Dan Hintz
01-17-2009, 10:09 PM
Since the average daytime temps here in MD are in the high-20's range, venting to the outside (and therefore sucking in cold air to replace what I'm venting) not only lowers my average indoor temps to unacceptable levels, it raises my bills. What's one to do? Well, this engineer decided to pull a MacGyver and put together a makeshift filter. At the moment I only do items that give off particulates rather than fumes, so venting indoors isn't an issue.
Here's the parts list:
2 * Register Boots @ $6/each
2 * 6"-to-4" Reducers @ $6/each
1 * A/C Filter Cloth @ $6
1 * Hardware Cloth, 1/4" Hole @ $10
The register boots are what's behind the wall vents for your A/C system, basically turning a 6" tube into a 6"x10" rectangle. I cut the corners back about 1/2" and folded the new flaps 90 degrees outward to make a mating surface all around. I cut out a matching size of filter material and wrapped it on either side with the hardware cloth (wire mesh) like a taco. This was sandwiched between the two register boots, and the newly created flanges were held together using large binder clips (i can take it apart easily to swap out the filter material and to see what gets caught in it). The reducers go on either side to bring the piping back to 4" diameter.
To be fair, the reducers were not designed to fit right onto the boots (some 6" pipe is expected between them), but with some slight crushing of the metal they slipped on and were duct taped to prevent any major leakage. I've attached this directly to the Harbor Freight blower I picked up, with a few feet of spiral metal tubing to the laser. It seems to pull a good enough vacuum, but I'd still like to move to a self-contained unit that deals with fumes, as well, but cost on those is pretty high.
For $40 or so, I think it was a good deal :)
Here's the parts list:
2 * Register Boots @ $6/each
2 * 6"-to-4" Reducers @ $6/each
1 * A/C Filter Cloth @ $6
1 * Hardware Cloth, 1/4" Hole @ $10
The register boots are what's behind the wall vents for your A/C system, basically turning a 6" tube into a 6"x10" rectangle. I cut the corners back about 1/2" and folded the new flaps 90 degrees outward to make a mating surface all around. I cut out a matching size of filter material and wrapped it on either side with the hardware cloth (wire mesh) like a taco. This was sandwiched between the two register boots, and the newly created flanges were held together using large binder clips (i can take it apart easily to swap out the filter material and to see what gets caught in it). The reducers go on either side to bring the piping back to 4" diameter.
To be fair, the reducers were not designed to fit right onto the boots (some 6" pipe is expected between them), but with some slight crushing of the metal they slipped on and were duct taped to prevent any major leakage. I've attached this directly to the Harbor Freight blower I picked up, with a few feet of spiral metal tubing to the laser. It seems to pull a good enough vacuum, but I'd still like to move to a self-contained unit that deals with fumes, as well, but cost on those is pretty high.
For $40 or so, I think it was a good deal :)