**Building a DIY Air Purifier**

The first step in building this project was to wire up the fans. This was relatively simple, as I only needed to connect the negative side of the fans to the negative side of the power supply plug, and then attach a short lead to the positive side of the fan. The other end of the positive side was connected to the switch, with the positive side of the fans going to the opposite side of the switch. This setup allowed me to test the system and make any necessary adjustments.

One of the key components of this project is the filter. I used a larger-than-essential filter, which will provide plenty of airflow for smaller projects in the future. The filter was relatively easy to attach to the frame, and it came with some pre-drilled holes that made mounting a breeze.

To create the frame, I started by cutting down a piece of plywood using a miter saw. This was a simple and straightforward process that required only minor adjustments to the angle of the cut-offs. The pieces were then glued together with wood glue and clamped in place until they dried. Once dry, I sanded the entire surface to smooth out any rough edges or splinters.

Next, I needed to attach the hinge to the filter. To do this, I cut down a piano hinge using my metal cutting saw, which proved to be the best tool for the job despite its unusual shape and purpose. The soft wood made it easy to mark the center point and drill the holes for the hinge pins. Once the hinges were attached, I marked the pivot points on either side of the mat and drilled holes for the arms to go in.

To create the silicone mat that provides a heat-resistant surface for soldering, I mixed up some five-minute epoxy and applied it to the bottom of the hinge arms, sliding them into place once dry. The result was a smooth, flat surface with no visible seams or imperfections. To protect this surface from damage, I applied two coats of spray lacquer.

Finally, I needed to assemble all the components together. The switch and fans were relatively simple to hook up, and the silicone mat proved to be an excellent choice for protecting against heat damage. The entire system is designed to fold up when not in use, making it easy to store and transport.

**Personal Experience and Recommendations**

The result of this project was a surprisingly robust and effective air purifier that exceeded my expectations. However, I did have some minor regrets about the design. In retrospect, I think it looks like a robot, which may be off-putting for some viewers. To address this issue, I would recommend adding a small decorative element to give the system a more human touch.

In terms of cost, this project is extremely inexpensive. The fans and filter are both relatively cheap components that can easily be sourced from most electronics suppliers or hardware stores. The silicone mat was also easy to find, although it may have been possible to find an alternative solution for those with limited resources.

Overall, I highly recommend building a DIY air purifier like this one. It's a great way to learn new skills and create something useful for your home or workspace. With its compact design and foldable construction, it's perfect for small spaces or frequent travel.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey I'm Bob and I like to make stuff today we're going to make a combo third-hand and fume extractor a long time ago I made a video about making my electronics desk and in that I mentioned making a fume extractor for when you're doing soldering work well I'm just finally getting around to actually doing that and I decided to throw in a couple of extra features one being these third-hand arms so that they could hold on to your work while you're soldering and making this whole thing collapsible so you can take it with you alright let's get to it I started by measuring the 4pc fans that I was going to use so that I knew the size of frame to make I took some 1 by 4 pine to the miter saw and cut a 45-degree angle on one piece and then realized it would be easier to work with short pieces rather than this one long board so I chopped it down into four equal pieces I got one piece measured correctly with a 45 degree angle on both ends and then I set up a stop block so that I could cut the other three exactly the same way for each one of these boards that cut a miter on one end and split that end up against the stop block to cut the other one exactly the same on the table saw I kind of dado and each one of these pieces that was just a little bit wider than the fans that we're going to go in there I used a few drops of CA glue to glue all these fans together into one brick I made sure to put all the wires going towards the center this will be handy later when I'm wiring it up the glue dries really quickly and then I was able to test fit it inside the frame it fit pretty well so I took them back to the table saw flipped them around and cut another dado to hold the filter with those cut I cut them down to their final width I traced out the outside of the fan block onto the filter and then just cut it out with the utility knife this stuff's pretty thick but it cuts very easily I used some blue tape on the back of these joints to hold them together so that they were nice and tight while I glued them up again I used CA glue mainly because I was in a hurry and I didn't want to wait for wood glue to dry and it actually worked on on the fans I cut off the connector ends and then stripped both the black and the red wires then I soldered all the red wires together and all the black wires together making them in parallel I added one output wire to the end of these clumps and then I put on some heat shrink tubing this just helps protect the joint from getting a connection that you don't want a heat gun makes this stuff shrink right down to the right size I set the depth of my drill press to just shy of the thickness of the material and then drilled a relatively large hole right in the center I used a smaller bit to drill through hole right in the middle of that he's the same bit to knock out a larger area for the switch to slide through then it was just a matter of wiring it up I wired the negative of the fans to the negative of the power supply plug and then a short lead onto the positive amount of this in the frame and then did the other end of the positive to the switch the positive of the fans went to the other side of the switch and it was ready to test these things move a lot of error you could definitely get away with fewer than 4 fans then it was time to mount the filter everything slid right into the box and I added some more CA glue and glued on the top with all the connectors the wires just go in between the fan and the filter and they seemed fine in that space while that was drying I cut down a piece to use for the main soldering area and this was just half-inch plywood scrap that I had laying around I used some 1 by 4 cut offs from a previous project and just cut minors on them like I had before with a miter saw I followed basically the same procedure as I did with the other frame and then I just cut them down to the right thickness I glued these up with wood glue this time in the clamps and then I just waited for them to dry notice the small little pinch clamps I have on the corners these help keep these pieces aligned because they tend to slip with the glue in there while that dried I figured out how to mount the hinge onto the filter I cut down a piano hinge on my metal cutting saw I would not recommend using a regular wood saw for that I cut it down to the right length laid it in place and marks where the holes need to be this woods really soft so I went ahead and Center punched the holes before driving in the script I took the work area out of the clamps gave it a quick sanding all over and then figured out the center point so I knew where to mount the fan I got an overlaid held it in place marked it pre-drilled it and screwed it on just like before silicon is heat resistant so I used it for the work area that way when hot sutter falls on it it won't mess up the surface using that size as a reference I mark two points on each side of the mat to drill holes for the arms to go in I drilled those holes with a simple Forstner bit I kind of lucked out here in that the alligator clips I got fit perfectly on the inside of these flexible coolant hoses that was easy I mixed up some five-minute epoxy wrapped it around the bottom of these arms and slid them right into the holes I covered this whole thing with a couple of coats of spray lacquer just for a little bit of protection then it was time to put it all together the switch and the fans were super simple to hook up and you can see how well they work here for pulling away the fumes the silicon mat also worked really well I intentionally dropped hot solder on it it came right off with no damage plus the whole thing can fold up and be stored away when you're not using it that's pretty awesome this thing actually turned out really cool and works way better than I thought it would once I got it put together though I realized that it looked a lot like a robot so I think it needs one more little touch perfect overall it's a very inexpensive project these don't cost very much the fans don't cost very much in fact the filter on the back was the most expensive part luckily the one that I bought is way bigger than I actually needed it to be and so I have multiple uses out of that single filter personally I would have chosen probably a different mat if I had a bunch of options but this is actually the only one I could find in this rough size everything else was a lot smaller or a lot bigger I suppose you could always get a bigger one and cut it down if you really wanted to it's like me you like to do electronics and some soldering then having this set up is really really handy makes it a lot easier to hold the work so you don't have to worry about holding all the pieces and the soldering iron at the same time and getting these fumes away from you is always a good thing one note if you do something like this make sure that you get at least an activated carbon filter on the back a HEPA filter will not do what you need it to do you need an activated carbon filter at least I hope you like this one let me know you think about it down in the comments I've got lots of other types of projects that you might be interested in some electro Nexen woodworking but also 3d printing prop making all sorts of other stuff don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell down there so that you get notified as soon as I post a video that's it for this one thanks for watching guys we'll see you next timehey I'm Bob and I like to make stuff today we're going to make a combo third-hand and fume extractor a long time ago I made a video about making my electronics desk and in that I mentioned making a fume extractor for when you're doing soldering work well I'm just finally getting around to actually doing that and I decided to throw in a couple of extra features one being these third-hand arms so that they could hold on to your work while you're soldering and making this whole thing collapsible so you can take it with you alright let's get to it I started by measuring the 4pc fans that I was going to use so that I knew the size of frame to make I took some 1 by 4 pine to the miter saw and cut a 45-degree angle on one piece and then realized it would be easier to work with short pieces rather than this one long board so I chopped it down into four equal pieces I got one piece measured correctly with a 45 degree angle on both ends and then I set up a stop block so that I could cut the other three exactly the same way for each one of these boards that cut a miter on one end and split that end up against the stop block to cut the other one exactly the same on the table saw I kind of dado and each one of these pieces that was just a little bit wider than the fans that we're going to go in there I used a few drops of CA glue to glue all these fans together into one brick I made sure to put all the wires going towards the center this will be handy later when I'm wiring it up the glue dries really quickly and then I was able to test fit it inside the frame it fit pretty well so I took them back to the table saw flipped them around and cut another dado to hold the filter with those cut I cut them down to their final width I traced out the outside of the fan block onto the filter and then just cut it out with the utility knife this stuff's pretty thick but it cuts very easily I used some blue tape on the back of these joints to hold them together so that they were nice and tight while I glued them up again I used CA glue mainly because I was in a hurry and I didn't want to wait for wood glue to dry and it actually worked on on the fans I cut off the connector ends and then stripped both the black and the red wires then I soldered all the red wires together and all the black wires together making them in parallel I added one output wire to the end of these clumps and then I put on some heat shrink tubing this just helps protect the joint from getting a connection that you don't want a heat gun makes this stuff shrink right down to the right size I set the depth of my drill press to just shy of the thickness of the material and then drilled a relatively large hole right in the center I used a smaller bit to drill through hole right in the middle of that he's the same bit to knock out a larger area for the switch to slide through then it was just a matter of wiring it up I wired the negative of the fans to the negative of the power supply plug and then a short lead onto the positive amount of this in the frame and then did the other end of the positive to the switch the positive of the fans went to the other side of the switch and it was ready to test these things move a lot of error you could definitely get away with fewer than 4 fans then it was time to mount the filter everything slid right into the box and I added some more CA glue and glued on the top with all the connectors the wires just go in between the fan and the filter and they seemed fine in that space while that was drying I cut down a piece to use for the main soldering area and this was just half-inch plywood scrap that I had laying around I used some 1 by 4 cut offs from a previous project and just cut minors on them like I had before with a miter saw I followed basically the same procedure as I did with the other frame and then I just cut them down to the right thickness I glued these up with wood glue this time in the clamps and then I just waited for them to dry notice the small little pinch clamps I have on the corners these help keep these pieces aligned because they tend to slip with the glue in there while that dried I figured out how to mount the hinge onto the filter I cut down a piano hinge on my metal cutting saw I would not recommend using a regular wood saw for that I cut it down to the right length laid it in place and marks where the holes need to be this woods really soft so I went ahead and Center punched the holes before driving in the script I took the work area out of the clamps gave it a quick sanding all over and then figured out the center point so I knew where to mount the fan I got an overlaid held it in place marked it pre-drilled it and screwed it on just like before silicon is heat resistant so I used it for the work area that way when hot sutter falls on it it won't mess up the surface using that size as a reference I mark two points on each side of the mat to drill holes for the arms to go in I drilled those holes with a simple Forstner bit I kind of lucked out here in that the alligator clips I got fit perfectly on the inside of these flexible coolant hoses that was easy I mixed up some five-minute epoxy wrapped it around the bottom of these arms and slid them right into the holes I covered this whole thing with a couple of coats of spray lacquer just for a little bit of protection then it was time to put it all together the switch and the fans were super simple to hook up and you can see how well they work here for pulling away the fumes the silicon mat also worked really well I intentionally dropped hot solder on it it came right off with no damage plus the whole thing can fold up and be stored away when you're not using it that's pretty awesome this thing actually turned out really cool and works way better than I thought it would once I got it put together though I realized that it looked a lot like a robot so I think it needs one more little touch perfect overall it's a very inexpensive project these don't cost very much the fans don't cost very much in fact the filter on the back was the most expensive part luckily the one that I bought is way bigger than I actually needed it to be and so I have multiple uses out of that single filter personally I would have chosen probably a different mat if I had a bunch of options but this is actually the only one I could find in this rough size everything else was a lot smaller or a lot bigger I suppose you could always get a bigger one and cut it down if you really wanted to it's like me you like to do electronics and some soldering then having this set up is really really handy makes it a lot easier to hold the work so you don't have to worry about holding all the pieces and the soldering iron at the same time and getting these fumes away from you is always a good thing one note if you do something like this make sure that you get at least an activated carbon filter on the back a HEPA filter will not do what you need it to do you need an activated carbon filter at least I hope you like this one let me know you think about it down in the comments I've got lots of other types of projects that you might be interested in some electro Nexen woodworking but also 3d printing prop making all sorts of other stuff don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell down there so that you get notified as soon as I post a video that's it for this one thanks for watching guys we'll see you next time\n"