By Paladin
Date 11-17-2015 04:30
Edited 11-17-2015 16:21
About 20 years ago I worked in a trencher manufacturing shop that was heated and air-conditioned. They purchased a Lincoln vacuum system for smoke removal.
No one liked the Tweco ( IIRC) smoke eater guns at first. It was like welding with a firehose compared to a regular MIG gun. But I got use to it after a while (built up extra arm strength) and liked it OK.
It worked pretty good with a fillet weld sucking most of the smoke. A butt weld less so. Sometimes it would suck your shield gas away.
I did like not breathing all that flux core smoke.
What I did not like the most was that this Lincoln unit was made to be installed OUTSIDE.
The lovely, thoughtful management put it INSIDE the shop RIGHT NEXT TO ME, and others.
It had the most obnoxious high pitch howl you could imagine for 8, 10, 12 or more hours a day.
At each weld station a 3inch line dropped down from the main 6 inch line. From the 3 inch a smaller hose hooked up the smoke eater gun. At the bottom of the 3 inch was a trap door that one could let debris, flux, out of the line when the vacuum was OFF.
We had a fellow, lets just say his native language was not English, that was playing around with the trap door while the vacuum was ON. It had a powerful suction and would snap that door shut with the vacuum on.
Somehow he managed to let his welding hat get sucked up the 3 inch line. His hat was never seen again.
I'm sure, I hope, they have improved since then.
Floyd