goatflieg
Well Known Member
While fine-tuning my paint booth components, something occurred to me. I will be painting my aircraft with polyurethane paint. I'm using three box fans in a homebuilt enclosure to pull the air out of the booth, and filtered incoming air is drawn from the opposite side of the booth. I did some testing today, and I've got very good airflow, so no worries there. But I started to think about the fans, and how they're wired. As you can see from these photos, all three fan power cords plug into a switched power strip, which links to an extension cord run to a wall plug. I realize that I'll be switching the fans on long before there will be fumes present, and turning them off long after the fumes are evacuated. But I wonder if the presence of the power strip inside the confines of the booth on the end where fumes will be drawn constitutes a potential fire/explosion hazard. The solutions are obvious; hard wire the three power cords to one extension cord, and have any switching or plugs outside the booth. I could also mask in such a way that the power strip is outside the booth envelope, which would be somewhat awkward. But I wonder how necessary this is... am I over-thinking it, as usual? Has anyone ever experienced fume ignition from a fan motor or power strip? I'll do more research... but I'm interested in any input expressed here.