External Venting Solution Review

Now that I have a house that I can modify I am looking into external venting for the Glowforge. The air filter is just too loud, and I need an external vent anyway for my resin 3D printer.
What I have in mind is to use a 6 inch inline fan with a pre-fan filter. The fan and filter will be mounted in the attic with the fan output going out the gable vent. One leg of the input will be piped down to the Glowforge through a reducer. The other will be run to a ceiling vent and possibly also some type of vent for solder fumes, etc. I am looking at setting up a microprocessor to control the fan speed and to open and close blast gates based on what machines are powered on. I like the AC Inifity Cloudline, but I am not sure if I can control them with a microprocessor.

Does anyone know of a fan that can be controlled remotely with an Arduino or RPi? I would prefer to avoid the servo-on-a-knob solution.

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My external exhaust fan is plugged into a smart socket — “Alexa, turn on the Glowfan for 2 hours.”

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That works if it’s only one device, but I want to both power on and control the speed of the fan. If I have the Glowforge running, I want the fan to run faster than if it’s just venting the hot air from the 3D printer.

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If it were me I’d extend the control wire and just run the fan controls via hardwire in your workspace.

The microcontroller solution is a cool idea and maybe a fun project but in terms of practicality just having the switch near your machines is a pretty clear winner.

I’d also have the blast gates in the workspace so you can customize them and verify the status by sight. You likely only want one run going from your workspace to the attic anyway so making the blast gates accessible should be simple.

I’m not speaking theoretically: I have a resin 3d printer with a vent hood and a Glowforge hooked up to the same s6 fan. I use a blast gate to control whether the Glowforge, printer, or both are being vented. The vent hood solution is great because I can wash my prints and prepare resin with no respirator — all fumes are extracted since the workspace is under negative pressure.

The whole thing runs by “feel” and is very easy to manage with no way for things to get out of sync or otherwise go awry. The simplicity is its killer feature.

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I’ll have to give your points some thought.

My original desire was to have multiple intake ports in the ceiling, a hookup for the Glowforge, and another for a solder fume intake. I also wanted to minimize the visible tubing, so I was hoping to keep everything in the attic and just use closed-loop control systems.

I’ll do more research.

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Do you run it up to a duct in the ceiling? We’re doing a remodel so I have an opportunity to put in whatever I want.

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Nope, I cut a dryer vent right next to my machine.

If we’re doing pie in the sky I’d use Dwardio’s setup as a guide. Run and fan outside, PVC run to the roofline. Completely negative pressure indoors. It’s awesome.

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Mine’s planned to go through the attic to the roofline. I can’t put it sideways to the courtyard. (Tried that, through the window, and the smell outside was unbelievable.) Inline fan in the attic, I’m thinking 600 CFM should work. Maybe one layer of filter in the workspace.

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