I was using a Nova tent in my unfinished basement darkroom for my printing trays and have set up a 6” duct fan to blow into the large bottom hole in the tent,inflating it, and then exiting at the top of the tent. I have routed that to a basement window with a dryer vent flap installed. There are a couple of problems with this - 1- it blows air from the floor up to the ceiling to extract fumes, right by my face, and 2- it is a PITA to go from the enlarger station outside to the tent and back.
So, I am currently using printing trays on a table in the open outside the tent. I light proofed my entire basement and the area is pretty large - so it isn’t a tight space. But I likely going to set up some form of fume extraction system and the most obvious approach to me is a 4“ diameter PVC pipe with holes drills in one side to run the length of the table a few inches above the trays connected to some flexible hose (6”) or more rigid 4” PVC pipe and adapting and inserted the duct fan in-line. And I would of course vent this out the window.
I have found some materials that my make this easier (though costlier!) but I want to see if anyone has any experience with it . It is Powertec dust collection hoses and pipe- it all comes in 6” and has couplers, pipe and hose. Does anyone have any experience with this type of dust collection system? I can’t see why it wouldn’t work to pull fumes as easily as dust. Also I am trying to decide if I should use 6” or 4” as the initial exhaust section over the trays, and then expand those to 6”. It seems having a smaller diameter initially may increase the air flow and draw the fumes from the trays into the system more efficiently than a larger diameter - but I’m not sure if it will make a huge difference - again, any experience or views on these ideas?
Many thanks!
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