Help! exhaust fan for decontaminating USB Typewriter headquarters

[Jack Zylkin]

Hey all, I am psyched about the gala tonight, but in the meantime, I have a question:

 

Does anyone have experience with fume-extraction for workshops? All winter I kept my windows in my shop closed and now I have four months of typewriter funk floating around in there. The hexavalent chromium from all the grinding and polishing I do with my Dremel has probably already killed future me, but maybe if I start now I can at least stop my studio from becoming a superfund site...

 

Anyway, I looked into getting some kind of fume extractor for the worktable , but there are so many kinds out there, at such wildly different prices, I don't know where to begin.  I'm hoping someone at the hive has had a similar problem with a woodshop or painting shop in their garage -- or maybe Chris knows about this from helping setting up Nextfab? 

 

Ideally, I want a box that sits in my window and has an articulating arm or even a hood to suck fumes above my worktable, which is right in front of said window.  I would even settle for a large box fan in the window, except I like listening to the radio while I work and the fan right in front of my face would be too loud. If it is quieter, I would get a separate unit that sits inside or in front of a differnt window and has ducts leading over to the worktable. But all this is speculation because I have no idea what products are appropriate for this, how they fit together, or what such things are even called. Most of the "exhaust fans" I found look like they are really just for bathrooms -- can I use those on my huge workshop? Can I mount a "wall-mounted" exhaust fan in a window? Won't my workspace will get cold in the winter if I am blowing air out of it all the time? I found one product with a fancy "ERV" heat exchanger, but isn't that overkill? Do any of them come with caps or something to insulate the connection to the outside to stop heat loss when you aren't using it? Will they ever make a Zelda movie? Who Michael Cera play Link? Help!

 

The space is about 12000 cubic feet of loft space, with three huge windows on the same side of the room I work on. Any advice or experience would be greatly appreciated.

 

-Jack

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

--
Jack Zylkin
usbtypewriter.com
Philadelphia, PA