Ventilation / VOC filtration

Connell

Connell

Connell

Associate
Joined
13 Sep 2015
Posts
101
I'm in the process of building an enclosure for my Ender 3, but I'm a bit confused about best practices regarding ventilation and VOC filtration.

Looking through the designs on thingverse, many use hepa filters designed for vacuums, but from what I can gather, they don't really do much do filter out VOCs. In addition, the specific filters they use are fairly difficult to get for a reasonable price, and sellers don't make a habit of specifying dimensions, which makes it hard to find a suitable replacement.

So I was wandering:

Would a single, yet significantly thicker layer of activated carbon alone provide suffient filtration?

How effective is activated carbon?

Will a filter be enough for printing ABS, or do I need to run ducting from the enclosure to vent the air externally (quite difficult given the layout of the room)?

Would foam or pellets be best? Most designs on thingverse use foam, but most air purifiers use pellets (from what I can tell).

And lastly, I have a 2 fan choices:

200mm Bitfenix Spectre Pro

2 x 140mm NZXT FN V2

Should I use the larger fan, as it would provide a larger area for the activated carbon, or the 2 smaller fans, as they would likely provide greater airflow?

Sorry for the torrent of questions. I've spent the best part of 2 days trying to figure this out and I feel less certain about it now than I did to begin with.

Thanks in advance.
 

bulb66

bulb66

bulb66

Associate
Joined
12 Jun 2005
Posts
1,762
Location
Suffolk
I've never looked into building an enclosure, so can help I'm afraid. But have you considered buying an enclosure made for the task? Won't be cheap but if your that worried about it might be an option.

J
 

Connell

Connell

Connell

Associate
OP
Joined
13 Sep 2015
Posts
101
bulb66 said:
I've never looked into building an enclosure, so can help I'm afraid. But have you considered buying an enclosure made for the task? Won't be cheap but if your that worried about it might be an option.

J
Click to expand...
Options seem to be quite limited. Creality make one, but it's about £100 (shipped from China) for a very basic enclosure that wouldn't solve the ventilation problem. Other than that, there's a UK made enclosure from a company called Kora, but it's way more than I could afford at the moment (£550!). Cheers for the suggestion anyway.
 

bulb66

bulb66

bulb66

Associate
Joined
12 Jun 2005
Posts
1,762
Location
Suffolk
Connell said:
Options seem to be quite limited. Creality make one, but it's about £100 (shipped from China) for a very basic enclosure that wouldn't solve the ventilation problem. Other than that, there's a UK made enclosure from a company called Kora, but it's way more than I could afford at the moment (£550!). Cheers for the suggestion anyway.
Click to expand...

The the Creality one and WhamBam one are more for safety/temperature control. It was the Kora one I was thinking of, it's a nice looking setup, but had to many add-on costs for me.

You got Twitter/Facebook account? A FB group would probably be a good place for advice on this sort of thing.
 

Connell

Connell

Connell

Associate
OP
Joined
13 Sep 2015
Posts
101
bulb66 said:
The the Creality one and WhamBam one are more for safety/temperature control. It was the Kora one I was thinking of, it's a nice looking setup, but had to many add-on costs for me.

You got Twitter/Facebook account? A FB group would probably be a good place for advice on this sort of thing.
Click to expand...
The Kora does look really nice. Just a shame it's so pricey.

Yeah, might have to ask elsewhere. Thanks for the help.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom