[freakydrew]

Greetings.

I went to staples and bought a 12v PC cooling fan, cut off the original Molex adaptor, found an old 12v (output) adaptor from some long lost phone or who-knows-what, connected the two with some solder and heatshrink and voila, nice little fan.

Actually, the first time I plugged it in, it turned blue!!! I thought I was about to blow up but realized there was LED's in the fan...

Originally I had it clipped to a aligator clip on my third hand (the Quadropuss from Ron @ eBay....friggin awesome!), but kept zapping my knuckles with the fan

I have the fan at one end of some nylon tubing designed for a dryer or something, the metal equivalent was not as easy to work with. This is suspended directly over my soldering station with some carbon filters at the other end, or out the window.

so...after that giant preamble....currently this is plugged into a power bar so to turn the fan on and off I need to use the power bar switch which means anything else plugged in, also gets shut off.

can I add a regular old light switch to this contraption? would I need anything else? I thought about a dimmer switch to control fan speed, but not really needed. I just want to be able to turn it on and off easily.

thanks for your time.

 

[Anonanimal]

Sounds fun!

I'd say any small switch will probably do for you, since that fan's not going to pull much current. A light switch might be a bit clunky but it will probably work.

 

[bhjazz]

You might check for an article on make magazinems site about building one of these inside a mint tin. I'll see if I can find the link. It used a carbon filter or something similar.

 

[Scy]

I've build one of these myself.
I bought a pc fan that had the speed control build in it. It's pretty handy as you can just leave it on at lower speed as it's pretty quiet and then just crank it up as you need to.
It's a sort of diy-mockup of the weller table top model. You can get the replacement carbon filters for that from digi-key, they fit on top of a 120mm fan just nice.

You could use a light switch to turn it on and off but I'm not that sure if a dimmer switch would work.

Here's a link to makezine bhjazz was talking about

Make: Online : How to: Candy tin fume extractor

 

[bhjazz]

Thank you, Scy! I wrote that on the bus, then got totally swamped at work today...oy...

 

[qusp]

haha

thanks for the link for the quadropuss, at the moment I just use a regular pedistal fan (the large type) to blow it away from me, but cant always be used for fine work so often I turn it off and the amount of time I spend sniffing solder fumes (its my full time job) cannot be good.

 

[freakydrew]

Here are some pics that shows the Quadropuss in action. I like the light on the magnifying glass a lot. As you can see from the first pic, the fan was clipped onto the third hand, but too close for me! On the back I screwed in a simple filter which helps.
You can also see how easy it was to add the 12v adapter to the fan.

The white tubing is next step - will go out a window or suspend from a ceiling with activated charcoal filter on other end.

The power bar is my problem and where I need to install a switch somehow for the fan....

 

[qusp]

isnt that LED in the fan distracting?, the pics look almost psychedelic :S I know they are long exposure, but still it looks rather bright, I w0ould probably remove the fan LED or at least change it to a less insanely bright colour, draws like 2-3 times the current of green and red too. otherwise looks great. wouldnt be a lot of good for some of my projects, but i'm doing heaps of SMD lately and would be great for that, thats why i'm looking for another one.

couldnt you use a switch like they use on desk lamps that are a sort of inline switch on the cable and attach this somewhere near the soldering iron base? thats what I would do so I could easily switch it on or off as part of the same action of grabbing or 'holstering' the iron.

 

[freakydrew]

good idea with the switch!

the LED is surprisingly not as distracting as the pictures suggest, that being said I just bought a few used fans from souperman and will use instead of this one....

 

[freakydrew]

the Quadropuss is more than the third hand, it is also the base (green border) too... not that I get any commission or anything, it is just a great product, I am sure someone could cobble up something similar for cheaper though

 

[ROBSCIX]

Great stuff, now you have me wanting to build one!

Personally I would want soemthing closer to the fan and dryer house out the window. I had already considered somthing like this, the small tin unit has possibilities if you have no way to get to a window, aside from this I would want all the fumes sent outside.

 

[freakydrew]

on the pictures with the two soldering stations, there is a window about 3' above (my basement work room) so the window is ground level and the exhaust should not effect anything. I just to hook it up to the window somehow...
heading to Home Depot tomorrow so will hopefully find a switch