If you are exclusively cutting acrylic every day, choosing a fume extractor with at least 80 lbs. of gas absorption media ensures that the extractor has the capacity for the high VOC load in this application. Lasering acrylics generates approximately 90% gas and 10% dust. So, favoring a machine with 80 lbs. of carbon ensures that the frequency of the filter is appropriate.
In this case, it is also beneficial to choose a system that has a gas filter that is separate and independent from the HEPA filter because the gas filter would be consumed before the HEPA filter, given the lighter dust load. In contrast, a combined filter that contained both a HEPA filter and a gas filter within one filter case, which can be a convenience, would be wasteful and more costly given that you would be forced to throw away a perfectly good HEPA filter along with the spent gas filter.
—PAT Technology
