Silent dust vacuum - Need ideas/guidance

[lmagalhaes]

Hi there,

My girlfriend has a beauty saloon and she does manicures and things like that. To remove nail polish (the one that cures with UV light) she uses a drill. She had this small dust vacuum, which was basically a PC fan with a bag (https://tulsicosmeticsonline.com/content/images/thumbs/000/0005510_aspirador-unhas-de-gel_600.jpeg), and noticed that alot of the dust was accumulating around it and spreading to the rest of the shop. She has since bought another dust vacuum, which is a bit better, but besides leaving dust all around, it's really noisy. She uses a mask and glasses, but that dust seems to be able to pass through the mask and goes into her mouth and she then starts to have some health issues, so this has to be solved.

She has searched around and saw a dust vacuum for 800€ on aliexpress which, apparently, is "the best". Since it's aliexpress and 800€, I'm not to keen on spending that much for something that might or might not work and that may be really loud. They have a quick video of it working and it's impressive. They claim it only produces 55dB of noise, but we all know how the internet works.

Now, my background is in electronics and programming, I'm not a very handy guy but I'd like to try and make her something that would work, preferably embedded into her desk (a cheap one from IKEA). The problem is I don't know where to start. I've seen Dave's video on the PACE fume extractor and the vacuum that she has is basically the same: a filter and fan crammed together in an aluminium case. I could also get some Noctua fans, but if they aren't strong enough to pull fumes, they sure aren't strong enough to pull heavy particles. Also saw on the comments that fans that close to a grill would make it louder because of the obstructed air flow, so even if I bought a "silent" fan I could screw it up with the filter and grill positions.

My idea was to just make a hole in the center of the desk, screw a grill on the top, have a particle filter attached to it and have the fan screwed on the bottom side of the table. But that would blow air on peoples feet, which wouldn't be so pleasing. So maybe after the fan, it needed a 90º curved tube blowing the air straight into a wall or something.

Does anyone have any ideas/documentation/projects I should look up in order to do this and have a go at something?

Thanks !

[Kjelt]

Actually your girlfriend is milling or sanding the nails which makes the dust go in to the air with quite some force.
So to prevent the dust from going in to the shop I would first suggest some enclosure that will keep the dust in that vicinity, since she has to see what she is doing this would be made from polycarbonate plastick transparent plate. Then suck the dust from more than one place so two sides.
Problem you have is to get a sufficient airflow to suck up the dust, that is not going to work with a 5W fan or something like that, you need serious power and airpressure.
My suggestion would be to use a regular household vacuum with no bags (so Dyson and the likes) place it external in a noise isolated chamber and use a large diameter 50mm or more PVC pipe (the grey plumbers pipes) to the beauty salon there you can tap it of per workplace towards a somewhat smaller diameter (25mm) to that enclosure. Then a remote control button on the enclosure with light that activates the vacuum in the other room.
Something like that. You want something local small  and silent, you will not get any good airflow/suction at all.

Then there is one more thing to take care of, using plastick tubes and plastick enclosure and vacuum airflow, you need to take care of static electricity build up.

[001]

The best solution is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_vacuum_cleaner
Put Your turbine into basement

[ConKbot]

A work bench that is a down draft table would be a good route. Whole tabletop has holes, and downward flowing air. A mesh on top with hole sizes according to the smallest object you'd want to sit on it.

A box plenum to pass the air sideways to an off-the-shelf air filter unit, but allow space for the client/stylists legs to sit under it like a normal table. The local air velocity is low, so its quiet, but enough volume is moved so that dust still gets entrained even if it's flung a small distance. Plus with the large volume of air, it should keep nail polish remover fumes below the LEL and be perfectly safe to use to accelerate drying if desired.

[741]

That sounds like a good suggestion.

I was going to mention I once read an article on pesticide-free bug removal for agriculture. It was somewhat similar in that the system used both push and pull (blower and extractor) together.

[_Wim_]

Look for "woodworking dust collection", similar problem, many solutions available, but as high flow (=much power) are always required, placing fan/motor in other sound insulated area as suggested above will always be necessary.