crazyjim Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 Enough talk already! I just talked with Bob Pace and ordered a Pace 24" Super Mini. It should ship Thursday or Friday and I'll see it next Monday or Tuesday. My present spray booth is a plywood replica of the above unit using a bathroom exhaust fan and 24" florescent light. I'll trade it for 3 unbuilt kits and YOU pay the shipping costs. I used 1/2" plywood and it's heavy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMc Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 Enough talk already! I just talked with Bob Pace and ordered a Pace 24" Super Mini. It should ship Thursday or Friday and I'll see it next Monday or Tuesday. My present spray booth is a plywood replica of the above unit using a bathroom exhaust fan and 24" florescent light. I'll trade it for 3 unbuilt kits and YOU pay the shipping costs. I used 1/2" plywood and it's heavy. Your gonna be a happy camper Jim....Well Done! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazyjim Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 I think it'll work. I'm tired of hearing about bathroom exhaust fans that blow up. I don't need more explosions in my life. One tour of Vietnam was enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
935k3 Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 (edited) "sealed motor attached to a high efficiency "squirrel cage" blower, which puts that sealed motor COMPLETELY outside the air stream flowing though the blower" Maybe Paasche has changed the blower, but this is exactly the way the one I have is. I bought mine 9 years ago. Edited August 3, 2011 by 935k3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazyjim Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 What did you do to light it up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 What did you do to light it up? The Pace 24" Super Mini (the one you said you ordered) comes with lighting (two 75 watt bulbs). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazyjim Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 Yeah, I know the Pace unit does, but I was trying to ask Dale how he lights his Paasche unit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 Enough talk already! I just talked with Bob Pace and ordered a Pace 24" Super Mini. It should ship Thursday or Friday and I'll see it next Monday or Tuesday. After you try it out, let us know what you think. A short review here would be great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazyjim Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 Not a problem. I'd be happy to provide a short review. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaronw Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 Enough talk already! I just talked with Bob Pace and ordered a Pace 24" Super Mini. It should ship Thursday or Friday and I'll see it next Monday or Tuesday. My present spray booth is a plywood replica of the above unit using a bathroom exhaust fan and 24" florescent light. I'll trade it for 3 unbuilt kits and YOU pay the shipping costs. I used 1/2" plywood and it's heavy. I think you will be happy with that. I did quite a bit of research before I built my booth and very nearly ordered that one myself. The Pace booths are a bit light in the fan area falling short of the recommended 100 feet per minute, leading to some general criticism, but nearly everyone that I talked to that actually had one was happy with theirs. The only complaint I remember was someone with the largest booth (Peacekeeper?) and even he was pretty happy, just wished the fan was a bit more powerful (occasionally had to briefly stop painting to let it vent). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 The Pace booths are a bit light in the fan area falling short of the recommended 100 feet per minute... ??? According to their website, 3 of their models have a 148 CFM fan, the 4th model (Peace Keeper Deluxe) has a 265CFM fan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikemodeler Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 ??? According to their website, 3 of their models have a 148 CFM fan, the 4th model (Peace Keeper Deluxe) has a 265CFM fan. Harry, I think Aaron was referring to a recommended air flow that was posted on the forum in another post about spray booths. IIRC, Klaus Raddatz had detailed how to construct your own spray booth and he referenced some specs about how much CFM the motor should move based upon the size of the booth. While I like to tinker with things and have built a spray booth (minus the motor), I would rather spend the $$$ on something that was engineered properly and will handle my lacquer fumes without worry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 Harry, I think Aaron was referring to a recommended air flow that was posted on the forum in another post about spray booths. Okaaaaaay.... but isn't 148 and 265 CFM more than 100 CFM? I guess I'm not seeing Aaron's claim that Pace units don't move 100 CFM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazyjim Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 (edited) I built my present booth from the dimensions of the Pace 24" Super Mini, except I used a bathroom exhaust fan. It seems to work fine but I'm tired of hearing about explosions, I have the money, so what the heck? Edited August 3, 2011 by crazyjim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaronw Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 ??? According to their website, 3 of their models have a 148 CFM fan, the 4th model (Peace Keeper Deluxe) has a 265CFM fan. Mike has it right, cfm is how much air the fan moves, but the formula for recommended flow also factors in the square footage of the opening to ensure adequate velocity to pull the fumes out of the booth. So a tiny booth with a 1 ft wide by 1 ft tall opening should have a 