# Powered respirator options?



## marcuscraft (Nov 14, 2012)

Interested in getting a powered respirator and wondered what the options were? All I am seeing out there is the trend unit and the smaller unit offered by rockler (which is not appealing as I have a beard and wear glasses).


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## Truefire (Mar 20, 2007)

Keep us posted, I am interested to know what you find. Are they positive pressure units?

chris


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## RandyTsuch (Nov 1, 2013)

I was just looking into powered respirators.

Rockler and Woodcraft offer relatively low priced options.

Moving up from there are Trend and Triton.

Then you start getting into real money. 3M, Honeywell/North and MSA sell serious powered respirators. The better ones retail for over $1000.

I just bought a MSA Optimair 6A from the auction site. It was mailed today, so I will see how it works.

I didn't go for the lower priced ones because I wasn't sure if they would filter the really fine particles. The serious ones are used for things like removing lead and asbestos, so I'm confident they will do fine for me. I think I got a good deal for the one I picked up. Still not cheap, but I have had asthma since childhood so I needed this.

Randy


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## shipwright (Sep 27, 2010)

I used to have to spray some really toxic paint occasionally when I was building boats. I made my own by mounting a bathroom fan in a panel of my shop door and running 3" dryer vent hose to the 3" filter mount on one side of my respirator. I blocked the other side and left the straps a bit loose. I was painting nasty stuff and I could smell the flowers outside the door. Also the air flow over my face was nice and cool. Later I used the same rig with a full hood.

It's not a great permanent solution perhaps but it is really cheap and works like a hot damn.


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