Laminar Flow Bench - Recommended?

[SteveMB]

Hello, how many of you have a laminar flow bench, but not a clean room? Is a laminar flow bench good enough for data recovery, if you don't have a clean room? Would I get a horizontal or vertical flow bench? Thank you in advance!

[pcimage]

Clean bench is more than good enough IMHO, my preference is for horizontal flow.

Sean

[mediaman]

i think they are fine but they must be well maintained and kept. We have two, one fixed and one portable, but if you don't look after them it's worse than doing DR on the kitchen table! Keep them covered when not in use, give them a complete clean before with tacky rags, and always run an half an hour or so before real use.

[SteveMB]

Do you still wear the full clean room suit? Or just the face mask? Would I clean it with tack rags before every use? What do you recommend I cover it with? A regular table cloth? Thank you for helping me!

[mediaman]

those suits are great for PR photos. Table "CLOTHS" produce fluff..

[SteveMB]

So what do you recommend I should cover it up with? Thanks!

[wiseleo]

The clean air desk to which I have access whenever I need to open a drive belongs to a company that is in business of calibrating cleanroom equipment. As such, I am pretty sure they know what they are doing.

It is not covered, but the hood has a section that lifts up 8" while in use, and comes down afterwards. That encloses the clean bench space entirely, thus making any covers unnecessary.

The instructions I was given were along the lines of wipe the inside of equipment with cleanroom wipes and use it. I was told that running the equipment for 30 minutes is actually a myth as the air is already clean after one pass.

I suppose you can always use a particle counter to verify.

If you use a hood similar to what I use ( http://www.bakerco.com/products/SterilGARD_HE/ ), you don't need face mask, hair hats etc. The only part of your body that is inside the clear air area is your hands. You would ideally want to ensure that no skin is exposed as it flakes.

I am sure your new toy will come with a nice manual

[rchadwick]

I don't know about 30 minutes being a myth. I have a vertical laminar flow, and I have a particle counter to verify operation. Based on the readings, I wait 15-20 minutes. Then again, it could be the counter, which takes an average, and because of that it sometimes takes a long time to recover from a dirty startup. My bench doesn't seal when not in use, and my office is pretty dirty (Small machine shop next to it), so maybe it's just me.

BTW, Don't be too sure you'll get a manual. I've got a Terra Universal, and after scouring their website, and talking to numerous people there, I've never got a usage manual. The best I could get was their tech support offering to answer any specific question I had, and I wasn't terribly confident of the responses.

[SteveMB]

Do you put the hard drives and tool on the bench before you turn it on? Or do you put the tools and hard drive on the bench after the 30 minutes is up? Thanks again!

[rchadwick]

It's probably best to wait

[craig6928]

Do you still wear the full clean room suit? Or just the face mask? Would I clean it with tack rags before every use? What do you recommend I cover it with? A regular table cloth? Thank you for helping me!

its a marketing scam they are lieing

this is because they can charge the customer more money when they get it into a clean room.

never needed to use a clean room yet

[scratchy]

Something you could also consider is getting the manufacturer to remove as much of the perspex 'glass' as possible. We had our made with toughened glass then covered with an ESD proof coating . It cost us about an extra 200 quid(300 EU or 400 USD).

As the air passes over the perspex it causes quite a lot of static. I also have an ESD earthing point inside the unit and we have a large Ionizer fan discharging static at the air at the inlet..

Some may say I am paranoid about ESD - I probably am

<itch>

[coffeebean]

Probably in many cases it is better to turn off air flow once
cabinet is clean

Probably it is better to clean drive covers and cover contact areas
before opening drive and air flow just helps to move particles from covers
contact surfaces onto top surface. Besides special attention is needed
to prevent tiny aluminium partcles from screw threads getting "blown" onto
media surfaces - imho air flow is better avoided but cabinet is nice

Even in clean room - drives like Fujitsu mobile (some years old)
drop large amounts of particles from seal ring onto top platter surface.

So all in all clean room and this device type are nice and always better
than kitchen sink, but imho selection and availability of spares is just
as important for heads exchanging.

[mediaman]

we have been cleaning the dust around the seal and in general with regular compressed air before disassembly, but I can't help wonder if that does not just force some dirt further in the seal.

[zed]

Which one is better for hard disk data recovery purposes?
Vertical or Horizontal Laminar Flow Cabinets?

[guru]

Ontrack use vertical ... So maybe thats best, its what I use :O)

[beto]

me too

[HDD Spaz]

amd me

[rchadwick]

Me too. Personally, I'd think a horizontal flow would work better, but that's what I wound up with. It's also more space efficient.

[pcimage]

Horizontal for me