Shop Exhaust Fan Salvaged From Broken Microwave

May 20, 2021 by Tom Nardi 7 Comments

You don’t have to look hard to find a broken microwave. These ubiquitous kitchen appliances are so cheap that getting them repaired doesn’t make economical sense for most consumers, making them a common sight on trash day. But is it worth picking one of them up?

The [DuctTape Mechanic] certainly thinks so. In his latest video, he shows how the exhaust fan from a dead microwave can easily and cheaply be adapted to blow smoke and fumes out of your workshop. While it’s obviously not going to move as much air as some of the massive shop fans we’ve covered over the years, if you’re working in a small space like he is, it’s certainly enough to keep the nasty stuff moving in the right direction. Plus as an added bonus, it’s relatively quiet.

Now as you might expect the exact internal components of microwave ovens vary wildly, so there’s no guarantee your curbside score is going to have the same fan as this one. But the [DuctTape Mechanic] tries to give a relatively high-level overview of how to liberate the fan, interpret the circuit diagram on the label, and wire it up so you can plug it into the wall and control it with a simple switch. Similarly, how you actually mount the fan in your shop is probably going to be different, though we did particularly like how he attached his to the window using a pair of alligator clips cut from a frayed jumper cable.

Got a donor microwave but not in the market for a impromptu shop fan? No worries. We recently saw a dud microwave reborn as a professional looking UV curing chamber that would be the perfect partner for your resin 3D printer. Or perhaps you’d rather turn it into a desktop furnace capable of melting aluminum, copper, or bronze.

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An Infrared-Activated Solder Fume Extraction Fan

March 14, 2021 by Zach Zeman 13 Comments

Even the most safety-conscious hackers among us might overlook protective gear when we’re just doing a quick bit of soldering. Honestly, though, eye protection is always a necessity. And those wisps of smoke, which drift so elegantly off the hot part of the iron, really shouldn’t drift directly into our nostrils. This is especially true if soldering you make a daily habit, or if you use lead-based solder.

And so, in defense of his lungs, [Jeremy S Cook] added a battery-powered fume extraction fan to his custom, concrete-based solder squid. Without proper power controls, though, the fan could easily drain its battery while no actual solder activity was occurring. To tackle that problem, he recently upgraded his system with a passive infrared (PIR) sensor to control when the fan turns on and off. The PIR sensor detects motion, enabling the fan only when it sees busy hands in its view, so he no longer needs to muck around with manual controls.

Despite a large increase in functionality, the design is relatively straightforward and uses off-the-shelf components, making it an accessible project for anyone who knows their way around an iron. [Jeremy] also upgraded his power source to a LiPo battery with onboard charger, which keeps the build light, maneuverable, and easy to get close to whatever he’s working on.

Whether you build or buy, a fume extractor will help fight off the famously face-seeking solder smoke on your workbench. Which is a good thing, too, because that smoke carries more than just the alluring aromas of making.

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3D Printed Butterfly Valve Helps Automate Fume Extraction

February 9, 2021 by Lewin Day 18 Comments

It’s not something we always think about, but there’s plenty of hazardous fumes in the average workshop that can be deleterious to human health. Whether its soldering, lasercutting, or 3D printing, all of these processes release nasty chemicals into the air that are best filtered for health reasons. To help build out a working filtration system, [Fab] needed some valves, so set about printing some of his own.

[Fab] went with a simple butterfly valve design, similar to the throttle valve in most gasoline-powered cars. The butterfly vane rotates to vary the flow, turned by a small SG90 servo. A Wemos D1 Mini is used to run a pair of the valves, which are paired with a Y-adapter to connect both a soldering station and 3D printer to the fume extraction system. As a nice touch, a WiFi-enabled outlet is hooked up to the soldering iron which notifies the D1 Mini when it’s switched on, flipping the valve open to automatically start fume extraction.

It’s a tidy system that will enable [Fab] to breath easy in the workshop for years to come. Files are available for those wishing to print a set of butterfly valves for themselves. We’ve seen some other smart fume extractors before, too. Video after the break.

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What Does An Electronics Tinkerer’s Workbench Need?

December 14, 2019 by Erin Pinheiro 40 Comments

Ever been in a situation where you’re not sure where to begin building your own electronics workbench or improve your existing one? [Jeff Glass] writes in with a blog post as detailed as it is beautifully long, chronicling each and every part of his own home lab in order to give us some ideas on how to get one started.

Despite [Jeff] using his own workbench tools accrued over 10 years of working in the field as prime example, his guide takes into account that you don’t need the latest and most expensive in order to get working. Affordable examples of the tools presented are suggested, along with plenty of links to follow and what to look for in each one of them. He even goes on and aside to note the lack of affordable versions of bench-top multimeters, seeing how the portable counterparts are so cheap and plentiful in contrast.

However, contrary to [Jeff]’s claims, we would argue that there are things you could do without, such as the oscilloscope. And you could use a regular soldering iron instead of a soldering station if you are in a pinch. It just depends on the type of work you’re looking to do, and simpler tools can work just fine, that’s what they’re there for after all. That’s not to say his advice is all bad though, just that every job has different requirements, and he notes just that in the final notes as something to keep in mind when building your own lab.

