What’s common between one of the most legendary video game characters of all time and a fume extractor ? They both suck. [Chris Borge] is not an electronics hobbyist and only does some occasional soldering. This made his regular fume extractor bulky and inconvenient to position where needed. What could serve him better would be a small extractor that could be attached to a clip or an arm on his helping hand accessory. Being unable to find an off-the-shelf product or a suitable 3d printed design that he liked, he built the Kirby 40mm Fume Extractor.
His initial idea was for a practical design more suited to his specific needs. But somewhere along the way, the thought of a Kirby fan popped up in his head, and it was too good an idea to pass up. Several Kirby fan designs already existed, but none that satisfied [Chris]. Getting from paper sketch to CAD model required quite an effort but the result was worth the trouble, and the design was quite faithful to the original character features. The main body consists of two halves that screw together, and an outlet grill at the back. The body has space for a 40 mm fan and a 10 mm charcoal filter in the front. The wires come out the back, and connect directly to a power supply barrel jack. Arms and eyes are separate pieces that get glued to the body. The feet glue to an intermediate piece, which slides in a dove tail grove in the body. This allows Kirby to be tilted at the right position for optimum smoke extraction.
While Kirby served the purpose, it still didn’t meet the original requirement of attaching to a clip or arm on the helping hand. So [Chris] quickly designed a revised, no-frills model which is essentially a square housing to hold the fan and the filter. It has a flexible stand so it can be placed on a bench. And it can also be attached to the helping hand, making it a more utilitarian design. This design has the charcoal filter behind the fan, but he also has a third design for folks who prefer to have the filter at the front.
He now had a more useful, practical fume extractor, but he couldn’t bring himself to discard his original Kirby. So he printed a couple more 3D parts so that Kirby could fit the end of his vacuum cleaner hose. Now, Kirby sits on his bench, and helps suck up all the bits and bobs of trash on his workbench. We’re sure Kirby is quite pleased with his new role.