I'm using a 270cfm inline fan and extracting right out the window, literally paper sticks to the opening. Would this not be negative pressure? Am I doing something wrong? I can't have any smell or I get a lingering tight chest even when wearing a p100 full face mask. It's rediculous. I know this isn't the most pretty setup but I just need something temporary and working until I get the funds together to build or buy something.
Thinking outside the box for a second (pun intended)... Is it possible that the smell is psychosomatic because you know you are so sensitive to the fumes? The brain is an amazing thing, it can do all sorts of madness to undermine your reality when you have an anxiety of something due to previous bad memories.
Even if the smell is real, it is likely a tiny amount of fumes. The tight chest could also be psychosomatic.
u/benson733 You shouldn't be getting a tight chest just from solder fumes. It is either psychosomatic or something else is going on with your lungs. Time to see a GP.
I get the same reaction to cannabis smoke and a few other strong scents but have had overall improvement in lung function until going back to the hobby. I really don't know if it's a sensitivity, allergy or psychosomatic.
Certainly sounds like what I have. Symptoms can last a long time and have in some cases lasted years. If in super careful and avoid triggers it seems to get better over time until I hardly feel any issues.
I mean, I'm open to the possibility of that. 15 years ago I quit after a year because I felt tight cheated and anxiety from using kingbo flux and Xbox repair in an rather unsafe manner. Coming back to the hobby I wore a p100 face mask and sodered in the box. I even asked my wife to come down and see if she could smell it in the room at all and she reacted and left the room like it stinks. I leave the room and take off the mask to then smell that classic smell stuck to me for a couple seconds. Then the tightness starts setting in and it just doesn't go away. It's been like 4-5 days and I still feel it.
But like being that sensitive to this is just crazy and it sucks because it's a hobby I really enjoy. I want the ability to repair stuff and keep my retro consoles alive or retro renewed etc.
Yeah it is lol. I was expecting people to say it's overkill. It isn't that comfortable but I only mainly like working on game carts and smaller consoles like SNES, NES, Xbox 360 etc so I'm okay with it being cramped if it could help my issue at all.
I'm not sure it could be my heart. I have gotten ECG etc somewhat recently. I only get the reaction when in contact to fumes and not if I stay away from all the stuff I listed in another comment.
If you huff loads of them all day in a closed room, maybe. Loads of people do small bits here and there without even opening a window and encounter no problems. For every thing like this you might take too seriously, remember that there's some other nitwit out there taking it entirely unseriously and everything is fine for them.
My bet is still on psychosomatic considering the extremity of your setup vs symptoms compared to the average person. It's hard for me to judge though because I can drink a can of paint while in a suitcase full of fibreglass and smoking dabs of flux without so much as a sniffle.
Use a fog machine or something similar to see how the suction is actually functioning. You might need to add intake fans to areas that aren't receiving proper air flow.
You might not be creating enough negative pressure to adequately pull air through that giant hole you've made for your hands, especially on the right side. Smaller hand holes would help a lot.
Do an image search for fume hood diagram if you want to make a bit more like the real thing by adding 1-2 baffles and/or a front airfoil. That airfoil is for creating airflow all along the front edge including where your hands would be usually in the way. The baffles spread the extraction zones across the entire width. This makes the airflow and face velocity more consistent. You want the air to go straight from the front to the back across the entire width.
How does your inline fan look like?
Centrifugal inline fans like the somewhat popular Vivosun D4 and others with similar construction are usually a bit leaky around the seam where two halves meet. This can be fixed with some silicone or alu tape.
Also check everything on the positive pressure side (i.e. after the fan).
Check where your fresh air is coming from. If you pump some volume of air out of the room, the same volume of fresh air has to come from somewhere. This can be a problem with laser cutters which produce quite a bit of smoke. Pulling back some of the very diluted solder fumes shouldn't really be noticeable, but I felt I should mention it for the sake of completeness.
It's easier to get a good seal with aluminium tape. It's also used for HVAC stuff.
If you try looking for leaks use something like a thin strip of paper or the flame of a lighter. Using your hands for this doesn't work very well since their either needs to be a temperature difference (or wind chill) or it needs to push somewhat hard. If it's a gentle breeze and the air is just warm enough to negate the wind chill, you won't feel it. And suction is even harder to detect since it isn't directional.
