Is your 3D printer killing you slowly?

[Smile]

Hello,

Found this video while looking for enclosures for 3D printers. A guy discovered that all his house is covered with PLA dust, cant be good for you health right. And most PLA printers are not enclosed right.

 

[Nifty]

Very interesting. Some of those "dust" particles look pretty big. I have a bit of skepticism, but I'm hoping it would be really easy to duplicate his test / results by anyone with a 3D printer and UV light.

*IF* it's easy to find those particles throughout the house as he shows, then that does raise some concerns! While I don't know how toxic PLA is, I have to imagine it's not good to have floating around in your lungs.

 

[The Hat]

I was waiting to see if anybody else would comment or be concerned, because the findings in that video are all hogwash, I’ve been using 3D printers now for quite a while and have never seen anything like that ever, anyway PLA is not toxic..

 

[Tony4597]

In the limited amount of printing I have done with PLA I have never witnessed any dust issues even when printed indoors in an unvented living area. Having said that I have only ever printed using either black or white PLA in the mid-priced bracket.

Could it be that in some/cheaper PLA the dust particles are actually from fillers and dyes used in manufacture?
If that is the case could these additions be a risk with any long term exposure?

Inhaling any particulates cannot be beneficial to health even seemingly innocuous substances like PLA where I would guess the risk is probably low, but I suspect that health risks like this are extremely hard to analyse and likely to take many years to manifest. Of course, this is purely my layman's opinion.

 

[The Hat]

Could it be that in some/cheaper PLA the dust particles are actually from fillers and dyes used in manufacture?
If that is the case could these additions be a risk with any long term exposure?

I’m an old fart, so if they do any extensive testing’s on the health quality of PSA, (In the future) I’m most likely to be long dead before they produce their detailed results..

So I’m safe in the knowledge that it won’t kill me any time soon..

 

[Artur5]

There's one part of me that 3D printing is killing for sure.
MY POCKETS !

 

[Smile]

ignorance does not contribute heath to anyone. Once you have COPD it cant be treated.

 

[Redbrickman]

Melted plastic no matter what type is not good if inhaled. The smallest particles (VOC's) can't be seen, they are pretty much the same size as gas particles. No one yet knows what the long term effect will be, in the same way long term Vaping effects are also as yet unknown, but it makes sense if you spend time in a room with a 3D printer that you at least make some effort to filter and/or ventilate the area.

I have built a filter for inside the enclosed printer I own from a well respected design. The designer offers some common sense explanations of why one should consider filtering...

https://github.com/nevermore3d/Nevermore_Max?tab=readme-ov-file#why
History will prove what is safe or otherwise as far as 3D printing goes in the sme way we have discovered things that were not safe after long term use...

Smoking was once consideed safe, in fact I recently saw an old advert where the punch line was "the cigarette doctors recommend!"

Asbestos was also not thought to be dangerous either. How many of us (oldies) replaced brake shoes on cars and blew the asbestos laden dust out with an air line!

Many people that worked in watch manufacturers adding the luminous radioactive powder to the watch dial would lick their painbrush to get a nice fine point, oblivious to the fact that it would likely result in oral cancer.

Here's a controversial one. When Covid appeared the WHO (so called experts) refused to believe independent lab tests that showed the virus could remain alive in the air for several hours. Almost a year later they were telling people to ventilate their rooms when meeting others in enclosed spaces. And as for the 2M distance, that was just nonsense to think it was only spread by sprayed particles. If you have ever walked along a street and noticed the smell of tobacco smoke or Vape from someone 30-40ft away then you can understand how the same sized Covid particles can travel that distance too.

We are at the beginning of discovery as far as the health risks of 3D printing goes, therefore common sense should prevail.

Take care!

 

[Nifty]

Melted plastic no matter what type is not good if inhaled. The smallest particles (VOC's) can't be seen, they are pretty much the same size as gas particles. No one yet knows what the long term effect will be, in the same way long term Vaping effects are also as yet unknown, but it makes sense if you spend time in a room with a 3D printer that you at least make some effort to filter and/or ventilate the area.

Yup, I have similar thoughts.

My frustration continues to be with regard to the binary nature of a lot of the warnings out there. It seems like something is either "good" or "bad".

I know smoking is bad.
I know x-rays are bad.
I know breathing the air in many cities in India and China (and US, etc.) is bad.
I know getting too much sun on my skin is bad.
I know lead is bad.
I know breathing-in melting plastic fumes is bad.

To optimize my health, I should avoid all of the above as much as possible... and I do to some extent... but I'm always wondering what the relative "badness" is for each of those, and all the other things I'm told I should avoid.

 

[The Hat]

I know smoking is bad.
I know x-rays are bad.
I know breathing the air in many cities in India and China (and US, etc.) is bad.
I know getting too much sun on my skin is bad.
I know lead is bad.
I know breathing-in melting plastic fumes is bad.

They may be all bad, but where does that leave us, we could live our lives in a plastic bubble in our house and never come out, or do what most of us do, and be dammed.

If you can’t enjoy life then what’s the point of living (Existing), I wouldn’t change a thing in my life.. and no I don’t want to live any longer than I have too..