Laminar Flow

[Faan]

Is there perhaps someone on the forum that could give me guidance in building my own laminar flow box/cabinet? I have thought of something that is not more than a meter/3ft long. To buy a new cabinet is far too expensive to only grow orchid seeds in it. Alternatively guide me to a good website where I may obtain plans.
Thanks

 

[SlipperKing]

One of the most expensive items will be the HEPA filter itself. Depending on the size of the filter, you will be able to make a small "hood" or some what bigger. Find a filter.

 

[gore42]

Construction is pretty simple, it looks like. They have plans and a basic explanation of the concept here:

http://www.orchideenvermehrung.at/english/index.htm

Good luck!

- Matt

 

[cwt]

Fly up once a month and use mine. Or phone UCT, Talk to the lab people. The problem is the filters, they are imported, but labs get a cataloque where parts, services and second hand lab stuff are advertised in. Tukkies is replacing theirs later in the year, apparently its cheaper than redoing the filters, byt i know someone who can test them and tell you if they still will work for you. Both mine were checked two weeks ago, I have the number.
Will cost you a box of cabernet....

 

[Faan]

Charles,
Have you ever tried a bottle of Bonne Esperance? This is a KWV wine and you can only get it if you have a quota.
Please let me have the number. Will Tukkies be replacing the whole thing or only the filters?

 

[Faan]

Thanks Matt, I see they have a lot of useful information on their site.

 

[Roth]

I will explain later, but basically, when I moved laminar flow hoods to Viet Nam, one broken severely. It was a US$14000 equipment, the 2.8m one with vertical and recycling.

I discovered that there are 3 blowers (because it is a wide one), 1 pressure gauge, 1 rheostat to control the blower speed, and the UV light (optionnal I would say). Basically, the 14000 equipment was cheap metal and the above mentionned equipment ( Made in China for the blowers, as I found out).

For HEPA filters 116cm ( for the 120 cm hoods), I paid for the spare part 320US$ ( but I wanted a special class) for a new one. I check, and the price in the Netherlands for a Class 100 HEPA are around 180-220$. Some filters are US$140 only from another company. A blower of very high quality is about US$180 ( Korean one) or US$80 (Italian). So my guess, if you know how to cut metal and build a metal box, is that you can have a LFH for 500$ all included, for the very high quality one. I will put a scheme of the one that broke, you will have to follow it, and you have a vertical flux recycling laminar flow hood...

 

[Candace]

I built my own using some ideas from the web. Basically it was an air filtration/hepa filter mounted onto a large plastic tub. I found it too small to work in comfortably and still contaminated all my flasks. :< In the future, I'm going to send off all my good crosses and only dabble with those that aren't as important to me.

 

[cwt]

They are replacing the whole units, and if you look at Sanderianums post, you understand. the prices of good filters are prohibitive for us.