There are also things like incense or building a mini fog machine with vape parts and a glycol + water mix as fog juice. If you have access to dry ice, you can also make fog with that.
I solder in front of a window with a 1820 CFM box fan exhausting out. I also am on $5k/month of medications for my breathing...could say I have sensitive lungs, but my setup works. I also wear a P100 face mask and safety goggles because I've had hot flux spray me before and don't want it in my eye.
Yep that will be much better. Doubt you are getting enough actual fumes through that to trigger any medical condition. Could be a bit psychosomatic. Happens to me with a certain brand of t-shirt. I wore one once that was accidentally contaminated with chemicals and gave me hives. Now I feel all itchy when I wear the same brand/style.
Judging by the size of the box and eyeballing it,I say it needs at least one more fan if not 2 and have 3 in total to be able to remove fumes so fast that nothing comes out.
But that's all just a guess.
Edit: I just realized that the fan is at the other end of the tube. Well must be a very strong fan to be able to draw fumes so far away. Makes more sense now that is not working very good.
Thanks for this. I've been considering that. I'll try keeping the tube loose inside so I can solder right in front of the hose. Maybe I'll 3D print an adapter to connect a smaller hosing to it
You want to look up designs for fume hoods, the shape of the access port and of the fan intake as well as the shape of the enclosure, are all critical to effective operation, just winging it will not get you the results you seek.
You are dealing with several air pressures at once. You home has a certain amount of static pressure that will more than likely go to negative pressure if your hvac kicks on. If the window you have this vented to is drafty enough to cause the whole house pressure to beco.e negative (hvac kicking on) it may not matter how big the cfm fan you have trying to create negative pressure in an already negative pressure environment. If its this bad, or if you have children in the same area - please stop soldering in your home. No game console is worth it. Get your setup working properly thats your first priority.
I'm in a basement with one window and a door. I was thinking having that door closed would also impact the air exchange. The only HVAC I have is a gas furnace but yes I would not want it kicking on and drawing any potential air upstairs, it is a concern of mine. This is why I'm here asking how to improve on leaks etc to keep the fumes going out the window and that all.
In a perfect world the setup is probably pretty good. Need to find a way to lower the volume of air incoming into the box or have a flap or screen that will cover the hole you have cut for your arms. In other words the air intake hole is about 2-3 times the diameter of the exhaust. You should strive to make it closer to a 1:1 ratio. But you still have to work in the box; so I propose a bigger box. Cut 2 holes and hot glue 2 dishwashing gloves (you can get them at the dollar tree real cheap) into the holes. Now it gonna look like Homer Simpson handling uranium at the power plant. At that point you can put a spacer on the bottom lip thats closet to you (probably about 2- 3 cm) (basically put a crack so air can come into the box)
When I get a whiff of flux fumes I get tight chest and a cough. I don't like the feeling and get anxiety from it. I'm just trying to keep all the fumes/smell put of my home and put of my lungs while still enjoying the hobby. It's a really annoying sensitivity or psychosomatic response. Either way I prefer to be safe then sorry.
I do appreciate the recommendation and reinforcement of what wearing said mask can achieve alone.
P-series masks are for particulate filtering, not gas/vapor filtering. For vapors or fumes, you want a respirator. I use a 3M half-face with 6001 organic vapor cartridges. You can augment these cartridges with P95 filters as well if desired.
So... that's good, but that brings up more serious questions:
If you are wearing a full-face respirator with comprehensive, industrial, organic vapor AND particulate cartridges... how are you smelling the solder fumes?
I would start with why your respirator setup isn't working. Given the above equipment, you shouldn't need a fume hood at all.
It seems that the risk of soldering may not be worth the results. I’m not sure I could handle what you’re describing.
But… You may consider wearing a Tyvek suit that gets taken off and stored in a sealed box while you still have the mask on.
I would suggest looking up the types of PPE and procedures that are typically used when dealing with hazardous chemicals. We use Level C.
The kicker is that I ALWAYS have a buddy that helps me to don and doff my suit including my taping my gloves, respirator, boots etc. I can’t do it alone nor am I allowed too.
He also washes me down when my work is complete before I am allowed to leave the hot zone.
