Hi Guys
I was wondering if anyone had had any success exhausting the smells from cutting acrylic using the XTool P2. I know I should’ve done a bit more research before I bought the P2 but they said it worked with LightBurn and I believed them (
). I’m getting by though still doing all my work and design in LB just having to export to SVG and then importing that.
That’s not my question though. I’ve been trying and failing to get rid of the smells while cutting acrylic - some of it smells really bad. The mirror-backed stuff stinks and it can’t be good to breathe that in. I’m venting it out of the window through a custom made window insert so I know it’s not coming back in through the window (my machine is indoors, I don’t have the option of having it outside the house). I contacted XTool and they basically said “buy our shiny new inline fan, that’ll sort it”. I eventually relented and bought the fan and it clearly moves more air than the original one but it’s still leaking the smells out of the machine. I’ve removed the original internal fan so that’s not hindering the airflow. I’ve tried taping the hinge joint thinking that’s where it’s leaking out but I’m wondering if that might be making it worse 'cos I’ve blocked off that route for fresh air getting in. I taped it when it still had the old fan and that seemed to help a bit.
Maybe I’m expecting too much for it to exhaust it all but the fan seems to be powerful enough so I don’t understand why it wouldn’t pull all the smells outside.
I haven’t gone back to XTool support again yet, I’m not hopeful they’ll help much.
Any tips for properly exhausting this machine would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
I have an industrial exhaust for my CO2 laser and work a lot with acrylic. To avoid the smell I built a special filter with activated carbon, with an area of about 500x500 and 50mm thick. It held about 2kg of activated carbon and worked for the extracted air for about 2-3 weeks. However, the smell itself hangs in the machine and in the workpieces for quite a while and there is no chance of getting rid of it completely. Sometimes I put workpieces made of acrylic (and MDF/HDF) in a closed box with an ozone generator, it is very effective for eliminating the smell. (but it is not completely harmless in itself…)
All solutions that can be bought for a lot of money only last a very short time before the filters need to be changed.
Best advice from here, as much exhaust as possible and as far away from the house/workshop and hope that the neighbors don’t call the police 