoors (plastic holes are
*always* outdoors and even then I sometimes get plastered when the wind
suddenly changes direction!), but that grows old quickly. Thank you.
Trying to keep costs minimal as I only solder/ poke holes occasionally.

 

[pfjw@aol.com]

On Tuesday, October 29, 2019 at 9:08:56 AM UTC-4, Jim Horton wrote:

Saw this at Walmart yesterday and wondered whether or not it could be
used for solder smoke or fumes/ smoke obtained from poking holes in
plastic with heated nails?

Suction is subject to inverse-square rules - inasmuch as it decays by the square of the distance between the source (smoke) and the suction. You will note that the picture shows the cigarette directly below the fan. At your soldering station, unless you position the fan within a very few (less than 2) inches from the soldering head - as the solder is applied - it will do nothing useful. As to poking holes in plastic with hot nails - same issue.

There are these (attachments to common extraction systems):

https://www.all-spec.com/Catalog/Soldering-Rework/Fume-Extractions-Accessories/Fume-Extractor-Accessories/0053637299-12200

that I am sure you could rig up from some flexible hose and either a vacuum cleaner (noisy) or a fairly powerful muffin-fan. This could be directed to the source of the smoke and either run outside, or into a charcoal filter arrangement.

Either way, not a great deal of $$ involved, just a certain amount of rigging time and careful design.

Or, bite the bullet and get a bench-top fume extractor designed for exactly what you intend.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bench+top+fume+hood&i=electronics&ref=nb_sb_noss

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

 

[Fox's Mercantile]

On 10/29/19 8:23 AM, pfjw@aol.com wrote:

You will note that the picture shows the cigarette directly
below the fan.

It's even better....The exhaust ports are underneath and blow
directly at what ever you're trying to suck up.

Despite what other might tell you, what you're inhaling when
you solder are fumes from the rosin flux. NOT lead particles.


--
"I am a river to my people."
Jeff-1.0
WA6FWi
http:foxsmercantile.com

 

[John Robertson]

On 2019/10/29 6:23 a.m., pfjw@aol.com wrote:

On Tuesday, October 29, 2019 at 9:08:56 AM UTC-4, Jim Horton wrote:
Saw this at Walmart yesterday and wondered whether or not it could be
used for solder smoke or fumes/ smoke obtained from poking holes in
plastic with heated nails?

Suction is subject to inverse-square rules - inasmuch as it decays by the square of the distance between the source (smoke) and the suction. You will note that the picture shows the cigarette directly below the fan. At your soldering station, unless you position the fan within a very few (less than 2) inches from the soldering head - as the solder is applied - it will do nothing useful. As to poking holes in plastic with hot nails - same issue.

There are these (attachments to common extraction systems):

https://www.all-spec.com/Catalog/Soldering-Rework/Fume-Extractions-Accessories/Fume-Extractor-Accessories/0053637299-12200

that I am sure you could rig up from some flexible hose and either a vacuum cleaner (noisy) or a fairly powerful muffin-fan. This could be directed to the source of the smoke and either run outside, or into a charcoal filter arrangement.

Either way, not a great deal of $$ involved, just a certain amount of rigging time and careful design.

Or, bite the bullet and get a bench-top fume extractor designed for exactly what you intend.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bench+top+fume+hood&i=electronics&ref=nb_sb_noss

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

One of my employees made a simple fume extractor using a 5 inch box fan
blowing out through a conical filter. The input side of the fan was an
exhaust hose for a dryer with the end taped up for durability. The hose
is around 4 feet long so it covers his bench and the filter is quite a
good one. And a bit of duct tape.

We have a large shop (20 foot ceiling) so fumes are not much of a
problem, as we aren't always doing bench work, but his solution would be
perfect for most home work benches.

I think he spent around $25 in total...

John :-#)#

--
(Please post followups or tech inquiries to the USENET newsgroup)
John's Jukes Ltd.
MOVED to #7 - 3979 Marine Way, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5J 5E3
(604)872-5757 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
www.flippers.com
"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

 

[Jim Horton]

Thanks all. A quick visit to home improvement today and picked up some
materials. I will be trying it out tomorrow. Thanks again.

 

[Jim Horton]

Mainly from Rick's kind encouragement regarding using wax for potting, I
picked up a spare pair of HEI coils from the junk yard yesterday. I
decided to pot this pair in the leftover paraffin I had from my recent
potting/ depotting. This time I did not fill completely to the top and
left about an inch of space. Once the wax started to harden and leave a
"well" in the center, I then topped off with some remaining hot wax.
Once completely dried and cooled today, there was still a well, but very
small and of no concern.

There was the capacitor/ resistor series combination I asked about
prior. Still not sure what they are for, I went ahead and added them to
this pair too, but I did it after the wax potting by leaving some target
leads above the wax so the parts could be soldered. After confirming
everything working, I covered and surrounded the RC's with high voltage
tape.

I can only guess about the RC circuit. It was probably something
someone recommended adding to my original circuit. It's purpose might
have been as an interference filter, or maybe to drain the circuit when
off so that one is not shocked from the possible stored charge in the
capacitors.

Anyway, it's working great! The hardest part, and I must have forgotten
about this, was getting solder to stick to the HV output terminals of
the HEI coils! It took my 240 watt iron to do it, and even then it took
a while for the heating to reach optimum.

This paraffin has a melting temperature of 130 F. No additives, easily
melted in a double boiler. I did go with another 6x6x4 junction box
after first trying a similar sized polypropylene dollar store container.
While trying to punch holes in the side for the low voltage primary
leads, the entire container cracked on that side. I tried gluing it
with hot glue, but the moment the wax hit that, it went right through.
Thank goodness for the aluminum tray underneath! With the junction box,
although more expensive, JB Quik Weld has the primary feedthroughs cured
well enough within 2 hours to hold up to wax and oven heat. I did not
bring the HV TV wire leads out the side this time and had them exit at
the top. Seems to work fine with no unwanted arcing. I did not cover
over the top with the junction box cover, just made sure the wax filled
it up.

I also made a solder smoke remover out of a Youtube video I saw using a
plastic container, PC fan, and blue evaporative cooling filter you cut
yourself. You wet the filters, activate the fan and go. It would be
easy to add an activated charcoal layer, but I didn't this time as all I
was working with was standard solder. Seemed to do the job although you
have to be within about 6" with the circuit or iron for it to draw in
the smoke.

 

[Jim Horton]

Let me apologize in advance for the double posting. Not sure what
happened there. Sheesh!

I would have built another driver circuit for the additional wax potted
HEI's as I'm currently swapping the driver between the oil and wax
potted units, but one component in the driver is a rather large Hammond
5 H 150 mA rated inductor. Unfortunately, these start at $20 without
shipping. I guess it was no wonder I only bought the one originally.
Should anyone have ideas how I might make one, please share. Otherwise,
I'll be keeping an eye out for something cheaper.

I would have shared the schematic for this spark generator, but it
wasn't my design. It did appear a decade ago on the Tesla coil mailing
list.

 

[Jim Horton]

I ended up making something very similar to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=034F2JKX1Rs

In a pinch, it works ok I guess. I'm not sure how well it truly filters
as I have yet to test something like incense with it like he did. In
hindsight, I probably should have researched further and came up with
something else. The biggest drawback is that you have to be pretty
close to the intake, within 6", so that would mean the iron, circuit
board being soldered, etc. Won't always be that easy getting larger
boards that close. So I guess two improvements I would have made would
be to add a stronger fan and drop a DIY activated charcoal filter
somewhere in between the six layers.