I started unhooking the vent hose and plugging up the hole at night. It got cold a couple days ago and temp was cold coming in.
I’m not too worried about venting outdoors. I send more smoke into the air when I have my smoker going than the Glowforge
May produce. And it seems like most of the nasties are things we shouldn’t process.
So far the vent has worked just fine. The bed stays clear. I will however try and get to examining what comes out during a print. Not easy since I am generally solo on these projects. Tomorrow I’m having some folks over though.
While the vapor can be more condensed and capture more pollutants, it is also very light and might just be carried away by the air (I don’t know what the flow rate is coming out of the machine), in that case a water mister would be better because it is heavy enough not to be completely blown out of the chamber by the exhaust. So many variables! So many questions! so little answers until we get our units! They really need a “mind blown” emoji.
One key takeaway here is to avoid ducting inside the house under positive pressure. Any part of the exhaust with positive pressure will leak. If a booster fan is to be used, place it outside the living environment if possible, so that it provides suction (negative pressure) in the ducting inside the house.
Except you can’t avoid it entirely, because the GF fan is going to put at least part of the path under positive pressure. (And you don’t want any significant negative pressure on the GF fan, because you can over-rev it and badness ensues).
I’m not too worried about this, assuming a little basic tuning in place. First, because the volume isn’t that high, and second because such systems are at least a little forgiving. There’s a little hole in the flue from our furnace for the pressure check (required by code to make sure there’s sufficient draw), and once I asked our plumbing/heating/electrics guy if that hole should be plugged between measurements. He looked at me as if I were crazy, and pointed out the area of the hole versus the area of the flue…
My comment was directly mainly at the case where booster fans are being used. Yes, there is a positive pressure at the exit of the Forge, but a simple duct run to a window won’t develop significant positive pressure, and won’t leak much at all. Putting a booster fan inline near the Forge, to shoot exhaust a long distance, will end up filling the workspace with fumes, even if the duct is carefully sealed. The housings on all the booster fans I’ve experienced leak badly.
Agree.
Testing my installation of a booster I found every flange in the fan housing assembly needed to be sealed.
Also found the blast gate aluminum frame leaked, so I disassembled and reworked it for tight clearance and sealed the edges with silicone.
So the take-away is that if you’re not up to opening and sealing the booster fan, place it at the far end of the duct run (or outdoors if possible).
If indoors, open a little bleeder hole in the duct near the fan (on the suction side) to suck up the leaking air in the vicinity of the fan, and you should be good to go.
This is the fan I use with my garden it its a one body housing and van not leak air unless your ducking is bad. This fan is way to much for the gf, it would create to much negative pressure but can be controlled 0-10v
They really need a “mind blown” emoji.