Explosion-proof fans on Amazon - can they be trusted?

What’s the door for in winter? You mean to keep cold air from coming in thru louvers? Where was intake air coming in from? How were you maintaining temp during winter? I have a couple 36” fans in square plenums but they move wayyyy too much air for my space. Being negative pressure I’d be scared I’d be moving all sorts of junk around with that much cfm. So think I’ll try my 20” I’d rather it take an extra minute to clear out. I plan to build a plenum similar to yours that holds a handful of filters to hopefully make them last longer.
 
Ok, let me dig some pics up here. I had cut holes in the roof of my old garage to let air in.
 
Oh my,,, here are a few for the box fan mafia!...This is before I even painted out of my garage. I got hosed out of a paint job on my car that I prepped for someone.

I recently found an old hard drive so thats why these old pics are coming up.

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I was so irritated. I went and bought a $15 purple gun and just did it myself.
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Yup still done fine looking paint jobs! Ok so squirrel cage in there at that time so no louvers to help keep cold air out? Did you filter the intake air? How did you stay warm with that setup in the winter? Just gathering some ideas. I like seeing other small shop/home setups. Some of the best work I’ve ever seen has come out of diy setups believe it or not.
 
Also, I must note that the squirrel cage deal worked great except that I was drawing air on the wrong side of the fan and it would over heat and shut off. You have to pull air on the motor side, at least for this one I did. It turned off a few times and I lost interest in it and ordered a new fan from northerntool.

One plus side on the squirrel cage deal is its quiet!! Especially on the outside.
 
The first picture of the small one I bought from Granger 10 to 15 years ago, its 14inch like my garage at home paid about $700.
In the following picture, we just installed 4 more, much bigger and cost about $800 each.
Ours meet all legal requirements as far as explosion-proof.
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Also, I must note that the squirrel cage deal worked great except that I was drawing air on the wrong side of the fan and it would over heat and shut off. You have to pull air on the motor side, at least for this one I did. It turned off a few times and I lost interest in it and ordered a new fan from northerntool.

One plus side on the squirrel cage deal is its quiet!! Especially on the outside.
Yeah I had a squirrel cage at one point. Didn’t seem to work well in negative pressure where it was exposed to overspray. Got a bunch overspray built up on it after a while and got very out of balance. Damn near shook itself apart. That one was NOT quiet lol. How did you stay warm in the old setup? Torpedo heater?
 
my ceilings there were just under 8ft. but there was an opening in the back where I had it positioned. It actually works much better in my current garage since my ceiling is insulated.

Hey look at this more pics! I am relatively certain it did not pass any type of code! But it did keep the garage warm for many years. The walls were insulated, just not the ceiling.

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The rest of it was a low ceiling so I could store stuff above my work area. No basement and 3 kids was kinda tight!
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Here’s my booth. The filters are COLMET-A582020-C50~20"X20" A Series Exhaust Filters from auto body tool mart. I don’t have the cold issues as much here but when the temp does drop down I just use a small electric heater. My booth is small since I’m just doing this panel by panel but I think this vent fan would work for a bigger booth if I just increased the intake ventilation. I think my work is coming out pretty decent so far. No idea if I’m going to blow myself up but haven’t so far. My neighbor burned his house down because of the heater in his turtle enclosure…. The turtle lived!

Jason
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And heres the fan I got. It was the highest CFM I could find. I put the colmet filters in front of the fan then run the duct out of the garage. If you are standing in the garage you can smell nothing so it seems to suck the fumes out of the booth well. I thought about getting the activated charcoal for the exhaust side but I found that if I put a mister head on the garden hose near the exhaust it cuts the solvent smell to almost nothing.

https://www.vevor.com/products/12-e...MIta3D_87X9QIVRg-tBh1ZyAL2EAQYBSABEgKHyvD_BwE
 
After watching many YT videos on garage and small shop painting, It appears to me that epoxy, 2k primer, and products like Father-Fill don't generate a high volume of overspray when applied with an HVLP or HTE gun. I am basing this on picture clarity while spraying and the fact that no effort was made to covers walls and equipment.

- Is my assumption correct?
- Would I need to put up plastic sheeting to protect my garage during the "pre-basecoat" products application, i.e. epoxy, 2k primer, poly primer, and sealer?

I know I will need to use protection for color and clear.

-----
Emil
 
I think it depends on how nice your garage is and whether you care if you cover it in powdery stuff. The feather fill and 2k have noticeably less overspray but not 0.

Some of these guys on YouTube sandblast and spray and don’t seem to mind shuffling around in filth. I vacuum and blow my booth out before I spray color and there is a decent amount of overspray to clean up. But sanding makes a huge mess of too.
 
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