Lastly, we appreciate having a section dedicated to shop safety and the inclusion of soldering fume extractors in the recommendations. We’ve talked about the importance of fire safety when working with these tools at home before, and how soldering is not the only thing that can produce toxic fumes in your shop. With no shortage of great tips on how to build your own fume extractors, we hope everybody’s out there hacking safely.

Workbench Fume Extractor Sucks, But Has A Charming Personality

August 7, 2019 by Erin Pinheiro 10 Comments

Shop safety is important regardless of what kind of work you do. For those of us soldering, that means extracting the noxious fumes released by heating up the solder flux used in our projects. [yesnoio] brings to us his own spin on the idea of a fume extractor, and it pulls out all stops with bells and whistles to spare.

The Workbench Assistant bot, as [yesnoio] describes it, is an integrated unit mounted atop a small tripod which extends over the working area where you’re soldering. Inside the enclosure are RGBW lights, an IR camera, and an Adafruit ItsyBitsy M4 Express driving the whole show. Aside from just shining a light onto your soldering iron though, the camera senses thermal activity from it to decide when to ramp up the server-grade fan inside which powers the whole fume extraction part of the project.

But the fun doesn’t stop there, as [yesnoio] decided to go for extra style points. The bot also comes with an amplified speaker, playing soundbites whenever actions such as starting or stopping the fan are performed. These soundbites are variations on a theme, like classic Futurama quotes or R2-D2’s chattering from Star Wars. The selectable themes are dubbed “performers”, and they can be reprogrammed easily using CircuitPython. This is a neat way to give your little desktop assistant some personality, and a fun way to break up the monotony of soldering up all those tiny SMD components on your next prototype.

If even after all this you still need more than just a cute little robotic voice beeping at you to convince you to get a fume extractor for your bench, then maybe some hands-on results could give you that little push you need. And if you’re already convinced and want to build your own, there is no shortage of DIY solutions we’ve seen around here at Hackaday. Check out this one in action after the break!

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A Crash Course In 3D Printed Venturi Pumps

February 8, 2019 by Tom Nardi 15 Comments

Venturi pumps, commonly referred to as aspirators, are a fantastic way of moving around things which you might not want spinning around inside of a pump, and one of the easiest ways to create a vacuum. According to his research, [Tuval Ben Dosa] believed such a device would be a good way to move corrosive gasses which would normally eat up a blower fan; all he had to do was figure out how to 3D print one to his specifications.

Put simply: if you take a “T” shaped pipe and pass a fluid (such as air or water) through the straight section, a vacuum will be created on the shorter side due to the Venturi effect. As long as you don’t mind the substance you wish to pump getting mixed into your working fluid, it’s a simple way to bring something “along for the ride” as the fluid makes its way through the pipe.

[Tuval] needed a way to remove the chlorine gasses produced by his PCB etching station, and an aspirator seemed like the perfect solution. He just needed to pump clean air through a Venturi, which would suck up the chlorine gas on the way through, and ultimately carry it outside. But he soon found that while a pump based on the Venturi effect is simple conceptually, getting it to work in the real world is a bit trickier. Especially when you’re dealing with something like 3D printing, which brings in its own unique challenges.

He tried modeling a few designs he found online in 3D and printing them out, but none of them worked as expected. The most common problem was simply that no vacuum was being generated, air was freely moving out of both sides. While [Tuval] doesn’t claim to have any great knowledge of fluid dynamics, he reasoned that the issue was due to the fact that most Venturi pumps seem designed to move water rather than air. So he designed a new version of the pump which had a more pronounced nozzle on the inlet surrounded by a cavity in which the gases could mix.

His modified design worked, and now anyone with a 3D printer can run off their own Venturi device for quickly and easily giving potentially harmful fumes or gases the boot. If this is one of those things you’d feel more comfortable buying than building, don’t worry, we’ve previously covered using a low-cost aspirator as a vacuum source in the home lab.

Repairs You Can Print: Take A Deep Breath Thanks To A 3D Printed Fume Extractor

January 29, 2018 by Sven Gregori 12 Comments

If you are a maker, chances are that you will be exposed to unhealthy fumes at some point during your ventures. Whether they involve soldering, treating wood, laser cutting, or 3D printing, it is in your best interest to do so in a well ventilated environment. What seems like sound advice in theory though is unfortunately not always a given in practice — in many cases, the workspace simply lacks the possibility, especially for hobbyists tinkering in their homes. In other cases, the air circulation is adequate, but the extraction itself could be more efficient by drawing out the fumes right where they occur. The latter was the case for [Zander] when he decided to build his own flexible hose fume extractor that he intends to use for anything from soldering to chemistry experiments.

Built around not much more than an AC fan, flex duct, and activated carbon, [Zander] designed and 3D printed all other required parts that turns it into an extractor. Equipped with a pre-filter to hold back all bigger particles before they hit the fan, the air flow is guided either through the active carbon filter, or attached to another flex duct for further venting. You can see more details of his build and how it works in the video after the break.

Workspace safety is often still overlooked by hobbyists, but improved air circulation doesn’t even need to be that complex for starters. There’s also more to read about fumes and other hazardous particles in a maker environment, and how to handle them.

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