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An Affordable Air Purifier For Dusty Computer Labs?
Alcimedes writes "Our lab has a serious issue with dust. I've had a number of power supplies stop working because of dust clogging up the fans, and it's getting annoying. So I'm looking into some kind of small (under $500) air filtration system, and was wondering if anyone else out there has already gone down this road. If so, what did you buy and would you buy it again? I'd prefer something where I don't have to keep buying filters, but that may just be a pipe dream." Anyone with cats knows the feeling. Can you suggest a reasonably priced answer to dust-borne failure?
Not only that, but the Environizer's cleaning rod can be removed and jsut rinsed off... IIRC the ionic breeze thing needs to be wiped with a rag/paper-towel etc. Just make sure to read the instructions, there's a step int here to clean the wires so it doesn't buzz. You have to flip it upside down several times to slide a cleaning thing up and down the wires...
Sponge!
Consumer Reports is the best source of imformation about consumer level products around. They buy everything off the shelf so they don't get tweaked demo units, they do not accept advertising so they can remain unbiased, and they use repeatable scientific methods to test the products. Why would anyone not like them??? Just because you have had some kind of psychosematic aleviation of your symptoms does not mean that scientific principals are suddenly invalid.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The way the ionic air purifiers work, you should move it *away* from the computer to get maximum effect. The way that you are doing it, when the device pulls dust back towards it, some (most?) of the dust will get diverted by the air flow of the fans. In fact, I would suspect that by putting the device *next* to the computer, you are actually increasing the dust flow to the computer.
An ionic air purifier has two parts. One sends out charged ions which collide with particles of dust and impart a charge to them. The other is an area on the unit itself that has the opposite type of charge. I've never used one, so I don't know how effective they are. However, given the way it works, it seems logical to me that the best place for it would be away from the computer. The desired effect of the device is to pull dust into its area. Instead, it might be better to have it so that it pulls dust away from the computer. Besides, I would think that throwing electric charges (which is the basis of the ionic effect) around near a computer would be undesireable.
Common sense helps, but please realize that not everyone has it. Therefore, those with common sense need to make sure it is enforced on those without it.
I have a specific example. I'm currently working at a place that prints a lot of mail. Hence, thousands of tons of paper, millions of chop cuts and trim pieces running through pipes. Paper dust is EVERYWHERE, despite a massive bag house where thousands of CFM are filtered out to the high 99's.
Next to the baler, where all the trim paper goes to be disposed of, is a computer for recording waste tonnage etc.,. It is in a totally enclosed, forced-air filtered box, and the printer is in a smaller version.
That's all well and good, but after changing about three filters, accepted maintenance procedure currently consists of removing the clogged filter. Period.
Other PC's have not been treated as well. When I used to work in IT there, I opened many a computer that was half full of fluffy dust. Thankfully those were Pentium 100's, so it wasn't the hot 60's or any modern chip....
Find some way to do it, then make sure it happens.
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All this talk of ionic and HEPA air filters is missing the first question: where is the dust coming from? Maybe you can take steps to reduce the ingress of dust into the lab. Maybe you need to punihs people for leaving the lab room door open to the dirty outside air...
If it's a university computer lab in a realtively modern centrally-ventilated building, it might just be enough to have a positive-pressure airflow of filtered air to push the dust out of the room. You might be able to hang the charge to the Buildings & Ground's account.
I am not really surprised how many people think that devices without fans or filters work. Wake up people. It is the same physics that make the ions stick to particles that proves that a volume of air is required to pass thru a filter if you want your air cleaned if at all. All scientific studies show that a filter (glass or carbon) must permit some pollutants to pass through in order to work. The larger the volume of air, the harder to filter, the more displacement needed (the bigger the room, the bigger the fan needed). If you have a small computer lab that you need to keep clean, a real hepa filter rated for the volume of air in your room will help. I have a small honeywell filter that was allergist recomended, I also have 4 severs and a workstation always running in my office. They collect dust no matter what. I dust gear once a month. Stay away from fanless devices. It is like filtering your room with a piece of cardboard (i dont know if anyone remembers the N.S.A. scandel that involved air filters) I have to agree with all the posts for cleaning and vacuming. That is where you start. Keep the enviornment and the gear clean first. Filter the air second. Clean again third.
One of the managers at a company ( which is no longer ) that I worked it looked at things like this.
I am an engineer. This is how I see it.
You lose a power supply. No big deal - but in the process of losing the power supply, you corrupt your system. Big deal. This could be very costly to recover from.
Now, even if you were lucky and the system suffered no damage from the failing power supply, you have the time to account for to take the system offline, obtain, and replace the supply. Time is expensive. You are now losing on two paths: You can not use the machine, and you are expending time finding parts and fixing the machine.
Personally, I find it much much more expedient to provide the infrastructure for trouble free operation than to let things fail and try to fix them. Yes, the power supply is cheap. So are engine bearings. But saving money by scrimping on oil changes is hardly a way to "keep companies running smoothly and profitably", rather, as an engineer, I see this the quickest way of running a company into the ground with soaring overhead maintenance costs.
Given my own knowledge of the costs involved and failure statistics, I would opt for prevention, but should the company see fit to make me subordinate to someone who sees fit to override my judgement, I would obey, but find somewhere else to work, for the higher-ups are apparently clueless about the mountain of maintainance costs heading their way - and have no idea how much the management skills they hired is really costing them.
I normally would not be so straighforward, truthful, and harsh in my reply, but you did post AC, so I feel you are fair game.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Humour aside the first thing to do is to work out why the environment is so dusty to cause these problems. Is it lack of cleaning. If you are trashing systems for the lack of an hour a week with a decent vacuum its a bit silly.
Similarly look for environmental issues - crumbling concrete floors for example.
Failing that you could just buy fanless PC's in future 8)
Do you realize that you just suggested to the poster that he should replace his currently working solution with the destruction/abandonment of five animals, engaging in household renovation, and otherwise altering behaviors that are enjoyable? (shakes head) slashdot. Jeez, the guy has anecdotal evidence that the breeze works for his wife. There can be all sorts of individual case reasons why it works in this situation, but it does. So why not accept that in this particular case, given lack of contrary evidence, the Ionic breeze is producing the desired results? Disregarding a datapoint without reason is just as bad science as asserting a general rule from an anecdotal response.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.