ELESHOP ELE-FU1 Fume Extractor

The second fume extractor in the workshop. What sets it apart from the ATTEN ST-1016 is not suction but two other things: the hose and the filters.

The hose comes right up to the joint, so the smoke is caught where it appears rather than somewhere over the bench. And then the air goes through three stages, HEPA included, instead of a single carbon sponge.

About the number on the case

The case is printed 90 m³/h. Eleshop, who sell it, state 23 m³/h in the description — and that is a measured figure.

There is no contradiction: 90 is the fan on its own into free air, and 23 is what actually makes it through the hose and three filters. Go by the second number. For one iron with the hood five centimetres from the tip it is enough; for a hot-air gun blowing smoke across the whole bench it is not.

The three stages

They sit one behind the other and are replaced independently:

1. The cotton pre-filter — white fleece, catches the coarse haze and flux droplets. A consumable, changed most often, and cheap. It is first in line precisely to make the others last.
2. HEPA H10 — a pleated filter that holds the fine aerosol particles, the ones that actually reach your lungs.
3. The carbon cassette — a honeycomb block of activated carbon that takes the gaseous part: the smell and the volatile products of flux breaking down.

Carbon does not catch dust and HEPA does not catch smell. That is why there are three stages and not one.

How to use

1. Stand the body somewhere it does not get in the way of your hands, and route the hose to the work.
2. Bring the hood in from the side and slightly above the board, a few centimetres from the tip. Smoke goes up, and that is where it has to be caught — not from behind.
3. Press Start before you pick up the iron.
4. Solder. If the plume is visibly missing the hood, move the hood, not the board.
5. Switch it off when you are done.

The closer the hood, the better: efficiency falls off very fast with distance. A hood five centimetres from the tip works; thirty centimetres away it barely does. At this airflow that is not fussiness, it is the condition for the thing to work at all.

When to change the filters

• The pre-filter — when it has gone from white to grey-brown. That is normal consumption, not a fault.
• HEPA and carbon — judged by the drop in airflow and by the smell of flux coming back to the bench.

Filters are not washed and not shaken out: a HEPA filter that has been rinsed is no longer a HEPA filter. If you think it is time to change one, tell us rather than experimenting.

Safety

• The extractor cleans the air and returns it to the room. That is not a reason to skip ventilation.
• Do not let wire offcuts and small parts get sucked into the hood — they end up on the filter, or in the fan.
• Do not hold the hood right against a running hot-air gun: hot air does the filters no good.

Access

The extractor is at the soldering bench in the hackspace room, so a plan that includes hackspace access is required. No induction is needed.