Building a Personal Clean Room?

eagleyezx asks: "I have a rather large basement with nothing currently sitting in it (I moved all my crud to my garage). Since I am really into space and satellites, I have a satellite all designed. It's kinda based on one of the Amsat designs, but all it really does it beep, just like Sputnik. However, I would need a sterile clean room to build one that would function properly and not go beserk in orbit. I know everyone out there has thought about this at least once? Has anyone ever built a room like this? Any suggestions on equipment?" If you had the drive to do something like this, what would you need to do to be able to build a workshop that would even come close to "clean room" standards. Has anyone ever built an airlock on the cheap?

Huh?

[bellings]

Could someone explain why you need a clean room to build a satellite?

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you don't give the spacemen a deadly (to them, harmless to us) cold when it crashes on their planet?

Basement?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can afford to put a satelite up in orbit, can't you find a a better place to work that a basement?

Cleanroom and Cheap ...

[Hungus]

Is that like military and intelligence?

seriously though I really don't think it is possible. Though to start with you would need:
1) A large air conditioner
2) Several filters of variing ratings (start with normal airconditioner filters then move to heppa filters then ionization filters and liquid filters
3) A way of sealing the room completely maybe like the thermal sprays they put on buildings (it is air tight and non brathable IIRC)
4) a decent multistage airlock
5) Appropriate dress

Seriously the trick to a clean rom is all in keeping things out. so a good start is to us ethe previously filtered air to create an over pressure area inside teh clean room. This if there are any leaks they would be to the outside not the inside. Good luck

Positive air pressure......

[jsimon12]

Actually positive air pressure, good air filters and coming in clean are the main things, and you actually can build one, granted not one of those Intel chip moon suit ones, but a lower level one is pretty easy. Though you really shouldn't need a clean room to build a simple orbital satellite, especially one that just beeps, but I guess if this guy wants to build one, more power to him.

Tell me why you need this again

[Charlton Heston]

Satellites won't go bezerk in orbit if they're not built in a clean room. Especially a beeper like the one you envision. You've got your horse before your cart too. When you build this thing, how are you going to get it into orbit? For that matter, when you build this thing, how are you going to get it out of your basement? The satellite and mounting hardware and mating ring to attach to the rocket are not going to fit up your stairs!

Anyway, just in case you are the next Werner von Braun, I wouldn't like to be remembered by history as "that guy who treated a genius rudely" I will answer your question. Remember the train conductor who was wrongly blamed for making Edison deaf when he actually saved his life? You know what I'm talking about...

Take a look at pages written by those who paint their cars at home in their garages. To get those nice smooth paint jobs there can't be any dust around.

Re:Tell me why you need this again

[lostguy]

You've got your horse before your cart too.

Yeah, can't have that. The next thing you know, that damned horse will be pulling the cart!

(I'm bored enough to make fun of people who can't get metaphors right...shoot me.)

Re:this might help [here's the link]

[Anonymous Coward]

should have used the preview button link [homemadesimple.com]

Half-assed answer

[itwerx]

I've actually done clean-room-level work (doing whisker rework on bare-die chips and messing around with hard-drives) without a cleanroom and actually never had any problems. Granted I was in an office environment with decent filters and I kept the door closed and tried not to stir things up too much while I was working - ymmv!
However, I have to ask, why do you need a clean-room? Everything's going to be solid-state (and epoxy or ceramic packaged) and/or large enough mechanically (e.g. solar-array deployment) that it shouldn't matter. Unless you're conducting experiments with MEMs or something...? Whatever.
Besides, if you just leave provide enough gaps in the seams to let the air out as soon as that sucker hits vacuum - whoosh! - it'll be really clean! :)

(Er, um, this whole article isn't a clever troll is it...?)

Build it like the russians do!

[E1v!$]

(I was on the ASU Sat1 team. && !(I know what I'm talking about))

Go to radio shack! Buy all your parts there.

If you're a farmer, build it in the pig pen. If you're not a farmer, find a farmer.

If it can work under those conditions, it can work anywhere.

How big is this thing?

[TheSHAD0W]

You do know, the larger you build the thing, the less likely you'll ever get it launched. If you can build it tiny and light, you may actually get a shot at it. If it's going to be small, then you ought to be able to build it in a glove box. Take the money you'd have to spend on a clean room and use it to help miniaturize the thing.

Re:How big is this thing?

