Homebrew PCBs

I'm seriously thinking of FINALLY making myself a decent smoke system for
soldering and etching and could use ideas/comments.  I have a 110V 4" fan
that kicks up pretty good, I don't have the CFM but it's quite strong.  I'm
looking for suggestions for the filtering part.  Ideally, I'd like to design
this thing so that I could use it without having to stuff a pipe out a
window (rain and winter).

The soldering station I have now has a tiny filter on it (1" diameter),
sprinkled with what looks like charcoal dust.  I was thinking of using
filters from a central heating system and chopping them up to size.  The
ones I picked up in a garbage bin are unused white 'cloth' type, not the
filament stuff I used to have in a mobile home ages ago.  I figure this
white cloth stuff would capture more particles, I suppose this is where the
charcoal comes in, I assume the particles stick to it.

Any ideas for a source of charcoal?  Would ashes be good?  Or does it have
to be a special composition?

I was initially thinking of using a kitchen range and placing it in a
window, but I need something I could bring upstairs when I'm etching.  For
the liquid tinning, I go outside on the balcony.  I don't want to do that
crap inside, something about the skull & bones on the bottle gives me the
creeps.

Robert
:)



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Fri, 16 Jun 2006 23:28:28 +0200, Robert Hedan  
<robert.hedan@videotron.ca> wrote:

> Any ideas for a source of charcoal?  Would ashes be good?  Or does it  
> have
> to be a special composition?


You need activated charcoal. Get it from ebay, military surplus, 30kg  
around 10eur already in metal filter frames.
Or you can get filters for kitchen fume hoods that recycle the air into  
the room. I would expect a number of other filters are available as  
charcoal version as well.

The purpose of the charcoal is to trap chemicals and stuff, it has a huge  
surface area. I'm not sure it is any good for etchant fumes though.

ST