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Air quality in a community workshop


andrewdlindsay

I am a co-founder and member of a small Hackspace/makerspace/community workshop based in West Berkshire. We have been established in a small workshop for a number of years now. It has the usual equaipment such as 3D printers, lasercutter, electronics area and recently a large CNC Router. With this, there is the potential to increase the amount of dust in the air. Depending on the materials being cut and the effectiveness of dust and fume extraction, there may be an increased risks to health. With ithis being a community space, some members may be more at risk than others.

Some equipment has it's own room, such as the 3D printers and electroncis areas. The main workshop is home to the lasercutter, CNC router, lathe, workbenches and other machine tools. The only ventilation in the room is a rear fire door and a door into the entrance hall way. The lasercutter has it's own fume extraction to outside the building. The CNC router has its own dust extraction to a cyclone type collector.

My project is to use the ESDK to monitor conditions within the main workshop to detect increases in patriculate matter when using the CNC router, VOC levels when the lasercutter is running and general CO2 levels when the space is being occupied. The indicator gives a Red/Amber/Green visual indication of the air quality based on the readings from the ESDK. 

The ESDK is mounted as part of a larger indicator that is to be described fully later. The data is available for other hackspace members to process and visualise as well as integrate into other monitoring and control systems within the workshop.

That's the intro, look out for the full article!

Regards

Andrew

 

 

 

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