100 cfm fan to provide a flow of 100 feet per minute at the face. It is recommended that a cross draft booth pull 100 ft per minute, and a down draft 50 ft per minute. The Pace mini has a 20" wide by 11" tall opening (1.5 feet) By the formula given it should have a 150 cfm fan, so it is just a pinch shy of the 100 value recommended. The Pace super mini has a 24" wide by 15" tall opening (2.25 square feet) so should have a 225 cfm fan but has the same 148 cfm fan as the mini only giving it a value of 65. The Peacekeeper has a 34" wide by 13.5" tall opening (3.2 square feet) so should have a 320 cfm fan, with the actual 265 cfm fan used it only comes up with a value of 82. Ducting further reduces the effective cfm of a fan, not a problem if you just go 2 feet to the vent, but 5, 10, 15 feet with a bend or two can cut the actual cfm by quite a bit. The popular 4" flexible dryer duct creates a huge restriction compared to straight metal duct. Taking the Dayton 265 cfm fan used by the Peacekeeper you will see it makes 265 cfm at 0.0" of water (flow resistance), at 0.1" it drops to 250 cfm, 0.2" 232 cfm, 0.3" 212 cfm, 0.4" 184 cfm and at 0.5" only 135 cfm. With a 4" straight metal duct with a 265 cfm fan you will get 4.17" / water per 100 feet, so 10 feet will put you at 0.4" reducing the blower to 184 cfm. With a 6" straight metal duct on the same blower you get 0.54" / water per 100 feet. One 45 degree bend is equal to 5 feet of duct, a 90 degree bend = 10 feet. Flexible duct causes 2-3x the friction of straight duct (1 foot of flex duct = 2-3 feet of metal duct). So take the Peacekeeper set up with a 2 foot 4" duct out the wall, and you are probably fine, but buy 10 feet of 4" flexible dryer duct, run it to the floor (45 degree bend) then out a dryer vent (another 45 degree) and you could end up off the chart (1.2") cutting the blower to less than 1/2 its cfm. Pace gets beat up a bit in comparisons by "experts" because they mostly fall short of the theoretical ideal (as do most of the available affordable booths), but they do seem to be good enough for the price based on comments of owners. Where you are likely to run into trouble is using a poor duct layout since they don't have any excess fan power, but again this is an issue with most of the lower end (pricewise) booths. I am in no way trying to disparage Pace, I think they are one of the better values out there, just pointing out an issue, make sure you use appropriate ducting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaronw Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 (edited) Okaaaaaay.... but isn't 148 and 265 CFM more than 100 CFM? I guess I'm not seeing Aaron's claim that Pace units don't move 100 CFM. In case my excessively long post doesn't explain this, cfm is the blower rating (how much air flows through the actual fan), the 100 (or 50) rating I was talking about is the flow at the opening so a 2x2 booth with a 400 cfm would only have 100 feet per minute passing though any particular point of the opening. It is why you can't just take a 50 cfm dryer fan and put it on a 2x3 foot cardboard box paint booth, but it would be ok, on a shoe box paint booth. Edited August 3, 2011 by Aaronw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikemodeler Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Thanks for clarifying that Aaron, I knew there was a formula but could not locate it. I do remember someone building a homemade booth with a Dayton fan and ran it through a 5 gallon pail that had a charcoal pile and water to dissapate the fumes so they wouldn't have to duct it outside. Not sure if that is a workable solution but sounds like it could work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Aaron, thanks for the very thorough and detailed explanation. So do any other "popularly priced" booths offer better airflow than Pace units? BTW, I think this is a very informative and important topic. After all... our health depends on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaronw Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Artograph has some nice down draft booths with charcoal filters that do better (only need 50 fpm being down drafts), but they cost quite a bit more and use 3 custom filters instead of a generic furnace filter which adds a little more in long term costs. The filters do supposedly allow the booth to be used without an outside exhaust since they capture the nasty fumes which could be a big plus for some if it really works. The Artograph 1530 is roughly the size of the Pace Peacekeeper but has a retail price of $569 vs $450 (+ shipping, Pace includes shipping in their price). Nice if you have the money but most seem to want to spend as little as possible (same for me which is why I finally just built one). For the most part though I found pretty much everything in the $300 or less range came out between 60 and 80 feet / min if they even provided the cfm of the fan and dimensions of the opening, so about the same as Pace. Annoyingly many booths do not give full specs so you can make a good comparison. By building one I have a sturdy 30x18" booth (1/2" plywood) with a 485 cfm Dayton blower (same type and brand as the Pace booths only bigger) which provides 129 feet / minute at the opening (3.75 square feet / 485 cfm). Total cost (excluding 8-10 hours of my time) was about $200. Here is a neat online calculator that allows you to find the friction loss for a specific size duct and cfm. The outcome is for a 100 foot section of straight duct, just divide by the actual length (so if you only use 5 feet of duct divide the result by 20). You have to remember to add 5 feet for each 45 degree bend and 10 feet for each 90 degree. So a total of 5 feet of straight pipe with 2 90 degree bends is actually 25 feet (5+10+10). http://www.engineeri...loss-d_444.html Mike I do remember seeing an article about