Continuing the discussion from @Curious_Roberto house flooded from Ida. Community Fundraising and help drying:
So, I’m bored and can’t sleep and I’m thinking about these air scrubbers…
Aren’t they just an oversized inline fan with a hepa filter strapped on it essentially?
I mean I’m looking at em and I’m trying to figure out why I can’t get a big ol merv 16 filter, 20 by 25 by 5 inches deep, a uvc hvac bulb kit, and a 12 inch inline fan and build a box to house it all out of ducting and sheet metal.
Put a couple of baffles in the box so no light gets out, then turn it on?
Thoughts anyone?
I’m still getting either a rental or one of those ones I posted earlier, but I like to tinker and I have all this crap on my mind soooo
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You just need the proper velocity fan to push through the restricted hepa filter but that should work just fine.
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That’s why I thought of an inline fan?
Don’t they have enough ooomph to pull through something like that?
(I’m forgetting the word for suction power lol, so I’m using ooomph)
I know little booster fans don’t have the suction power to pull through that much filter, so I was just trying to think of an equivalent fan that could be used.
Maybe an hvac motor?
Edit: also, I only mention that sized filter because it’s the biggest and highest merv rating I could find on Amazon
static pressure is the important measurement for the ability to push/pull through a filter. Inline fans are pretty capable if you size it right
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I’m sure there’s some place where you can find the proper cfm needed to pull through so much filter.
I haven’t gotten that far yet tho.
check out xtremesystems or some old PC air/watercooling stuff, there’s a lot of info about matching fans with radiators and heatsinks based on fin density and static pressure
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You don’t need anything fancy. I’ve hooked up a duct fan to a big exhaust baffle that I wrapped with poly filter media.
The filter media by itself won’t stop much particles, so you’ve got to spray the filter fuzz with some kind of goop. I’ve used lots of things for this purpose, some spray adhesives work well, lacquer works well, lots of oils work well too. Spray paint works well too…
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Doesn’t the filter get all that though? That’s why I wanted to find one with that much depth and that high of a merv rating.
Tbh, once my hvac is up and running again I’m gonna install this uvc thing I’m seeing.
Edit: also thinking of how this could be rigged up for a little home grow too
Depends on what all you’re trying to clean from the air, but those filters are rated I’m such a way that they allow for particles to slip by.
Some types like this I’ve got here have tackifer already on them.
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I like the cut of your jib sir
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I think the purpose of these kinds of filters is to slow down the velocity of the incoming particles so that they can’t travel thru as effectively, but it doesn’t eliminate them.
If you make the filter surface nice and sticky, even small particles will stick to that as long as they actually come into contact with the surface.
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Well right now I got mold remediation on my mind lol.
But in general, for the future when things are normal, my basement is always musty and I’m sure it’s not a great environment. So it’d be something to reduce all that crap
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Lol I wonder if u could use some soluble copper salts to make a spray able goop that’ll kill the mold particles as they contact it
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Mix some stump killer with liquid cement and spray it???
Sounds awful hahahaha
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More dust and shit being retained on the surface should help your filter efficiency too. Could just keep spraying it down every so often with something.
When I worked construction the general would use marking paint on the filters for the air handler units they had scattered around the job sites.
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Ur lucky I havent trashed this thing yet 
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That’s basically what I was thinking except with a uvc hvac kit in between to give it extra ooomph lol
Saw one that used 2 bulbs for not too much.
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How quickly does UV kill airborne microbes? Is there a paper that explains the relationship that light intensity, volume of coverage of light, and air flow have on uv ability to sterilize?
