90mm CPU fan solder fume extractor

90mm CPU fan DIY Solder fume extractor (Breathing Flux Sucks)

So last summer I was soldering stuff and the flux fumes were getting ridiculous. Like, to the point of slight headaches. Also at the time I had an old donor Xbox 360 Slim lying around with its CPU fan (90mm), perfectly working. Thought "yeah, this'll do."

Designed this whole setup around that fan. Should work with most 90mm CPU coolers, not just Xbox ones, but I used what I had. That's the most satisfying part of engineering - reusing old electronics that had been laying around for ages.

Here's the deal: there's a honeycomb front piece where you slap on a coal filter with magnets. Easy on, easy off when you need to swap it. The fan itself can swivel around pretty freely thanks to a bolt going through the middle - point it wherever the smoke's coming from, whatever.

The base has all the electronics crammed in there. I threw in an 18650 cell, charges via usb-c, gets stepped up to 12V for the 4-wire PWM fan controller. There's an on/off switch because obviously. The cool part? You can charge it while it's off, or just run it straight from the cable if the battery's dead. Chinese pcb ftw.

Does it look professional? Absolutely not. Does it work? Hell yeah, and honestly actually pretty well. On max speed the fan could easily chop your fingertips if you're not careful (That's the point of the honeycomb guard piece). And most importantly - no more breathing in that garbage while soldering (even if you wanted to).

If people actually want to build this horrendous thing I'll write up a proper assembly guide with parts list and all that lmk.

For now, here's the model. Print it, don't print it, whatever.

Woah… somebody actually wanted a BOM, so here it is: