Summary
Extractor is the ventilation system I built for the floodlamp oven, PCB reflow and resin work in my bedroom. It began as one fold-out enclosure, an axial fan and a length of aluminium hose poked through a tilted-open window. It grew into two stacked enclosures and two ducts routed through printed adapters into the four trickle-vent slots at the top of the window.
The first major improvement was a centrifugal blower salvaged from an old iMac. The main extractor now uses a much larger 12V blower in a generatively designed printed bracket. It forced some exhaust through the porous FDM walls and around the window interface. I kept the iMac blower beside the outlet to catch what escaped there.
Fan placement still mattered. With only the iMac blower, putting the oven in the front-right corner and opening the enclosure zip at either the top or bottom merely changed where the fumes gathered. Moving the oven directly beneath the extractor fixed that. The larger blower let me put the oven in front of the front-left vertical zip and open that zip fully while keeping the flow inward; the iMac blower alone could not hold that opening without air and fumes spilling into the room.
It works well enough for reflow, annealing and resin work. I never measured face velocity, duct flow, pressure or VOC concentration, so this is a record of a useful workshop tool, not evidence of a certified ventilation system.
Justification
Long, hot runs in the Floodlamp Oven began producing a strong smell. I suspected the painted lamp housing, but never isolated it from the tape, wiring insulation, sealant and everything else being heated. Either way, annealing artificial muscles and reflowing boards needed local extraction.
On 10 October 2025 I bought a fold-out printer enclosure with a light and a small adjustable fan. Laid on its side, it could fit the roughly 300 × 300mm oven beside an Ender 3. A second enclosure later turned the same stack into the resin workspace I used while developing moulds for Pace.
The awkward part was the window. A hose through a partly opened casement left a large gap for outside air to bring fumes back in. Removing the plastic cover from the room's trickle vent revealed four slots, each about 103 × 15mm and roughly 59mm deep. I decided to make those slots the exhaust port.
Parts List
- Two fire-resistant fold-out 3D-printer enclosures
- Original axial extraction fan
- Two lengths of corrugated aluminium duct
- Four-port printed trickle-vent manifold and removable duct adapters
- BSB1012HE-HM00 centrifugal blower salvaged from an old iMac
- SHLF9BMB12P2J619 12V centrifugal blower
- Generatively designed FDM-printed blower bracket
- 12V, 10A, 120W LED-strip power supply
- Co-extrusion PLA and PETG printed parts
- Magnets, stainless-steel wire, heat-shrink and adhesive
Build Log
The axial-fan version
The first system was exactly as crude as it looked: one enclosure around the printer and oven, one axial fan, one hose through a tilted-open window and the curtains drawn around the remaining gap. Even this contained the process and gave the air one exit instead of relying on the room to dilute everything.
The iMac blower
On 31 October I pulled a BSB1012HE-HM00 blower from an old iMac, identified power and ground among its four wires and ignored the PWM and tachometer lines. An early test produced a large spark and briefly made me think I had killed it. I had not; the supply voltage was simply too low. At 12V it moved far more air than the axial fan.
I printed a holder and joined the blower to the duct at roughly 45 degrees. It could pull the fabric enclosure inward. After I assembled the second box it pulled too much air for the setup, so I stuffed the cotton gloves supplied with the enclosure into the aluminium pipe as a temporary restrictor. The cotton gloves worked.
Making the window part of the tool
The trickle-vent manifold took several long prints. Two mirrored halves entered all four slots; further parts merged them into the duct and used magnets so the hoses could be detached without removing the window hardware. The installed adapter reused two screws from the original vent cover.
It is extremely opinionated: it fits one window in one room. That was the point. The duct could rise directly from the enclosure and meet a permanent outlet instead of being crushed into an open window every time I wanted to reflow something.
The enclosure was part of the duct
The iMac blower made the extractor usable, but it still dictated the layout. With the oven in the front-right corner, opening the zip at the top or bottom only changed whether fumes gathered high or low in the enclosure. I moved the oven directly beneath the extraction point instead.
The larger blower changed the geometry. The oven could sit in front of the front-left vertical zip, and I could open that zip fully for make-up air while the net flow remained inward. The same opening overwhelmed the iMac blower by itself and let air spill back out.
The industrial blower
Resin work made the limits of the iMac blower obvious, so in January 2026 I ordered a much larger centrifugal unit. Its listing claimed 12V, 3.8A, 45.6W, 7500rpm, 190CFM and 65dB. I verified none of the airflow figures, but the noise specification was believable.
My first scan of the blower was inaccurate, so I found a matching vendor model and used Fusion's automated modelling tools to generate a bracket around it: faces to connect, bodies to avoid, then a printable result that held the outlet where the duct needed it. The first powered bench test made the assembly hover and skitter like a hockey puck.
Breakage, porosity and the second fan
During one resin print, while the iMac blower was still the primary extractor, I lifted the tent ceiling to remove the printer lid and snapped its wired-in holder. I repaired and repositioned it. The ugly mounting survived because it was easy to alter when the geometry of the workspace changed.
The larger blower later put enough pressure into the printed window receiver to force air through its porous FDM walls and around the window interface. I slung the iMac blower beside it with stainless-steel wire to collect that leakage and send it through a tube into the bottom of the enclosure beneath the industrial blower.
Power
I initially ran the industrial blower from a laptop supply. It survived the first tests, then died after driving the blower for some time. I replaced it with a proper 12V, 10A, 120W supply sold for LED strips, then soldered, heat-shrunk and mounted the final wiring.
The large blower is loud, so it runs while I am actively working and during the purge afterwards. The iMac blower is quiet enough to leave running for longer.
What it enabled
The extractor supported the hand assembly and repeated reflow of Pace and its charge board, then became part of the resin workflow for Pace's moulds. The printer's own cover could retain vapour after the larger enclosure had cleared, so I cracked or removed it during the purge.
Current State
The system remains part of the home workshop. It made long oven runs, PCB reflow and resin printing tolerable enough to use, but smell and visible fabric movement were my only feedback. Neither tells me the actual exposure level.
With the larger blower, printed-wall porosity, seals, outlet area, make-up air, tool position and outside pressure all affected the extractor. If I rebuilt it, I would seal or remake the window manifold, add a simple face-velocity check and move the loud blower farther from the desk before adding any more motor.