A few strange questions

[Walt Langhans]

Hey Guys,

I got to finish up cutting my buildings yesterday (I'll post some pics when I get them together) and while working with the laser a few questions jumped into my head.

1/ What kind of fire extinguisher would do the least amount of damage to the machine if it came to that?

2/ MDF, put's off a nasty smell, so I was looking at some air filtration device, and man are they expensive! Seeing how I won't need anything to OSHA standards and would rather not have the smell, I had an idea. Get a fish tank run the air flow hose into the tank, and let the water filter out the smell. Thoughts?

3/ If I where to get more than 1 machine could I use the same air pump for all the machines, or does the airflow need to be at a certain level per machine?

Thanks!

[Dave Gates]

Walt, we have a halotron extinguisher for the laser/computers.

I'm not sure about how well water setup will work. We put a few Rabbit Air (www dot rabbitair dot com) filters in the shop. They are not cheap but work really good.

[Paul Phillips]

Walt, 1. we use the Halotron as well, not 100% sure but I think it's the best for electronics, it's what our fire extinguisher supplier recommended.
2. As for the filtration, I used Dan Hintz's idea for DIY one from this thread, http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?143725-DIY-air-filtration-unit-for-lt-200&highlight=diy+filtration
you can do a search for more info there have been many discussions about it. For me since we do a lot of custom aluminum fabrication I built my own box and just kept adding charcoal until the smell went away, about 3" deep on my unit seemed to do the trick, I also used a furnace filter to catch the bigger particles, we exhaust it to the roof so no need for the hepa filter. I built it to fit the 10"x20" furnace filter and then built the box for the charcoal with screen mesh on both sides to hold the pellets, the filter goes at the bottom and then the the charcoal box, there are 2 set screws to hold it in place then the acrylic lid, works great. Also, I'm using an old dust collector I had, it's a KUFO 101, 1100 cfm so it does a nice job of doubling as a vacuum table as well. The first pic is of the filter and charcoal box pulled out and sitting on top of the unit. (the pics didn't load in order)
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hope this helps,
Paul

[Walt Langhans]

DIY air filtration! Awesome! Thanks for point me in the right direction.