running a duct into a bucket of water with activated charcoal (maybe SA or FSM?). It does seem to work but I remember some comments from people who tried it saying that the fumes do eventually come out of the water, so you have to remove the bucket and take it outside after painting. Oh, and I'm not really an "expert" on this, I don't do HVAC or similar, I just read up a bunch when I wanted a booth, and I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMc Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Artograph has some nice down draft booths with charcoal filters that do better (only need 50 fpm being down drafts), but they cost quite a bit more and use 3 custom filters instead of a generic furnace filter which adds a little more in long term costs. The filters do supposedly allow the booth to be used without an outside exhaust since they capture the nasty fumes which could be a big plus for some if it really works. These are the booths that Micro Mark sells....Trust me..even with the 3 stage filters...it needs to vent outside when using lacquers. The three filters are Charcoal, Sticky foam, and paper. I vented into a inside dryer water "setup"...I prefer the window One trick with MicroMark is wait...I bought mine at 50% off during their big sale...I love the Pace booths..due to the cheaper filter replacement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Anderson Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 All the excellent explanatory "engineering" information notwithstanding, frankly, my Pace Peacemaker does an EXCELLENT job of removing the paint particulates (overspray) and the solvent fumes from my model room, to the outside (well, particulates wind up captured in the filter). If we were talking 1:1 scale production spray guns, no way would the Pace, or any other modeler's spray booth system remove all the overspray, but we don't use production spray guns; rather airbrushes (which generally use less paint than a woman might use fingernail polish on all 20 fingers and toes--or at worst, a rattle can. And for that small volume of paint we modelers might use in any one sitting, Pace, or similar spray booths work just fine. How do I know this? This house has central heat and AC, for three apartments. Now, the neighbor lady downstairs will complain of the smell should a housefly pass gas anywhere near her--she's yet to even notice that I paint stuff upstairs here, and guess where there is a major cold air (winter)/warm air return? In the hallway right outside the room I have dedicated to model car building. Art Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie8575 Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 From the Amazon site: Not intended for use with hazardous materials, flammable or explosive paints or materials. Seems like a strange warning for an item sold as a "hobby spray booth." It's called when lawyers design your box and advertising.... Charlie Larkin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazyjim Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 I saw that warning and noticed the Paasche unit doesn't have lights. Those, and an excellent reputation, are why I ordered a Pace unit. Should be here Monday or Tuesday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc @ MPC Motorsports Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 I think you will be happy with that. I did quite a bit of research before I built my booth and very nearly ordered that one myself. The Pace booths are a bit light in the fan area falling short of the recommended 100 feet per minute, leading to some general criticism, but nearly everyone that I talked to that actually had one was happy with theirs. The only complaint I remember was someone with the largest booth (Peacekeeper?) and even he was pretty happy, just wished the fan was a bit more powerful (occasionally had to briefly stop painting to let it vent). I've had my Pace Peacekeeper Deluxe for nearly 5 years with no issues. Never had to stop painting to let mine vent, although when I use automotive rattle cans like Duplicolor it can be a little overwhelming. I mostly use Tamiya and Testors lacquer rattle cans and I do airbrush HOK lacquers and hobby acrylics and have never had a problem with them. I also run mine when I mix and use two-part body filler. It keeps the fumes from invading the rest of the house. My family is quick to remind me when I forget... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaronw Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 Art you demonstrate pretty much what I found. In the many discussions about spray booths I found Pace (and others) get criticised for being under fanned from a design view point, but those who own them are mostly happy. Pace comes up a lot in these discussions because they are a popular booth. I'm not positive but the one somewhat negative report I heard about the Pace Peacekeeper was from someone I am pretty sure used it with a rattle can which would put out a lot more paint than an airbrush, the method of exhaust duct also plays a major part. I am amazed by the number of people who buy a nice commercial booth then slap a cheap (well that explains that) 4" flexible dryer duct on it. On my booth, using 5 feet of duct, 6" allows the full 485 cfm, 4" would cut it down to 325 cfm (more than a 25% loss). If you have to use a flexible duct at least use a larger size, 6" flexible duct is only about $0.80 a foot. and again if my posts come across as negative towards Pace they are not meant to be, they have a good reputation and in my opinion offer one of the better values. I nearly bought the Super Mini myself. I am however very pro do it yourself for those willing to do it right. Talk of shopvacs hooked to a cardboard box makes me cringe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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