Affordable, Compact Workshop Air Filtration System for Hobbyists & Small Shops.
The post talks about a DIY workshop air filtration unit, and the comments show a lot of interest and different takes on it, highlighting a real need. Many woodworkers and DIY enthusiasts deal with fine dust that their primary dust collection systems just can't catch. A commercial product could step in with a more polished design, better performance, quieter operation, and handy features like a compact size, ceiling mounting options, variable speed, timers, and remote controls. This would be perfect for hobbyists and small shop owners who want cleaner air without the hassle or expense of industrial systems. The potential perks include not just unit sales but also steady income from proprietary filter replacements.
Origin Reddit Post
r/woodworking
Shop filtration unit
Posted by u/KremitOG•05/28/2025
Around $80 in parts, 4000 CFM floor fan with four HDX MERV 13 filters. Shop is around 900sqft so this might be overkill but seems like it’ll do the job
Top Comments
u/Shoplizard88
Looks great. Will you hang it from the ceiling or put it on wheels?
u/Potential_Fishing942
We made ours so my wife could actually park in the other half of our garage. Even waiting until the next day after I'm done working in there, her car would get a nice dusting.
u/YEEEEEEHAAW
Wouldn't you want this blowing the other way so that the dust isn't all on the outside of the box and able to fall off and get back into the air?
u/Vermicelli14
I'm not surprised, it ends up coating my glasses
u/Electrical-Divide885
Just to make sure I understand what you’re saying here, the intake is on the back side of your setup (the side facing the wall), with the fan blowing into the filters? I’m assuming there’s ab
u/bored123abc
Beginner question: What is the use case for this? It catches the airborne sawdust that’s not caught by the collection system hooked to your equipment?
u/bored123abc
Beginner question: What is the use case for this? It catches the airborne sawdust that’s not caught by the collection system hooked to your equipment?
u/KirbyGlover
Very clean work, I like it. Something I'd considered for my home set up was making a pre-filter stage with some MERV 8 boys to catch the bigger dust so it wouldn't clog my MERV 13 boys as fas
u/itsfraydoe
Got a pic?
u/friendlyfredditor
It's definitely just re-inventing a filter bag on a blower.
u/Potential_Fishing942
I actually made a second one for a whole house air purifier. These can circulate huge amount of air.
My father is seriously allergic to our cat, but if I put this on high in our basement (we
u/NordicCrotchGoblin
I'd flip the fan around and make some Alton Brown's beef jerky on the slow days.
u/jacobwebb57
hvac guy? i bulit mine out of a blower from an old furnace
u/ahtahrim
A lot of it can end up in your lungs too. Before I knew what I was doing I would get a really bad cough the morning after working in the shop. I thought I was getting some kind of infection,
u/tazmoffatt
Pretty much, you’d be surprised how much fine dust floats around in the air for hours that will almost never settle from the slightest draft or movement. If you find a dust collection system
u/jacobwebb57
hvac guy? i bulit mine out of a blower from an old furnace
u/MapleMallet
I built a mk1 and will build one or two half sized units and have them ceiling mounted. Then I'll have clean air blowing downwards where I'm working
u/similarityhedgehog
Corsi Rosenthal box
u/tazmoffatt
I found that my old squirrel fan had greater fan speed output than input and didn’t seem very effective to me. I had a Dewalt jobsite fan kicking around. Turns out it was 13,000CFM and works
u/DaxDislikesYou
I just used a $12 box fan for mine and it works great. I would make yourself a sock out of a stretch knit fabric. You'll greatly extend the life of your filters while catching even more debri
u/bmxdudebmx
She's a real beaut, Clark.
u/tazmoffatt
Pretty much, you’d be surprised how much fine dust floats around in the air for hours that will almost never settle from the slightest draft or movement. If you find a dust collection system
u/KremitOG
This configuration draws air in through the filter and blows out clean air. If it was the other way, it would just be blowing all the dust from the filter out
u/tazmoffatt
https://preview.redd.it/ckzlgf8plg3f1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a4f7814890e5efd0ed6125e122bd577be8f2c259
Lives here for now. Planning on hanging it with a smart swi
u/Shoplizard88
Looks great. Will you hang it from the ceiling or put it on wheels?
u/Fantastic-Artist5561
Must be nice to be rich… let us know what that’s like one day grasshopper.
u/-HOSPIK-
I just blow it outside instead of into a filter
u/KremitOG
Exactly
u/tazmoffatt
I found that my old squirrel fan had greater fan speed output than input and didn’t seem very effective to me. I had a Dewalt jobsite fan kicking around. Turns out it was 13,000CFM and works
u/Taraxus
Looks like the fan is on the left-hand side. Then it’s pulling from the room into the box, with filters on at least the bottom and front, with possibly filters on the top and back as well. Mo
u/NordicCrotchGoblin
I'd flip the fan around and make some Alton Brown's beef jerky on the slow days.
u/Phi_fan
if you got that much dust, it's time to change the filters.
u/Hopwater
It was an established design before these guys "invented" it as an airborne viral particulate collector. It just irks me that they didn't the credit the fact that it was all over YouTube pre