Originally Posted by
Justin Pfenning
Alan, can you recommend an affordable Dylos particle meter? My shop won't be functional with the air cleaners till after the first of the year, but it would be good to measure the performance of the Wen units. I like the idea of building an inlet box with multiple filters to increase the performance. It also allows me to use a standard off the shelf filter size.
Justin:
The one that most woodworkers use is the Dylos 1100Pro model. It's the model setup to measure 0.5 micron particles at its lowest setting. A few years ago there was a group buy here, that many of us used to grab those meters. Not cheap. Worth every cent, for no other reason that you know when you can turn off the air cleaners to save electricity, and stop that loud noise. And three of them running won't be quiet.
I would definitely avoid those cheap Chinese made meters that you find on Amazon or eBay. Really not terribly helpful for us in woodworking. I have one in the shop for kicks, really not useful to me at all.
I'm hoping that this discussion is helping you with your new workshop. Buying 3 air cleaners is great (I have a similar sized shop, FWIW). What I find the Dylos indispensible for is that I always wear my 3M respirator until the small particle count gets down to the ambient level of the shop (500 particles in my case. YMMV.) That way, I'm never breathing air worse than outside. Good chance your air is cleaner than mine, though I've never measured it in Nebraska. I live right on the Gulf of Mexico, so if the wind is coming from the west, there's really no polluting entities within hundreds of miles of me. But still 500 particles is that baseline.
I had a friend buy a Dylos who lived in Reno, Nevada during the forest fires. He saw the readings (the government AQI readings were online also) and was stunned how bad the air was that he, his wife, and his kids were breathing. They moved to Florida.
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