AI6YR BenTrying to deal with wildfire smoke? Here's the best thing since sliced bread for massively improving the air quality in your room/apartment/house/etc.
How to build your own Corsi-Rosenthal Box
btw, I converted mine to PC fans, and they are SO QUIET. My family hates the sound of fans, and they can't even tell the box I usually have on is running... keeps the AQI usually sub 10 (working harder to keep up this week though, so more like 15).
If you are not the DIY type, this kit has everything you need for a PC fan Corsi Rosenthal (from CleanAirKits), you have to also buy the filters.
https://www.cleanairkits.com/products/brisk-box-basic-kit-original
Corsi Rosenthal Box | Clean Air Kits
Clean Air Kits are super efficient air purifiers built simply from banks of silent PC pressure fans and 3M Filtrete virus+allergen filters. Quiet enough to leave on always, powerful enough to protect from airborne pathogens like Flu, RSV, Strep, & Covid-19
sasutina13a is-a sasutina13a@ai6yr I've used similar to keep PC guts clean. I put flexible dryer duct between the filter box and the PC's inlet fan. Positive air pressure from the filter keeps the dust mice out of everything and prevents fouling the power supply and heatsinks, and overheating. Disabling the ion generator, if there is one, keeps it from zapping anything to death.
@sasutina13 I should do that, the dust bunnies are getting out of control in my PC, even with the Corsi running lol.
@ai6yr I had a PC in a clean work area and it still collected them. It's as if the PC was itself a filter.
@sasutina13 yeah, I think they are essentially electrostatic dust attractors, lol.
Darth Osler@ai6yr @sasutina13 they even collect in PCs in class 1000 clean rooms
Ask me how I know
@ai6yr @sasutina13 however, at a VASTLY reduced rate and scale
Yes. Even in class 1 cleanrooms. Mostly it's that superfine, submicron dust that sticks to everything.
Carsten Franke@carstenfranke @ai6yr @sasutina13 Pfizer
Used to work in a group of their clean rooms doing mammalian cell culture
When we cleaned between campaigns, we got to clean the PC's. Cruft would accumulate, even over the course of 3 months.
I think it was worse there because the clean rooms were kept at extremely low humidities. Like a dew point around 0-5°C at the time. Helped reduce biofilm formation or something
@carstenfranke @ai6yr @sasutina13 and kept the tyvek suits way more tolerable to wear for up to 8 hours at a time
That sounds much nicer than 20C at 50%RH in full GoreTex--while slaving over hot wetsinks and reactors... And, hopefully, your mask kept your airways from drying out too quickly.
@autolycos @ai6yr @sasutina13 that sounds like a fun job! But the low dew points must have been tough. I never looked inside the PCs in the clean rooms I worked in. Should call some friends ...
@carstenfranke @ai6yr @sasutina13 considering how much of the rest of me was covered, I don't remember it being too bad.
It was 20 plus years ago now, so some of the discomforts are likely forgotten
@autolycos @ai6yr @sasutina13 I spent way too much time in factory size class 1000 / 100 clean rooms. Long walks, heavy, hot equipment. All while covered in plastic suits ... I think it was about 9 years. Fun, but exhausting.
@carstenfranke @ai6yr @sasutina13 6 months was enough for me, but with the Army Reserve stuff at the time, I was pushing 70-80 paid hours a week most weeks, so I was happy to move on to a non-clean room job after at U of Nebraska, Lincoln
24 years in class10,000 to class0 and everything inbetween, from cotton smocks and paper bouffant caps to full polyester bunny suits to GoreTex suits with Dryden Shields (think powered HEPA filters that clean your breath) and almost full-face reverse respirators. It was...educational...
@sasutina13 @carstenfranke @ai6yr oof
I'm not worthy
@sasutina13 @autolycos @ai6yr oh my, how did you survive that? How do people in chip manufacturing survive that for years? I found it extremely taxing.
For me, it was taxing. There were frequent burnouts. But it also paid very well at the time.
Boss was OK with the burnout leave until someone started screaming about being all alone and having too much to do... But it was really because he would disappear, go home and sleep for several hours before coming back, and pretending he had never left, and was pissed off that he couldn't do that when I was out. Nevermind that I did my job and his while he slept or took retaliation time off--nobody noticed that part.
But he was probably more pissed off that I could actually do both my job and his at the same time and get everything done.
John Tinker@sasutina13 @ai6yr
While on this subject, I have seen PCs that were destroyed (processors cooked) by dust clogging up the heatsinks.
While on this subject, I have seen PCs that were destroyed (processors cooked) by dust clogging up the heatsinks.
I've seen power supplies catch fire due to all the fluff and dirt clogging them, as well.
Simon Zerafa@sasutina13 @johntinker @ai6yr
Laptops resting on duvets tend to fail in short order. Full of dust and debris and they overheat 😟
Elyse M Grasso@simonzerafa @sasutina13 @johntinker @ai6yr I have always used a lapdesk with my laptops (partly because I prefer mice to other pointing devices).
I had a very thin plastic lapdesk that I used when traveling.
Never had a computer choke on dust.
I had a very thin plastic lapdesk that I used when traveling.
Never had a computer choke on dust.
From Robin with Love@ai6yr oooh. This is a great idea. Those box fans are loud…worth it, but loud.
EQ@eq Yes, there's some derating of room size, but the decibels are an order quieter. Makes it possible for me to just run the filter 24/7 vs. when there's bad air quality or someone is sick. Tradeoff...
@ai6yr Think there was two kinds of PC fans too, one is better at sucking air through a filter than the other. Was too long since I played with PC fans though. Got filters on all ours to keep the dust out of the PC's.
Saw a friends 90 MHz Pentium try to flame the dust when the fan stopped working. Or might have been the 3D card. Was somewhere around Voodoo times, memory foggy. Smelled horribly. 🙂
Pusher of Pixels@ai6yr interesting, I'd have thought smaller would need far higher rpm and thus noise
Roy -- the dull oneNice tip about using the electronics-cooling fans for less noise. Thanks!
Come On Giant Asteroid!Oh, yeah. I bought one of those. They claimed that they were exempt from all tariffs and duties (as they existed in T***p's head at that instant) and we got it delivered, in Canada, in a reasonable time without any "extra" costs. Things been running in the bedroom since last year (don't ask for dates - no idea!).
The duct-tape & carboard C-R is downstairs.
Matt Cengia@ai6yr oh nice! Bizarrely the biggest challenge I have with this DIY is that Australia doesn't seem to sell this shape of box fan! PC fans could be a good alternative though! (I currently have a small air purifier so this isn't as critical, but still good to know!)
@ai6yr Not in the class of "fans designed to circulate air around a room" that I could see. If I'd looked for "fans designed to be mounted in exterior walls or similar" I might've had more luck. This is what I get when I search "box fan", which is uh, not very boxy: https://www.bunnings.com.au/products/electrical-smart-home/air-conditioning-fans-cooling/fans/box-fans
There are these, which are better, but their frame shape could make for an awkward seal:
- https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/heller-30cm-box-fan-1
- https://www.harveynorman.com.au/dimplex-50cm-box-fan-with-top-mounted-dial-control-matte-black.html
They're also more expensive than I'd have expected.
Nazo@mattcen @ai6yr Generally speaking PC fans have too little static pressure to be used with heavy filters. I've seen a few big brands like Noctua offer some options for that, but they're quite expensive. Enough so I wonder if importing one large box fan wouldn't be cheaper than getting 4+ of those.
(To be clear, that is not to say you won't get any output at all, just that it would be too low to be useful. You need to process a large volume of air with these things for them to really do their job.)