[dgmartin98]

Ummm... unless he's a Smurf, he's probably gonna have to build something a little bigger, so that he can fit in there and work on it.

On the other hand, I have visions of someone trying to build a satellitte in a bottle... kinda like those ship in a bottle deals.

Dave

How about a clean glove box?

[chrestomanci]

If you don't plan to handle anything much larger than about 30-50cm in size, I would suggest a clean glove box instead of a room.

I used glove boxes from time to time when I was studying chemisty. You can see a picture of one here [wlu.edu].

The ones I was using, where generaly the size of a table, and about 3' high. You accessed your work inside using big rubber gloves, that where attached to the box so that the atmosphere in the box is seperate from the one outside. The front and some of the sides where glass. The glove box had one or more air-locks so you could take things in and out. (More than one lock, because smaller ones cycle quicker).

Chemistry glove boxes are usualy used for experements involving chemicals that are sensitive to oxygen or water vapour, so the atmophere in the box would generaly be dry nitrogen, at positive pressure, with no specal provision to avoid dust. Glove boxes are also used ocasionaly for radioactive compounds, where the box protects the laboratory atmosphere from the experenent, rather than the other way arround.

One of the chemistry departents I studied at had some glove boxes that they had made in-house, and I don't think it would be especaly difficult for you to make one. (They said theirs cost them about 10K to make, including labour).

The main body of the home made box, was made from acrylic pannels bolted together and sealed with silicone. The gloves are avalable from chemistry suppliers for about 10 pounds/pair. The airlock was made from welded sheet steel. The atmosphere in this box was maintained by flushing through with dry nitrogen (boiled off from liquid N2).

Obvously if you plan to use your glove box for electronics, there is no need for an intert atmosphere, but you will have to take precautions to avoid dust, presumably via an air filtration system, which I don't think would be to hard to design. Also, if you are serous about preventing bactera or suchlike from getting into it, I would include a UV lighting system to kill them, that you either switch on when you are not using the box, or filter out through the windows.

I hope this helps.

Re:How about a clean glove box?

[chrestomanci]

Oops, More and better pictures of glove boxes can be found here on google image search [google.com].

This one [dmu.ac.uk] is especialy clear.

Some information

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Clean rooms are rated as class 1, class 10, class 100, class 1000 and class 10,000. The numbers are the maximum count of 0.5 micron sized particles permitted in a cubic foot of air. The old federal standard for clean rooms is FED STD 209E, recently replaced by the international standard ISO 14 644. I'm guessing the ISO standard costs bucks and the FED standard is probably free so pick and choose. A class 1000 clean room would not be that hard to build and maintain. Clean, painted surfaces all around, some sort of air filtration system with positive pressure, no textiles, pencils, powdered gloves allowed. You'd have to wear clean room smocks, booties and bonnet. The room would have to be vacuumed daily (with a vacuum exhausting to the outside) and the particulate count verified daily. An air shower and sticky mat at the entrance would be a good thing. Now that's just for a class 1000 clean room. Imagine what it takes for a class 1 clean room.

Re:Some information

[AnimalSnf]

Indeed, I on occasion work in one (class 10). However, I think everyone is missing the point. Don't take the satellite to the clean room; take the clean room to the satellite. Although in my case the requirements for machines that take up rooms and caustic chemicals prevent the use of anything except for a clean room, I'm sure there are many people that have experience working with or building sterile enclosures. Considering that the only things that need to go in are parts and some instruments it would be more than feasible to try to build one for the satellite and construct it within. Otherwise you are screwed, because the cost of putting a clean room together will probably pale in comparison with the cost of maintaining it.

PS I would imagine that you will need to do some soldering, which will probably contaminate your clean room all too quickly.

Re:Some information

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

I think you're right. But he wanted information about clean rooms and I was hoping the reality of what has to be done would discourage him from building one. Soldering and any other potentially contaminating work is usually done at a laminar flow bench. Another thing he should budget for.

Anti-Static

[Stinson]

Anti-Static floor pads / maybe one of thoes cool anti-static air filters. This is definitly part of a clean room that could be a lifesaver, and especially when working with any kind of electronics (like the kind you're goinna be putting up in space). Another idea is to put lots of sheets of plastic over all the walls, staple them down, and then ducttape the edges of all the sheets to make a solid barrier

Get one of these

[dimator]

Swiffer [homemadesimple.com]. I used one in my bathroom today, really a cool product. Picked up everything.

