Introduction: DIY 3D Printed Fume Extractor With USB Light

By Visit My Site!
About: Robotics | ROS | PCB Designing | 3D Printing

Hey Everyone! It's been a long time since my last Instructable. It feels good to be back!

In this Instructable, I will be going over the process of making a DIY 3D Printed Fume Extractor with an integrated USB Light.

Solder is an alloy generally made up of tin & lead. During soldering, when we melt solder to join components, it releases toxic fumes which are not at all pleasant and really harmful. Prolonged exposure might even lead to sickness.

And thaaaaat sucks :\ But do you know what else sucks? This DIY fume extractor! It sucks the fumes well and keeps you safe. With that, it also provides a USB light which can come really handy while soldering components on a PCB.

This design of the fume extractor repurposes an old PC Fan & a USB Light and allows you to use filters which are easily replaceable! So without further ado, let's start!

Supplies

Here's a list of all the materials used in this project. I have also attached online buying links which I used for the components:

Apart from these components, we'll be needing the following tools and equipment:

  • 3D Printer (I used a reality ender 3)
  • Wire Cutters
  • Screw Driver
  • Heat Gun
  • Soldering Station/Iron
  • Solder and Flux
  • 2 component adhesive
  • Hot glue gun (optional)

Step 1: 3D Print the Parts!

The first step for this build is to 3D Print all the parts. I printed them on a Creality Ender 3 with yellow and black PLA filament (to match the color scheme of my soldering station). I used the following settings for my Cura slicer:

  • 0.2 mm layer height
  • 20% infill in gyroid pattern
  • Tree supports enabled wherever required

And now here is something interesting that happened:

If you look closely at the print of the base.stl file, you can see it consists of two colors fused together (yellow and black). So, what happened there? Well, my estimate for the filament went wrong and it was about to fail at 90% due to filament run out !!😨

So in order to save my 14-hour-long print, I did something I wish I don't have to do again. I decided to quickly join the end of the filament with another one before it completely ran out. I did this by sharpening, heating the end, and then jamming it into the end of the other filament. Believe me, this is not as easy as it sounds :p

Even though the process was a nightmare, the print turned out just fine! And as a plus, it looked amazing while printing :D You can see a video of the print in my tweet.

Also, this helped me realize that I could change the design a bit in order to reduce the amount of support required which saves time and material. It also makes the insides of the base much more accessible. Therefore, I have updated the base and base_cover models. I have attached all the files and their updated versions with this step. You can print any version you feel comfortable with.

Attachments

Step 2: Start the Assembly

Next comes the assembly which is pretty straightforward. Here are the steps which I followed:

  • The fan can be inserted inside the fan_enclosure print in the slot next to the hexagon mesh on the back.
  • Solder wires to the VCC & GND terminals of the USB Header. Insert it into the slot at the top and paste it there with 2 component adhesive. Make sure you don't get any of the adhesives inside the header.
  • You can guide the wires to the bottom of the enclosure from in front of the side walls. I made some 'Wire Guides' using small pieces of PLA which I bent, heated the ends, and just stuck into the walls. They keep the wires from moving and accidentally going in the fan.
  • Next, solder 2 wires on the terminals of the DC jack and insert it into the hole at the back. You can just screw the terminal from inside the base.
  • Now place the fan enclosure on the base & fix it using the M3 screws.


With this done we can now move on to making the circuit for the project!

Step 3: The Circuit

This project contains 2 things that we need to power: a 12VDC Fan and a 5VDC USB Light. Since it is much easier to step down the voltage, it's better to use a 12VDC power supply for the whole project through the DC jack. So we need some kind of power distribution circuit that gives 12VDC to the fan and converts it into 5VDC for the USB Light each with a separate switch. The 12V -> 5V conversion is taken care of by the LM7805 Linear Voltage Regulator.

With this, we need to also wire up a LED indicator to indicate if the device is on/off. And this is it! That's all there is to the circuit. I created this circuit on a perf board by soldering and then inserted it into the base.

A schematic of the circuit can be found in the images with this step for reference.

Step 4: Final Result

And now finally we can insert the filter in the fume extractor. For this:

  • Cut a piece of the filter to the size of the filter_tray using a box cutter.
  • Place the filter on the tray and fix it by sandwiching it between the tray and the filter_stopper. The filter_stopper is fixed on the tray using the pegs on its four corners.
  • After this you can insert the assembled filter tray in front of the fan and you are now done!!

Now enjoy soldering without toxic fumes and in ample amount of light all by repurposing old unused parts through this DIY Fume Extractor!