HOW TO: Making a decent spray booth under $50

A lot of us, including my self, have been using a cardboard box as our "spray booth" With the actual booths costing $150+ i thought about how i can get almost the same effect for less than half the cost. Here is my spray booth that i whipped up under $50, it uses some real spray booth air flow patterns, 2 fans, and works pretty good imo.

Some parts of this tut is slightly dangerous. Please take caution when doing this and always double check things. I take no responsiblity in bodily harm and property damage. Now that thats said, its not as bad as it sounds, you will see. Also, in some parts there is a lot of debris produced, so be ready for a clean up and make sure the area is fairly open.

Materials:
- Semi-Large Plasic container, mine is about 25" x 15" x 20" just make sure its big enough to cover you model and other stuff that you are spraying, mine was $5 at walmart
- 2 80 mm case fans. i got 2 for about $10. If you ask nicely you can probably get them for free from the computer department in your school, if not, then a computer hardware store will have em
- mounting screws for the fans, if you buy the fans they should come with, if you didnt then again, the computer hardware store
- 80 mm case fan dust filter, again computer hardware store should have them, and also pick up 4 screws to mount it, shouldnt be more then $5
- computer power supply, i got this from my school, ive seen these as low as $15 in stores. You can get any one, the wattage doesnt matter in our case but just make sure you get an ATX power supply
- a piece of wood thats a bit larger then the bottom face of the power supply, and maybe 1/4 inch in thickness
- 2 inch peice of about 18 - 22 gauge wire
- Epoxy putty
- pencil
- Ruler
- compass
- Dremel and Drill
- A drill bit that is the same size as the 80 mm fan mounting screws
- 7/8" drill bit (ya i know its big)
- dremel sanding tip, the tip that has a sanding stome on it
- 4 screws 1 size thicker then ur larger drill bit, and 1/2 inch long.
- double sided tape.
- masking tape
- hair dryer
- Electrical Tape
- Any low grit sand paper, 100-400
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0515.JPG
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0516.JPG

Step 1) First thing you wanna do is check if the container has any holes. As you can see mine has a hole near each handle. They use those holes to let out air when the lid is put on. Take some epoxy putty and put it on the hole from the inside. Spread the putty and fully cover the hole. This will prevent dust from entering. you can let the putty dry now and then go on, or just keep going.
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0517.JPG
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0520.JPG

Step 2) Next what you wanna do is decide what kinda of air flow you want. Use this pic.
http://www.briansmodelcars.com/uploads/tutorials/23/1.jpg
This pic is from Brians model car website, from the tutorial section, which many of you have contributed too. I picked the downdraft expect iam going to make it so pretty much 100% clean air comes in and flows straight on the model.

Step 3) Ok what you wanna do next is pick, according to the airflow pattern you chose, where you are going to mount the fans. As you can see, iam putting one near the top of the front side and one near the bottom of the back. I chose the 80MM case fans because, they are cheap, light, have pretty good airflow, and are ment for light cooling.
Then what you wanna do next is hold up the fan against the side of the container, where you want to mount the fan, then take your pencil, and trace around the outside of the fan and the little holes for the screws.
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0522.JPG
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0523.JPG

Step 4) Take a ruler and draw a line from the middle of any line to the middle of the other parralell line. So you this this.
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0524.JPG
This gives you the exact centre of the square.

Step 5) Now get your compass ready. As you can see from this following pic:
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/dim_80x80x254DC.jpg
The the diameter of the actual circle that allows the air to enter, is 71.6 mm. I chose to make it 70 mm, just gives me a easier number to work with. This means that the radius of the circle is 35 mm. Take your compass and measure the radius of the cirle.
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0525.JPG

Step 6) Measuring from the centre of the square, use your compass and draw a circle.
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0528.JPG

Step 7) Now repeat steps 3 - 6 for the fan on the other side of the container. Again, make sure u follow the air pattern you chose.
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0529.JPG

Step 8) This is where it gets a bit messey. Take your drill and the smaller drill bit, and drill out the screw holes. Then using 7/8" drill bit, make a sort of a "flower" pattern while staying inside the airflow hole. see pic:
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0531.JPG
Now take the dremmel and attach the sanding head. Set your dremmel to about half its max speed and sand out all the "spikey" areas of the flower pattern and try to get a good circular shape, it doesnt have to be perfect.
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0532.JPG
Do this for both holes. If you have a circle cutter, thats even better, makes it MUCH easier. Now take the sand paper and give the circles you just cut a light sanding. This just makes the circle smoother and removes any particles left on the cut surface.

Step 9) The peice of wood is to help hold power supply up. I didnt wanna just stick the power supply on plastic cuz it probably wouldnt support it. Take the piece of wood and some masking tape and tape it down in the centre of the top. Then take your drill and the drill 4 holes near all 4 corners.
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0533.JPG

Step 10) Now take the 4 1/2" screwes and screw down the piece of wood. I chose to put the wood in the centre of the top beacuse anywhere else and it will have a tendency to tip. Then take 4 pieces of electical tape and put em on the screws so that the tape is covering the screws. This is to make sure that if your screws are conductive, the visible part of the screw is now non conductive. You will see later on why. This part isnt necessry but my screws looked like they were some kind of copper alloy, and copper is conductive, so i chose to do it. Remove the masking tape.
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0534.JPG
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0536.JPG

Step 11) Now take your hairdryer and give the whole container a good blow. This is to get rid of all the dust from the drilling, cutting and so on.