Cleanroom DIY resources...

[jsimon12]

I would recommend looking for information on micropropagation (cloning plants). It is a fairly popular hobby and you need cleanroom like conditions, so most micropropagation books [barnesandnoble.com] have plans for mini cleanrooms. I would recommend talking to people who have done this before (which you are trying to do ;), seems there is at least some discussion [google.com] on Usenet about the subject.

Rent one, if they're just collecting dust

[dgmartin98]

Maybe he can buy/rent one from a high-tech company. With all the layoffs in the past couple of years, there are probably lots sitting around collecting dust. (heh... joke inside of a joke)

That raises an interesting question. Let's say if you abandon a room in your house. After a few years it would start to collect dust. How about if you abandon a clean room? Does it collect dust?

Dave

Really big fan

[e8johan]

For starters you'll need a really big fan, just to driver the air-flow through the filters and your room. The trick is to have an over-pressure and a good flow. The over-pressure prevents stuff from getting in, and the flow removes stuff that already are in (you'll probably carry in some dust, etc.).
What parts are you going to assemble in a clean room. I'd rather suggest a clean-box (i.e. a box with a good clean air-flow and gloves epoxied to a couple of entry points to allow you to work in there. Simply put your working project (in transport protection) in there, your tools (do *not* forget anything), then let the air flow through. When the air has been completely exchanged a few times you can get your working project out of the transport protection and get working on it. When you are done, simply wrap it into something air-tight again and then remove it from your working box.
Such a solution would be easier to work with and have a higher wife-acceptance-factor. Of course, it requires that whatever your doing fits into the box.

All flaming aside...

[eviljolly]

Go ahead and get some of that paint on garage floor lining that you see advertised on all the automotive shows on SpeedVision (if you have cable or Sattelite). You could do that, make some sort of airlock if you need to. A well sealed door might work, it just depends how clean you really need it. I'd basically just coat everything, assuming all your walls are concrete.

I don't think so

[Da VinMan]

However, I would need a sterile clean room to build one that would function properly and not go beserk in orbit. I know everyone out there has thought about this at least once?

Maybe I'm just weird, but the idea of constructing a clean room in my house has NEVER occurred to me. But then, I'm probably just the odd one out.

*sheesh*

How the hell do will slashdot answer this?

[ComputerSlicer23]

What nobody has a mailing list for this?

Nobody has a proper google link for this?

I don't think this qualifies as an Ask Slashdot Question, nobody has replied with an answer using the standard internet resources, as such, I request the question be recinded...

All satire aside, it's an interesting question.

Kirby

Re:How the hell do will slashdot answer this?

[Muad'Dave]

Here's your steenkin' link [amsat.org]

Here's a hint

[quintessent]

If you want a really clean room, you should ask your girlfriend for advice, rather than Slashdot. If you don't have a girlfriend, one of your friends might have one. Check around.

So what do you want to do, anyway? Fab some chips?

Clean _box_

[RedCard]

I would think that something like a box would be a lot more useful to the vast majority of people. If I ever have to (out of curiousity or stupidity, for example) pop apart a hard drive, it would be nice to have something really dust-free to do it in.

So... has anyone every built a decent clean box?

FBI

[Rubbersoul]

If he actually starts to buy the parts for the clean room and or the sat lets start a pool as to how fast the FBI comes to investigate now :)

Uhhh

[smoondog]

Uranus jokes aside, I think the conversations will go like this:

Potential Girlfriend: Wow, what's this?
Geek: A satellite
Potential Girlfriend: Gee, has it been to space?
Geek: Nope, but its built to spec. I build 'em in my spare time.
The Woman Formerly Known As The Potential Girlfried: That's, um, pretty dedicated.
Geek: Yup. Want share a Mt Dew with me?

-Sean

Use refrigerator doors

[Matt_Bennett]

May seem kinda silly, but an old refrigerator door would work- magnetic, (relatively) airtight, positive seal. Positively pressurize the inside, with a few stages of HEPA filtering. You'll need to be pretty rigorous about filter maintenance. I heard of someone using refrigerator doors in an airlock to seal off a home recording studio. Even if it doesn't work, it would look pretty cool.

May not be good enough for silicon fab, but it probably would be good for people with serious allergies.

