Exhausting Laser Outside

[Bart Black]

For those of you who exhaust lasers outside thru a length of pipe:

Is gunk buildup in the pipe an issue, ie: cutting / engraving wood and plastic?

I’m looking at a run of either 80’ of equivalent 4” pipe across the shop which gets the blower in a noise abatement area or maybe 45’ of 4” pipe to a closer wall but the blower noise would not be abated.

[Kev Williams]

Downstairs, my one piece of 4" dryer hose and the one blower have been sucking smoke since 2002, only issue at all is once in awhile I clean the goo off the intake 'grid' once in awhile. However, I don't cut wood or plex all day every day like some folks do.

As for noise-- I have 2 blowers, the one mentioned above and one in the garage, which has a 6" dryer vent outlet, which is only about 8' from the blower itself... below is a video I made of how much noise exits outside, you'll see it's barely audible. I also mention the blower sounds 'blaringly loud, but it's not'-- really, it's not- on the other side of the wall the blower is against is our living room, and the only time we can hear it is if the TV isn't on. And even then you only barely hear it--

[Joe Pelonio]

When I moved from my commercial space to my home shop in 2007 there was a th layer of residue inside the 4" PVC, and that was after 4 years running 8 or more hours a day. Here, since then I only go about 4' and have cleaned it once, not as much use and not as dirty. I hope you have a good fan to go 80', mine went 25' and that was close to the maximum for my 600 cfm Fantec inline to clear fumes and cool the machine.

[Bart Black]

My thought is to use a dust collector blower, probably one saying to does 1300cfm or so, somewhere in the 1.5 or 2hp range. To be clear, the run isn't 80 actual feet, it's the "equivalent" with elbows and flex pipe. I use my dust collection system now which is "2hp" but probably operating above it's class because it works so well. The main problem with that setup is that it doesn't do anything for the plastic smell.

[Robert Bonenfant]

Hey Bart,

If your gonna be doing alot of cutting and your in a commercial space - Check with your laser machine dealer and see what they offer or recommend. We clean our vents about once a year (did it once so far it wasnt bad) - Our machines pipes go straight up about 30 ft out the roof three feet above the roof line with no problem and we cant smell anything in the warehouse - No wood smell or plastic. Our dealer offers three options of blowers to remove the smoke and debris - They are designed to run all day none stop and we run them 10 - 16 hours a day depending on our work load. If your getting alot of smell you either dont have enough power to remove the fumes or a leak in your system - Even a tiny gap will push fumes back into the work area. Lastly depending on your setup make sure you have a way to get good air back into your work area or your exhaust system wont be as effective. We have three lasers in a large enclosed room in my warehouse without a air intake into the room we would be creating negative air pressure. Made that mistake when I first started out :-)

[Bart Black]

The smell I have now is because the dust collector vents back into the space thru it's filter; It's a woodworking system, not means for this. It does a good job of evacuating the laser and even taking care of the smoke but the smell makes it all the way thru.

[John Lifer]

And with this type of system, you should be PULLING the air out.
Not Pushing it thru the pipe.

Put the blower outside!

THAT will eliminate holes and leaks from pushing smoke/smell into your work area. If you are pulling, a hole will just pull room air into it.

[Kev Williams]

And with this type of system, you should be PULLING the air out.
Not Pushing it thru the pipe.

Put the blower outside!

THAT will eliminate holes and leaks from pushing smoke/smell into your work area. If you are pulling, a hole will just pull room air into it.

CONCUR BIG TIME!! The only reason my garage blower isn't outside is simply because I haven't found time!

[Robert Bonenfant]

This works for all of our machines and can be found cheaper if you want to use Ebay - $237 - I hate to spend extra money but using a exhaust blower will allow you to work nonstop - You can also setup a sound damper box for the blower, I had to do this in my garage years ago, Couldn't hear it inside the house and neighbors left me alone during my late nights :-) (Nothings worst than your friendly neighbor banging on your garage door asking "Rob what the Hell are you doing, Its 12:30 at Night)

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