Hello everyone!
So yes this is a smoke, smell and venting post but a different question that I haven’t seen asked. I have a Glowforge with an in-line AC infinity fan and all the proper fittings and sealing. I’ve used it and it cents to the outside of my garage perfectly fine. There is a smoke smell coming from it and that’s what I want to get rid of. I live in an area of Northern California that has been affected tremendously by fires in the last 5 years and everyone is and will probably always be very gun shy about the smell of smoke. I didn’t buy the filtration system because I new I would be venting it outside but I’d really like to not to my neighborhoods PTSD. I’ve seen a few plans on YouTube for active carbon filter boxes added to their Glowforge system, is this the way I should go? Any links or help would be very much appreciated! Thank you
plenty of people in norcal burn wood all winter long in their fireplaces. The amount of smoke coming from the laser exhaust is miniscule compared to a log burning. Good on you for being thoughtful for your neighbors, but I personally wouldn’t be too concerned about it unless you get any actual complaints.
Granted, The place I just moved from near sacramento had remarkable still air, and smoke could linger for a lot longer than I expected on some occasions (but way more of an issue with diesel trucks than with the glowforge)
Hi! Welcome to the forum.
I agree with jbv, Nice of you to be conscious of your neighbors, but the small amount of smoke from your laser will dissipate quickly outside. You won’t get orange sunsets because of it like big fires. 
If you really want to minimize the smell without spending a fortune filtering it, run your ventilation up to the roof instead of coming out at ground level.
As Dan said, the best option is to run the vent all the way to the roof. This is done a ton. If you look at the roof of your house you will see a variety of pipes. One of those pipes is called the stack and is a vent for sewage gases. Notice your neighborhood doesn’t smell like sewage? The same concept applies here.
Ok, so venting to the roof is not possible? Next best thing, short of buying the GF filter, would be to build a shop air purifier. There are lots of people, especially in the wood working community, that build these filter setups based on a box fan and standard filters. The key for you is that instead of a box fan you probably want to use the AC infinity as the fan. Second, and this is the really important part, you will need to make that thing air tight. This will probably be the hardest part. You will still want to vent everything outside but it should remove most of the odor. You can get the Furnace filters that have carbon in them to remove odor.
You can look up a study done, I think my the university of Michigan, where they compared a box fax with a furnace filter attached to really expensive air purifiers. The results were shocking at how good the home made purifier was.
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