My Paintbooth...revisited..

[fatfingers]

Last night my blower motor locked up. I know why and how it happened.

I attached the blower motor directly to the back of the box in which I do the painting.

According to the information provided to me by rjbass, the motor should be segregated from the box. In other words, it should be detached completed and housed in a separate box. You build the booth, and connect it to the separate box (which houses the furnace blower/exhaust fan) by using 4 inch corrugated hose, and then exhaust it outside with another section of 4 inch corrugated hose.

What happens if you attach the exhaust motor directly to the paintbooth is the squirrel cage collects the particles from your paint work and eventually begins to wobble. In my case, the wobbling was minor, but the paint particles eventually got into the bearings despite the filters I used, and last night it began to squeal a bit and finally locked up and quit about the time I was done (luckily).

If you segregate the exhaust unit, the 4 inch corrugated hose collects most of the particles on the ribs inside the hose, before the particles can reach the motor, because the stuff is heavier than air and the air tends to cause the paint particles to dry on the longer journey to the motor and beyond to the outside atmosphere.

I'll go about getting another furnace blower unit and some hose, and I'll be back at it in not time, but I thought I'd share this info for anyone thinking of building their own.

The video clip rj sent me said this would happen eventually, but I had built the paintbooth already and figured I'd use it till it quit. It took about 50 baits before it locked up, which is alot when you think about how much primer and paint I threw throught it.

...Back to the drawing board...

[landor]

Fatfingers,

Here's a couple of links you might be interested in. The paintbooth your building is described pretty good in the video link. Also be sure to check out the rest of his web site.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3903621338367109945&hl=en

http://www.fishcarver.com/eds_paint_booth.htm

Bob

[rjbass]

That is the same video that fatfingers is talking about. It is a good video and website.

Rod

[fatfingers]

Yea, that's the same one rj sent me a while back. That's how I'm going to model the next one.

The first one performed well as far as the size and the lighting is excellent. What I think I'll do is remove the blower, close up the hole in the back and vent from the sides near the bottom as shown in the video. I'll also use a larger fan this time since the last one was a bit on the small size.

I'd like to find a way to mount the fan box outside the shop so that I don't have to listen to the noise while I'm painting. I like to listen to radio or CD player when I paint and I'd prefer to not have to crank it up over the blower noise.

[landor]

Maybe you could try the mounting blower motor box on the floor and build another box that's lined with insulation or sound deading foam and place it over the blower motor box. That's what they used to do years ago to deadon the noise level on the old dot matrix printers, don't know how well it worked only saw it in a catalog and they were made out plexiglas. Just a thought.

Or you could saved the money you would use to build it and get a set of wireless headphones.

Bob

[fatfingers]

That's also a great idea. I have to think about several options really. I could mount it downstairs in the room below and vent it out from there. The insulation idea might be simpler, but between that and the wireless headphones I would lose some of the sound quality on Dark Side Of The Moon and that will not do.