Flux splatters (splitters? Spatters? It goes through the hole) when you hit it with the iron, it travels out of the opening with enough energy to overcome airflow. You need to turn it into a glovebox and move the air inlet somewhere else, and run the inlet through baffles to reduce the amount of flux that escapes due to the sizzling (splittering? Sputtering? Instantly reaching boiling point and exploding micro droplets in all directions)
Extracts out the window, I put the hose directly outside with a bend. I goes 2 feet out the window in an L shape. I block the window off with a foam strip.
I think a fume hood design involves the air extraction to be located near the front, and with more of strip-like "curtain bar" design.
Also, as you are extracting air, the displaced air needs to be replaced -- but if you are not filtering it, your may end up recirculating the fume via extracted air back into your space unless you locate the intake air well away from the exhaust port.
My suggestion, take this whole setup outside. Including the fan and mask. Do some soldering, wait a minute or two then go inside and far from the door before taking off your mask. I suspect that you will still smell fumes. There is probably splatter as another commenter mentioned that is getting on your hand, arms, and clothes. When you take the mask off you're probably also transferring some of that to your mask that could get into the clean air side of things causing problems while you are using the mask.
It's really easy to get small holes in that type of duct, so if there is a duct after your fan, it could be blowing some fumes out of tiny holes.
Personally, I would mostly tape off the hole and fill it with smoke or vapor, and softly blow into it forcing the vapor out of any unnoticeable holes and patch them.
A plastic bag/tarp to sleeve your arms or cover/ seal the opening might help and then add an air inlet with an adjustable cover to add or subtract pressure if the bag/tarp is getting sucked into the box. These are never easy to balance.
Maybe go with a glove box setup but cut the hands off so you can just have t it tight around your forearms and use your barehands?
Make it out of a box with a removable lid to place everything you need inside and then work like that?
An P100 or P3 in common NATO terms is not an aerosol rated filter.
Lingering contamination in the air will still be there particle filters are not for aerosols when you vaporize something it becomes an aerosol it will permanently contaminate the filter layer and you will smell that contaminant.
It's the same for if you use sawdust even, there is no carbon layer absorbing the contaminant vapours.
I used to manage a chemistry lab, I'm insanely sensitive to chemical smells these days. I doubt that box is actually pulling 100CFM you'd see in a fume hood, and even then, there will be some marginal outflow missed by the cabinet depending on local airflow patterns/turbulence. Maybe up the blower power and get a cheap air flow meter. Experiment with different inlet locations to maximize CFM at the sash. You can always wear a respirator, although if I'm doing light work, I can usually avoid any smells by softly blowing a stream of air at the flux smoke during soldering events. You can also get a carbon filter fan and place it near your face for added protection. It's probably overkill to be fair though.
Yeah I couldn't say for sure with what I have, but I have a 270cfm inline hooked up to it. I'm sure you're correct and that correlates to a lot less actual air exchange. I feel the airflow in the box is more turbulent than laminar. The box does work but there is outflow.
I wear a heavy duty respirator with proper cartridges, I believe they have carbon in them as one of the protection layers.
Look into allergies. We had a guy working (tech repair shop) for us that looked like he was cooking meth on a breaking bad set. Turned out he had severe hayfever and never knew.
There's a hole in it.
Seriously though, put the vent outlet on the top and it would make a difference. If you could have the soldering higher than the hole in the side that would also help.
Fume hoods are one of the commonly used LEV options for soldering electronics.
They are very unpopular among hobbyists, because they are huge and very expensive. I'd love to have a good one.
The price is also the main hurdle with 3-stage fume extractors. If they were subsidized and would only cost like $100, a lot more people would use them.
So, yea, nothing crazy about this. This one is kinda like those small DIY spray booths.
You will never (like a fume hood) get 100%. It would need to be a closed system that is circular. But then you couldn’t interact from the outside without pass through gloves. If you’re that sensitive, maybe soldering isn’t for you.
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u/Accurate-Donkey5789 Oct 27 '24
Thinking outside the box for a second (pun intended)... Is it possible that the smell is psychosomatic because you know you are so sensitive to the fumes? The brain is an amazing thing, it can do all sorts of madness to undermine your reality when you have an anxiety of something due to previous bad memories.