Rotary Space Waves

[turgid]

First of all, you need a Rotary Space Wave Generator, as commonly found on the NII's Winnebagos of doom. To make one, first you need two coat hangers, a 9V battery and two plastic plates. Then you need an anti-gravity source and amplifier consisting of at leas 125g of element 115 (ununpentium) obtainable in quantity from intel corp. For the gravity amplifier you will need an oak wardrobe and a flux capacitor. Connect the flux capacitor (in the wardrobe) with copper wire to the ununpentium. The rotary space wave generator may now be mated to the other end of the wardrobe. There will be a pleasant smell as you drill through the oak. Pick up a sencond hand anti-matter regeneration unit form your local scrap yard. This will transmit anti-waves to the rotary space wave generator. To control the device you will need a dual channel K6-2/Pentium III 500 system running Windez 98 under Linux Technology and a 28" plasma screen with military spec. joystick. Good luck, and have fun.

Cheap and perhaps effective

[Gudlyf]

You need a few things:

1. saran wrap
2. latex gloves
3. a good box fan
4. a hair net (or hat) and a dust mask (just to keep the drive safe from you)

Go to your bathroom and turn on the shower for about 10 minutes on hot, so there is lots of steam in there. Then, take the box fan and blow the steam out of the bathroom, this will catch all the particles of dust that hang in the air and blow them with the steam outside of the bathroom.

Not technically a clean room on the cheep but...

[craigarc]

Here is a url to an article about a bio bag. It would at least give you a sterile environment to start with. You would still have to build an air lock and such, but might be worth a look to get the basics done. Beyond 2000: In the bag [beyond2000.com]

Simple Cleanroom

[jgardn]

We used a cleanroom like the following on the ATLAS Muon Detector project at the University of Washington. It was pretty low-tech, but it did a good job at keeping things clean. I don't remember the rating of the clean room, but all we had to do was wear a clean suit over our street clothes, latex gloves, shoes over our street shoes, and a cap. The clean suit, show covers, and caps were made from a special material. You can buy them in bulk from companies like 3M.

The room was constructed like any other room. The "airlock" was more like a changing room / entry way. There was a coat hook where we hung our clean suits, and a sticky floor that would get the majority of the grime off of our shoes. When the sticky floor got all dirty, we would peel off a layer. Inside the clean room and in the entry way, the walls were made of white plastic that didn't get electricaly charged and so wouldn'a allow lint to stick to it. The sections of wall were joined by aluminum strips about three inches wide.

The roof had several holes with air filters in them. One end of the room had a "wall fan" - the entire wall was a fan behind some air filters that would suck the air out of the room. So the air flow would come down through the roof filters and out the wall. The filters were better than the variety you might have in your house, but weren't super expensive. The floor was made of linoleum - a light color. Light colors help expose dirt and lint and such.

We mopped the floor every week as it would slowly accumulate dirt and gunk. The actual "clean room" was everything above our waist as the air below that couldn't be trusted as it wasn't being constantly filtered. As long as the air was flowing, we were pretty clean. We also made sure to stay out of the airflow of what we were working on. This means we couldn't lean over the parts and machines we were building.

We assembled a table that had a stainless steel surface. It was easy to keep clean with lint-free wipes and alcohol, but rarely needed it unless we spilled something.

We also made sure the parts were meticulously cleaned before being admitted into the clean room. Once in the clean room, we would clean them again.

Our clean room didn't have a machine that would count the number of impurities in the air, but I once worked in one that did. However, that clean room was much more strict and had the fans under the floor. We had to wear full body suits and face masks for that. That was the clean room for the Sudbury Neutrino project. They assembled the nickel tube detectors in that one.

Clean "box"...

[cr0sh]

I have to agree with those around here who have recommended a "clean box" environment, rather than an entire room. For the project you are working on, a "clean room" just isn't necessary, and the cost associated with building one would probably be more than the cost of the thing you are building.

Think about it - do you think Sputnik was built in a "clean room"? If anything, it was built in a room that was sterile, like a hospital OR, but I doubt it was "clean".

Another question to ask yourself is how clean does the box (or room) really need to be? I would imagine that all of your components are going to be off-the-shelf, mostly electronic, and potted in epoxy for launch - if the stuff works on the bench, it should work on a satellite. I can understand mechanical systems needing a cleaner than normal construction area, but a simple "beeper" sat shouldn't have too many mechanical components.

