On Friday, November 8, 2019 at 1:18:57 PM UTC-5, Alex Borroughs wrote:

Quite right. I liked the smaller unit posted here recently, but he's
using watered down filters. I had hoped to avoid that mess, plus he
says they take a long time to dry. If dry layers could have been used
instead, that would have been a winner for me, but I don't know enough
about it.

The water-filters increase the efficiency of the filters used. There are any number of dry carbon-filters that would also do the trick, and there are any number of methods to treat the water so that mold/mildew would not form in the filters. My concerns with a simple particle filter are as follows:

a) Particle filters (MERV-13) are useless against gasses, odors and pretty much useless against micro-contaminants (smaller than one (1) Micron.
b)The components of solder-rosin smoke that are (sometimes) harmful would pass right through it.
c) Footprint - no matter how large a bench one has, there is always just a little bit too-little room on it.

https://www.digikey.com/en/product-h...xoCyHkQAvD_BwE

Depending on how much your time is worth, this would solve the problem once and for all at a not-ridiculous cost.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA