Health & Safety and 3D Printing.

[The Hat]

Smoking cigarettes is far more dangerous than the little amounts you’d inhale from running a 3D printer, I reckon normal ventilation is more than sufficient, but the room size is also an important factor...
Adding any kind of increased air circulation will cause your print project to go haywire...

 

[berttheghost]

What in hell does smoking have to do with this? You imply that exposure to thermal decomposition products of ABS and others is safe compared to a proven killer. Hey! Guess what? Styrene is a proven killer, too.

BTW, enclosing an open frame 3D printer is NOT the same as increasing the ventilation it is exposed to.

If I'm a bit touchy about this it's because people I cared about died from it.

 

[Redbrickman]

We are exposed to many chemicals and carcinogens in everyday life, from diesel particulates, toner particulates to ozone and increased gamma radiation on regular flights, not to mention the additives, colourings and other cr*p that is in the food we eat and water we drink. What we need to do is to try and negate the effects of hazardous materials and exposure with some knowledge and common sense. Personally when I get my first 3D printer it will live in the shed or at a push in the spare room, just because I want to limit the exposure to anything hazardous it may produce. That to me is common sense without getting into what could be expensive equipment to control the air quality.

 

[The Hat]

What in hell does smoking have to do with this? You imply that exposure to thermal decomposition products of ABS and others is safe compared to a proven killer. Hey! Guess what? Styrene is a proven killer, too.

Using any equipment with some common sense works every time and as @Redbrickman mentioned, all the nasty stuff that we face every day doesn’t kill us, so why should a 3D printer be any different...

 

[John R]

What in hell does smoking have to do with this? You imply that exposure to thermal decomposition products of ABS and others is safe compared to a proven killer. Hey! Guess what? Styrene is a proven killer, too.

BTW, enclosing an open frame 3D printer is NOT the same as increasing the ventilation it is exposed to.

If I'm a bit touchy about this it's because people I cared about died from it.

Smoking has a lot to do with this, since the article posits that respirable dust and toxic materials that are byproducts of combustion from a 3D printer are harmful to health. Deliberately inhaling smoke, no matter the source, is not good for the lungs but you should acknowledge incidental inhalation will be unavoidable. Enclosing an open frame 3D printer will cause the smoke to be deposited on your print and condense inside the printer, giving the operator a higher concentration of smoke when the door is opened as opposed to if the smoke was able to dissipate.

Normally laser cutters have a fume extractor that go with it. I don't think installing one with a FDM would interfere with your print as long as the air flow between the nozzle and plate isn't disturbed - so probably put the fan & filter at the very top and let air in at the very bottom. I use ABS on a 7 year old Cupcake CNC, but my results suck to the point it is not used often. Another thing with ABS: the acetone vapor chamber to smooth out the print is _not_ something you want to use without ventilation.

 

[Redbrickman]

Another thing with ABS: the acetone vapor chamber to smooth out the print is _not_ something you want to use without ventilation.

Yep. Acetone will clean your lungs of their mucous protection and that would not be a good thing

 

[FryingSaucer]

Yep. Acetone will clean your lungs of their mucous protection and that would not be a good thing

I didn't realise acetone did that. I was using it to clean hairspray off the print bed, until I realised that isopropyl alcohol works OK too.

I'm glad Mrs FryingSaucer doesn't read this forum with all the warnings about noxious chemicals, fire hazards, electrical hazards... I might find my 3D printer inexplicably disappeared one day

 

[Nifty]

What an interesting discussion.

I haven't printed with ABS yet because 1) no enclosure, but mostly 2) I'm scared of it because it seems so much more difficult / complex to get everything right!

If / when I ever to print with ABS, I probably will either have to vent it or move my machine... which is currently in my tiny not-very-ventilated office where I sit with it almost all day every day.

Regarding smoking, risk, etc. This is obviously going to be a personal choice. Some people smoke, some people drive over the speed limit, some people cross the road when there isn't a crosswalk, some people run with open scissors, and some people will print with ABS in a non-ventilated space.

All of those things have various degrees of risk. It's up to each person to determine what risk they do / don't want to take. My only issue is if people are making risk-assessment decisions based on faulty or lack of information... which is why it's good to see scientific data on smoking as well as 3D printing.

 

[The Hat]

I made my 3D printer give up smoking, because it was a filthy habit, on another note when I installed my new hot-end and got the CR-10 back running again (Perfectly), I took a chance to use a roll of ABS because the printer was working so well.

That turned out to be a mistake, even dough I used different setting for this filament, half way through the project the head clogged up and I was forced to abandon it, extruder @ 98%, 240c hot-end and 70c hot-bed, ! !

I had to stripped down the head and cleaned out the throat and nozzle to get it to work again, so I’ll be giving ABS filament a wide berth, because it wasn’t worth the trouble it caused, and its a bitch to work on the heater block unit when they are mighty hot, “If it Ain’t broke”, why brake it by introducing ABS.

The CR-10 has done several overnight runs and has passed with flying colours, a stable level platform, and a good adhesive spray and she prints away unattended, it’s been a long time since I came back to a ball of plastic filament on the platform...

 

[Redbrickman]

@The Hat - mIght be worth trying PETG as it is a bit tougher than PLA and though not so tough as ABS it's supposedly easier to print with.