For those few mechanical components, a clean-box should be more than enough, and cheap to build. Build (or buy) a largish (3 x 3 x 3 feet would be big enough) clear acrylic box, cut a couple of holes for your arms, and attach rubber gloves attached to dryer hose "sleeves" with epoxy. Buy a couple of brand new 120V axial muffin fans for each side, and cut a hole for both, installing flat HEPA vac filters over both - the air should be pumped "through" the filters so that air travels in one direction only. On the outside of the box on the side that has the fan blowing "into" the box, install a sealed ION air cleaner filter system (rip one from one of those cheap cheezy plug in filters that are sold all over nowadays), with a standard filter behind that - so that the stage is "standard filter->ION filter->HEPA filter->axial fan->HEPA filter->box->HEPA filter->axial fan->open air".

You will also need to fashion a clean air lock of some sort, preferably located near the air out-take (so that any particles immediately are sucked out). You will also need to clean the box and all components extremely well after it is built, then cycle air through it for 24 hours.

This kind of "clean box" would surely provide all of what you desire. Its rating probably wouldn't be excellent, but it should work for what you are doing, and cheap as well. I am surprised that case-modders don't build these things for hard-drive modding (hey, by all accounts they rely on "bathroom tricks" to clean the air - and are successful most of the time - this clean-box would have to be thousands of times better).

I also wish to have a clean room...

[AngryPuppy]

...but I have a two year old son. Not a clean room in the house. Hey! There's peanut butter in my satellite! Daddy! You got your peanut butter in my satellite...

Re:I also wish to have a clean room...

[AngryPuppy]

...your satellite in my peanut butter... typing too fast....brain too slow...(old Reeses reference intended, but blown)

Cheap clean room

[Erik_Kahl]

I worked for the high energy physics department in college. My team built hardware for the CLEO detector at Cornell and D0 detector at Fermi. Part of the project was testing some mircochips which contained ADCs for monitoring voltages. These chips had not been packaged or enclosed in anything. They had just been wire bonded to long strips with fine wires. Any bit of material falling on these chips could ruin them...so, we worked in the clean room.

Our clean room was really just a large area enclosed in heavy transparent plastic of a heavy grade with an air filer and blower on top. Like a tent. The plasctic hung from a steel frame and was an inch or so off the ground. The system worked by there being a positive pressure in the clean room. No dust could get in through the openings. Its too hard to build an airtight room...much easier just to use positive pressure in the clean zone. The system we used was a kit. I'm not sure how much it cost...the univ took care of that. I helped with some of the assembly, mostly it was done by the campus plant guys, but we hung the plastic and installed the filters ourselves.

There were 4 blowers on top of the room with really fancy filters. One of them had an air conditioner attached to its intake to keep us from getting to warm in our box. It was fun.

I think you could duplicate somthing like this fairly easily. A lot of it depends on how clean you want the room...they come in different grades.

Filters and positive pressure only work to a certain grade. I don't have numbers, been too long.

I Know It's My Own Post but....

[eagleyezx]

My major plan is to build a satellite and eventually put it in my living room (encased in some material of course), and eventually get off my butt and launch it. I'm already working on a giant slingshot (old-school Dilbert [dilbert.com] fans will know what I'm talking about). But hey, I can also use it to build some other crap such as my own bootleg Pentium IV's from my basement!

To The Stupid Anonymous Coward Schmuck

[eagleyezx]

You obviously have your head up your ass. This is the year 2002, and last time I checked, every moron, including yourself, mind you, is capable of doing anything they damn well please, INCLUDING building a clean room and kicking the crap out of you. Did I ever state that I wanted a freaking dustproof shelter? No. I just wanted something cool in my basement to impress other people. And for that attack on my knowledge, I'll just let you know that I had COLLEGE ENGINEERING CREDITS @ the age of 16. This is a website about what is going on in the technical world, for geeks, people with to much time on their hands. Even though you have to much time on you hands, you hardly qualify as a geek. If you can't handle the thoughts of others, get the hell out.

Beeping?

[iamdrscience]

Come on, we live in the year 2002 and electronics are cheap, don't just settling with a "beep", you could at least spruce it up and make it play a song. If you could make it play actual audio files that would be the best though, I would pay you money if you got a working sattelite that could play "Let's Get it On" receivable on my radio.

Re:Beeping?

[foo12]

It wouldn't be terribly hard to get it playing a single MP3 or at least a sample.

Hillary Rosen: in spaaaaaaaace.......