I'm not looking at cooling exactly, but will those fans blow the smoke away from my face? I've been stick welding in front of a fan and apparently its not enough to keep the smoke away from me, or else its swirling up into my helmet. I now have a cough I can't seem to shake and I have a lot of hard surface welding to do yet. Just thinking of a way to blow the smoke away from my face is all, anyone have an experience with a fan cooled helmet or for what I need is it a waste of time, I've never had one before, but at this point I'm willing to give anything a try. If not anyone have any idea's? I do own a air hose fed fresh air pump setup, but for welding its never worked worth a pinch of sh*t, too much stuff under the welding hood and for some reason it steams up the lens so I can't see out, that and its almost impossible to weld when using it.
We just use a small squirrel cage fan preferably blowing from behind you
Yair. . . Randy88 I use a fan sucking through a piece of inexpensive six or eight inch "elephant trunk" hose, it doesn't take much suck to grab the smoke and fumes and keep them out of your face . . . you position the sucky end right close by where you are welding The hose is very flexible and light weight and I held it in place with a bracket mounted to a speaker magnet. . . . if you put "welding ventilation fans" into Google images you will get an idea. Cheers.
Right now we've been using a 42 inch barn fan blowing from behind, but we must have air swirling around the machine we're welding on and somehow its getting back up the helmet, first time I've ever had this issue. I'll rig up the suction fan idea in the morning, I've got a few bin aeration fans sitting around and it wouldn't take much to rig it up, never gave that a thought till scrub mentioned it. I've been trying the several fans from different directions thing and that didn't work at all.
In mid 90's I welded alot of galvanized, mainly culvert. I used a Jackson battery pack three filter fresh air set-up. worked real well for me. Truck Shop
They make those?!?!? Man....I have been out of circulation too long...........
I have 2 different Speedglass fresh air setups with battery powered pumps and I believe they now make them to work with both battery or air hose pumps. They're abit pricey but well worth it for maintaining your health.(check EBAY, I bought one there, the pump was bad and Speedglass repaired it free of charge) I actually use mine more when I'm doing a lot of grinding as I can't handle the dust anymore.
There is a helmet made by a company called airstream, with a built in fan, comes with a filter so you get pressurized air under the hood when it is down, doesn't need a tight seal on your face due to the positive pressure. Expensive though. I think 3m makes something similar. How about wearing a respirator, fairly inexpensive option but effective. Ask your question on www.weldingweb.com , you will get all the options available.
Trashman, what I have is actually a setup divers use, we just put an electric motor on it instead of a gas engine. I bought it for working in grain bins and silo's for the dust and mold issues, there it works great, has a full head gear setup with it and my kids have used it for doing some recreational lake diving powered with a gas engine. I originally wanted to do welding with it, but the mask is too large and bulky to fit under any helmet, it has a partial face mask, mainly for the mouth piece, but when you use that, it steams up the lens and you can't see to weld, after using for a while, if you've ever worn a scuba setup before, its not something you put on to weld with, the breathing is far different than a dust mask or face mask. Norite, I've used the simple dust or face mask with filters and those never helped me at all for some reason. I got to thinking today while working, if I hooked my oiless compressor up to a helmet somehow, I could pressurize the helmet and not monkey with the face mask at all, I'd just put the compressor outside in fresh air and run the hose into the shop, I'll have to check into newer helmet options out there that might have the helmet sealed up somewhat, I've seen them at trade shows, just never really looked at them that close before. Couple that with scrubs idea of a suction fan and hose near the work piece and I might have the best of both worlds, pressurized helmet of sorts being fed clean fresh air and a suction taking fumes away from the work piece. Anyone ever done that before, does it work or just in theory, anyone see any downfalls to it I can't see right off hand??
Randy, Since you already have a compressor to supply a system, what about something like this? They are a bit of money, but they'll save you incredible amounts when it comes time for the doctors bills. http://www.criticaltool.com/allegro...F6131E1FB7F5&gclid=CLqKtNb17M0CFZSEaQodxyYKsA
95, that might just be what I'm looking for, I'll call and see what's all involved, as for the price, its far cheaper than some of the other outfits I've looked at on the internet. Anything is better than coughing for days after welding.