Alec,
I was looking at the pics of your scrubber and
have some questions.
Your fan motor is in the half with the
clear canister, correct?
[Alec Smyth] The clear can contains sofnolime. Its clear so
I can see the change of color.
It looks like the fan is mounted in the
white plastic. Am I correct, or is the fan inside the black housing?
[Alec Smyth] The
white plastic contains two fans. The U tube puts them in series. If one
fan quits, at least the other continues pushing air through both
cans.
If the black housing doesn't contain the
fan, what is it for?
[Alec Smyth] Well, for one it came with the
proper thread and airtight seal for the canister to screw into! (taken
together, the black and clear part are nothing more than a wet-environment
industrial lamp from the MSC catalog) But it has several other functions
too. It contains a stainless spring-loaded device that presses a perforated
disk down on the Sofnolime to keep pressure on it, so tunnels do not form in
the material. It also makes the clear canister draw from lower down. CO2 goes
to the bottom of the hull. The scrubber draws air in vertically through holes
in the bottom of the clear canister, and expels it horizontally through the
bottom of the secondary white canister. And finally, if my fans were
stong enough -- which unfortunately they are not -- it also just happens to be
the right size to accomodate a standard respirator cartridge of activated
carbon, which is good for eliminating odors or anything else should the air be
contaminated.
What is the clear canister below the black
housing for?
[Alec
Smyth] So that I am not sucking in the air I just
scrubbed.
Why didn't you just mount a fan on top of
the white plastic pipe fittings containing the scrubbing agent instead of
using the U tubing?
[Alec Smyth] The whole idea of this scrubber is that the
fans are completely enclosed by sofnolime in order to keep it quiet. The ratio
of volumes of the canisters is about 3:1, which I found made the
sofnolime in the entry and exit canister get used up at about the same
time. You need less sofnolime in the second can because the air that
is entering it is already scrubbed by the
first.
Thanks, Dan H.