I was notified that the fumes from my laser cutter are wafting into my next door neighbor ‘s home. To the point they arguing with me that I should not be using the laser cutter within the neighborhood at all.
Currently I have a pro system with no filtration system, but instead the venting to outside . Their home is about 20ft away from mine.; I thought it would have disbursed enough by then.
Will getting the filter help significantly?
Any other suggestions?
One very low tech solution may be just to put a fan to blow fresh air and disperse the fumes faster. Set it so it pushes the exhaust away from your neighbor’s house but not back into the exhaust port. Essentially you are just trying to increase the fresh air mixing rate.
That’s a good suggestion, and I’m going to shift this to the Beyond the Manual section so you can get more ideas from other customers. (Glowforge isn’t going to be able to offer suggestions on this one.)
Yes, the filter will work to stop the smell completely. Your neighbor wouldn’t even know if you were running it. It’s expensive to use compared to venting outside, so I’d probably explore an external fan option first.
Yes.
The filter will definitely help but it tends to fill up very quickly if you’re working with wood (especially the draft board and MDF).
There are definitely other solutions though, perhaps putting a charcoal filter and an inline fan into the works to help disperse and “cleanse” the exhaust may help.
Do any of the houses in the neighborhood have radon mitigation systems? If so, it wouldn’t be an issue for an HOA. Those installations usually have a stack that vents at the roof line.
Blowing the exhaust up at the roof line would be 100% better then blowing it directly toward your neighbor.
Consider, with the cost of replacing filter elements, it wouldn’t be long before those expenditures would exceed what that radon event would cost.
I’m not saying it’s a perfect solution, but I vent up a chimney with very good results. On rare occasions when it’s 100+ degrees and just the right atmospheric conditions, it doesn’t go up and out as well, but It’s only been an issues maybe 3 or 4 times in 2 years. Of course if you don’t have a chimney, this is completely useless info lol.
this. get the fumes up and above the roofline and they will diffuse more before reaching your neighbors.
These roofline comments are interesting. My friends also brought it up since restaurants are required to vent up as well.
Unfortunately no access to a chimney from garage
Hope you resolve it–since they may have a point if you’re doing any business related work in your home and either your HOA doesn’t allow that, or you don’t have the proper permit and license to run a business from your home–if they complain about code violations, it could get bad for you beyond just the smell of the exhaust… But if just for personal use, is along the lines of an annoyance like law mowers & leaf blowers & such…
you could look at a solution like this (from the linked post above).
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Yes! this ^^^^^^^
Note the blower at the bottom and the rain cover at the top.
Also the (probably cheaper) downspout at the back that would do plenty well in this case.
However by adding the Vivosun blower my own smoking is considerably less obvious, and the neighbors 20 feet away smoking cigarettes outside a bigger issue if there was one to be made.
Take up BBQing. Done right it doesn’t make nearly as much smoke as people think it does, but it will make more than the glowforge. Soon they won’t even notice your laser cutting.
I consider this before going with the PCV option. They work well for keeping water contained going down, but not so much fumes going up. Not all such spouts are “seamless.” NB: YMMV. If it works for one’s use case, great, but for me PVC was the easy 100% solution.
This looks pretty cool. Is this PVC?
it looks like it. it’s not my build.
That would be my suggestion. I have a cheap carbon filter (link below) and it doesn’t do squat for the smell. Anything that actually works is going to cost a lot to purchase then maintain, as “compact filter” owners are finding.
Well I’m at the point I’m wrilling to invest in a compact filter. I just don’t know if it will since my problem 100% or if I need to put in additional counter measures as well
The compact filter will eliminate all of the odors, you won’t be venting outdoors and (from what I’ve read) you won’t have any indoor issues either. The problem is how much it costs to replenish the filter media. If that’s not an issue for you, then the filter will work out just great.