Step 12) Cut 4 pieces of double sided tape thats slightly smaller then the length of the power supply. Then tape the peices on bottom of the power supply, along the edges, leaving about a cm of space on each corner.
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0535.JPG

Step 13) Now take the power supply and tape it down on the peice of wood.

This is the slighty dangerous part. Please becarefull while doing the following steps, and remember to check to make sure you did it right.

Step 14) Take the piece of wire and strip about 1/2 of a cm on each side.

Step 15) Take the largest connector on the powersupply, the one that has many wires connected to it (also the one that connects to the motherboard), and find the green wire.
http://www.virtual-hideout.net/images/psu01.jpg
See the green wire? Now take the 2inch wire and stick one end into the socket for the green wire and the other end into a socket for any of the black wires. It should look like this.
http://www.virtual-hideout.net/images/psu03.jpg
If you need more help, go here http://www.virtual-hideout.net/guides/atx_psu_mods/index.shtml
Now tape down the wire with electrical tape so it cant move.
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0538.JPG
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0539.JPG

Step 16) Now double check the connection you just made to make sure its right. Plug in the power supply, and turn it on. Check the fan in the back of the power supply, if its spinning then you did it right.

Step 17) Now check the sides of the fans and you will see that one side has 2 arrows. One arrow tells you which way the fan spins and the other tells you the direction of airflow. The arrow that is along the shorter edge is the direction of airflow and the arrow that is along the long edge is the direction of fan rotation.

Step 18) Mount the fan so that the fan in the front (in my case, your case might be different according to what airflow patters you chose) is going to bring in air, so the arrow should be pointing INTO your container. After the front fan is mounted, mount the filter on the fan. The filter is important, this is what keeps all the dust from being sucked in. Here is what it should look like.
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0540.JPG

The fan at the back is taking out air so the arrow should be pointing OUT of the container. Mount the 2nd fan.
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0541.JPG

Step 19) Plug the fans into the power supply, and VOILA! You are finished.
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0542.JPG
http://www.streetneeds.com/uploads/auser/HPIM0543.JPG
You might want to tape some of the wires down on the side of the container so they arent in the way of the fan blades.

Now you have your very own, half decent spray booth under $50. Hope this helps. Thanks, Ron.

Let me be the first to thank-you for taking the time to document the build, whats your opinion of how well it works?

Congrats here also, but how do you use it? Do you spray into it or... Just how is it put to use?

good Idea

But I would personally go with Dual 120mm fan setup. Will take more air and will probably be quieter.

zammer: your welcome, and as for how it works, i was using a carboard box before so imo it works just perfect.

Steiny:the way you use it just like a box, you put ur car on a your stand, spray it, blah blah, use your methods, then you put this over top of it, surrounding it. All i made this for is the airflow

Vric:Ya i was thinking of that too but 1) the size of the fans with the size of my container woulda been too much, 2) i couldnt find a dust filter for teh 120mm so meh and if too much air came in onto the model it also might have a tendency to tip so ya, and as for noise, its perfect i barely hear it when its on

Steiny:the way you use it just like a box, you put ur car on a your stand, spray it, blah blah, use your methods, then you put this over top of it, surrounding it. All i made this for is the airflow



So you can spray in the box, or just spray and cover the body with this and let it dry?

So you can spray in the box, or just spray and cover the body with this and let it dry?

usually a spray booth is for painting.

I think he forgot to tell us to open the other side of the box :D

For drying, nothing is better than a microwave :D

D_Lamz: You spray and then cover with this and let it dry.
Vric: The one bottom of this is open lol i cant believe i forgot to take a pic. And ya your right, a microwave is awesome but i think it needs airflow, so i made this lol

nice walkthrough. Here's the one I put together a few years ago, has served me faithfully:

http://www.efnetcars.com/album/temp/acd.jpg

I fought with the whole dryer hose thing for quite a while to ventilate, but when I moved into my new apartment, I was pleased to find that the booth actually JUST fits through the window there. So I just slide the window open, push the booth out a bit, close the window down on top and plug in the fan :iceslolan

Sorry for the late post and the fact my questions might be better helped in a computer forum, but I'll give it a shot..

Do you know what would happen if a non-ATX power supply is used? I have a dead computer lying around and it uses a power supply call "ILLSAN" or something...I thought it would be cool if it also works that I wouldn't need to buy a brand new power supply just to be tweaked.
Do you know if the green wire could be connected to a black wire if the power supply is another brand? Like i mean a standard color scheme is used to represent their roles? Thanks in advance for any help.

BTW nice guide!

A non-atx (i.e. AT) would actually be ideal since you won't have to do the wire thing with the power supply to trick it into thinking its connected to a computer. You'll have an easier to reach power button too with this option.

dude dont you think its unsafe to have an internal motor in the fan. would that be fire hazard?

dude dont you think its unsafe to have an internal motor in the fan. would that be fire hazard?
Typically computer fans are sealed.
IFf you desire more airflow buy a fan designed for a server or server cabinet as they are a bit larger

Hey guys, neat idea but might i suggest using a NON-SPARK bathroom fan? first... any fan you use must be rated as non-spark or your going to set your booth on fire. second... using a bathroom fan eliminates the heavy and messy power supply. you just stick a 3 prong plug onto the end of the wires and plug it in. third... it will pull more air. just a thought.

The case fan I use is brushless, as was recommended in Scale Auto Magazine. It seems pretty adaquate, but I'm thinking of upgrading to a bathroom fan simply because a fair bit of the vapour still gets into the room itself before I close the lid.