Delta ShopMaster Ambient Air Cleaner with Work Light

[John Hunter]

Anone have one of these? I have several Lowes gift cards and am thinking of picking one up. I will have to first figure out if it will handle my shop. here is the info from their website. The shop area is 24' X 16' with an 8' ceiling.

Two stage filtration including pre-filter and 5 micron inner filter
Air flow 400 CFM with filters & 450 CFM without filters
Integrated flourescent light
Eye bolts for suspending from ceiling
Separate hanging on/off pull cords for lamp or fan
Easy grip handle for portability
Includes (2) black open cell pre-filters and (2) 5 micron inner bag filters

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?actio...100&lpage=none

[wardprobst]

I have a similar unit and used it in my old shop 20 x 20 x 8 and it worked pretty well. I think it will circulate your air about every eight minutes if I figured it right.
That's a good rating for full time use and should be good for your space.
DP

[rockybrown]

i saw one of these on clearance at lowes in austin,tx today. it was on the table with a bunch of other stuff at 50% off. maybe a chain wide thing?

hope this helps,
rb

[lcm1947]

I've been looking at them for the longest time but haven't gotten one yet because I just can't see how they would be effective. They just seem too little and underpowered to filter a whole garage let alone a bigger shop of any kind. My Jet model AFS-1000B for example has 1044 CFM and the lower setting has 556 CFM where these little rigs only have 400 CFM. Wouldn't you need at least a pair of them to do any good? Not trying to bad mouth the product but just truly interested my self on what other more knowledgeable people know. I guess what I'm saying is wouldn't you be better off spending another $100.00 and getting a full size one? I just can't figure out where they belong in a shop unless directly over a certain tool but even then I'd want a larger one too. I can't imagine they could move the air around even close to what the larger air cleaners can do and even then I don't believe they can completely change the air in a 20x20 garage in the time they say they can. I think mine's suppose to do it in like 7 minutes or such. I just doubt it but sure wish it to be true. I worry about that alot especially having been a smoker for the biggest part of my life. I don't think my lungs need any more abuse but that's another topic. Again not trying to knock the product just can't see they'd be very effective.

[John Hunter]

i saw one of these on clearance at lowes in austin,tx today. it was on the table with a bunch of other stuff at 50% off. maybe a chain wide thing?

hope this helps,
rb

If I had seen a deal like that today I would have bought it on the spot! No such luck here.

[John Hunter]

Mac,

Those are some of the very reasons I posted here. Hoping someone with greater knowledge will answer them. I have a 2 HP HF dust collector but now need something to collect what it misses at the machines.

[TheRic]

lcm1947: CFM => Cubic Feet per Minute
Cubic feet in your workshop is Length X Width X Height
Unit CFM X 60 Min / Cubic feet of workshop - times per hour of air circulation.

So if your workshop is 25 ft long, 15 ft. wide, and 8 ft tall that would be 25X15X8=3,000 cubic feet of air. The Delta at 400CFM (that was what was mentioned) would circulate the air about 8 times in an hour (400 X 60 / 3,000). Your Jet on the high setting would circulate the air about 20 times an hour (1044 X 60 / 3,000). On the low setting would circulate the air about 11 times an hour (556 X 60 / 3,000).

If you really want to get into it you could subtract the space your tools/cabinets/wood/etc is taking up from the cubic feet of your garage. You could also calculate the lack of air flow around said items. You could also calculate the lack of airflow as the filter gets clogged. I don't think anyone here does any of that (not even Loring ). Calculating the cubic feet of your workshop in rough numbers will do just fine.

If anyone wants to double check my number and correct me if I'm wrong, please do. I don't want to spread wrong info.

[drumpriest]

One of the magazines had an article about this last month. (or month before?) The gist of the article was that the low end ambient air cleaners didn't really outperform a 20" box fan with a furnace filter attached. At 20$ or so for the box fan, and the filters being a common size, it seems smarter to me than an ambient air cleaner.

Note though that when you get up near the 1000 cfm mark, the air cleaners start to be a big win.

The triangular shape is a downside, if you ask me, as the filters would be delta only, thus more expensive than other alternatives.

[LCHIEN]

The thing that's getting lost in these numbers is, how effective are they really?

What does it mean to you when you change the air in your shop 6 times or 10 times per hour?

If a particle of sawdust floats around, will it really be captured in ten minutes that it takes to change the air?

Lets assume we're talking about particles small and light that are suspended in the air for hours, as opposed to the bigger particles that fall out in minutes due to gravity. I'm sure someone knows what relative sizes these are but I don't know offhand but I'll assume the particles in the 1-10-20 micron sizes are the ones that float for a long time, also the ones that are bad for your lungs. Lets also assume our hypothetical AF has sufficient air flow (CFMs) to filter equivalent one room volume of air in 10 minutes, which is 6 changes per hour.

A given particle floating in the air is not guaranteed to be captured by the filter in the ten minutes say it takes to change the room volume of air. Its really more of a probablility thing since it may escape... lets say it has a 75% probabbility of being captured in one air change equivalent time of ten minutes. Thus in ten minutes we have a 25% chance that rascal escapes. In 20 minutes we have a 25% x 25%
so we have this power series. I put it in Excel and in 6 changes we have .024% chance that the particle escapes given perfect air randomization (remember brownian movement? That's why you can smell popcorn everywhere in the house even when its cooked in the kitchen).

so chances are it won't be around for long ( and that's whay I leave my air cleaner on a timer for a couple of hours after I leave the shop).

But what does that really mean? According to Wikipedia the human average respiratory volume is 5-8 liters per minute. or .2 to .3 cu ft per minute. I guess there's 2 ways of looking at that -
a 500 CFM AF would be 1500 to 2500 times as likely to ingest that one particle floating around... or
if it just keeps the air clean you likely won't be breating it in.

In the end, its really all about probabilities, not actual facts and figures.

Buying a bigger AF just improves the probabilities.

[linear]

I'm tickled pink and purple with my DIY air cleaner. Now that I have some hours on it, I can say it works impressively well. My fan is rated 450 CFM, and I pull air through two furnace filters in series, one cheaper pleated one and one fine dust ($$) model. I have saturated two outer filters in the last two weeks, so I know it's producing some tangible benefit. I'll post up some pics tomorrow.

Also I dunno what a replacement filter for the Delta will run you but I get mine for about 2 bucks and they're 20x25".

Added pic:

[John Hunter]

Thanks for all the information everyone.

[JSCOOK]

I'm sure someone knows what relative sizes these are but I don't know offhand but I'll assume the particles in the 1-10-20 micron sizes are the ones that float for a long time, also the ones that are bad for your lungs.

FWIW, it might be worth mentioning is that a typical human eye can only see single particles down to approximately 40 micron in size on ... so we are also really talking about the stuff we can't see too (unless clumped together) ... some interesting facts regarding dust & particles:

http://www.lakeair.com/particle.html

I also fully agree with Loring's theory about the percentage chance of the particles being captured (similar to hydraulic filtration which I deal with on a regular basis) ...

[drumpriest]

Hey Rob, where'd you get your fan?