Re: Toxic emissions, any one taking care?
I get headaches two hours in when i'm in a room with a printer currently printing something with PLA. It is like passive smoking
......
P.S.: Fans (with the HEPA filters slapped behind them) are required to get the hot air out of the enclosure, or else the hotend fan cannot cool down the hotend, then PLA wil lcause a guaranteed blockage after an hour or so.
Good feedback!
Through my work I get some insight into health effects of gaseous and particulate emissions, enough to take the potential threat from a 3D printer with respect and enough to build an enclosure with HEPA and Active Carbon filter. The hint about overheating is very useful, as I had originally planned to keep the system closed with only internal air cleaning. Thanks for that.
Re: Toxic emissions, any one taking care?
Good feedback!
Through my work I get some insight into health effects of gaseous and particulate emissions, enough to take the potential threat from a 3D printer with respect and enough to build an enclosure with HEPA and Active Carbon filter. The hint about overheating is very useful, as I had originally planned to keep the system closed with only internal air cleaning. Thanks for that.
You're welcome.
I build my enclosure the same way you described half a year ago, and could only print PLA with the door open.
Put a thermometer inside, door closed, and when the temp inside the enclosure neared 40 degrees celsius, the extruder started skipping. Always. Many prints were ruined.
The blockage required disassembling the hotend completely, because the filament turned to mush in the PTFE area, this is the dreaded heat creep.
I've destroyed about 6 PTFE tubes like this, because the filament would get immensely stuck in it.
This is only logical if you put an average of 80 watts of heat into the surrounding area (the heated bed does this mostly, measured with a AC multimeter)
Door open, no problem.
A few weekends ago i took my enclosure and put some 120x120x40mm industrial fans on it, with a 3D printed case that lets me swap out the carbon filter in front of the fan, and a hepa filter after the fan.
The hepa filter lets almost no air through, but it helps regulating the temp inside the case, and my hobby room doesn't smell like burned plastic anymore. Headaches are gone, too.
Re: Toxic emissions, any one taking care?
Thanks for the hint of cooling the enclosure rather than recirculating the air. My plan is also to make a filtering system that pulls air through a gas mask. An A1 filter (brown) should be fine for ultrafine particles and VOCs with a boiling point above 65 degrees celsius (all of the PLA emissions) and they generally have a good shelf time so they should work for a long time.
Then again, the paper cited originally in this thread doesn't show that the emissions are very much. My office is a bit less than 12 square meters and with the highest production of styrene they have measured, I would have to print continuously for 30 hours without opening a window or door before the airbourne content of styrene would be at the limit of acceptable working environment set by the Danish work enviromnent authorities. The limit set by the american authorities are 4 times higher than that as far as I can find on the internet.
Re: Toxic emissions, any one taking care?
I wish you no offense, and if all of this is simply nothing you wish to think about, I think it will be OK.
Any comments about the supposed "safety" of ANY materials being subjected to the temperature in the extruder are misleading.
A case in point: Eastman Kodak spent millions defending the "safety" of their Tritan plastic and its "safe" use around food products. The reason they spent that kind of money is because profits were at stake. The things they did to discredit the folks who were trying to blow the whistle on their money-making product were amazing.
The folks at SIG water bottle company spent 2 years claiming there was no BPA in the lining of their water bottles because it took them 2 years to figure out a way to put something in there that really didn't have BPA in it and they were not about to shut down their manufacturing just because of what it was doing to people's health.
People manufacturing filament have got themselves a money machine, and apparently nobody is going to be able to shut any of it off regardless of what it does to our health.
It's a little-known fact, but once a "money machine" starts rolling, it never stops, no matter how much damage it does to the planet or how much damage it does to the health of people on the planet. Not to generalize, but somebody somewhere is still manufacturing DDT. And of course, we have Monsanto with all they do.
If you think that breathing small amounts of the particles and gases coming from 3D printing won't harm you, think again. There are huge industries profiting from the idea that disease isn't caused by toxins. These same industries manufacture toxins which they train doctors to prescribe. The doctors (and the public) aren't trained or educated in the effects of toxins (even though every page listing the side effects of these "medicines" starts with "dizziness, headache, nausea, vomiting, etc."). Organizations like the CDC debate for years (with the usual input from folks in the industry which produces the toxic item in question) before they actually describe something as "toxic".
The complete scenario, with the desired effect to the GNP's bottom line would be a world full of people using 3D printers, and those experiencing headaches, or worse, simply medicating themselves and carrying on.
When my MK3 arrives, I intend to treat it as something a bit more dangerous (and glorious) than a barbecue. I've always been somewhat angry at folks who burn wood in their fireplaces, and barbecue in their back yards, because of the pollution they put out. I've been thinking about this ever since I placed my order for the MK3 back in November. I realized that I drive a car with an exhaust, and I've somehow justified that.
All I'd like to suggest at this time is, it pays to be careful. Many folks used to think cigarette smoking couldn't harm anyone or any thing. People still die because of the health-robbing effects of mining rare-earth elements that we need to manufacture cell phones. Folks in some parts of the world are still debating the safety of fracking. And there is something near-and-dear to my heart whose initials are "NVICP". It's an acronym for National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. It's funded by taxpayers, who pay themselves, out of their own pockets, for the injuries they incur at the hands of drug manufacturers.
I've always been afraid of doing things that would needlessly shorten my life in this body AND I'm looking forward to what I will be able to make with this new machine....
Re: Toxic emissions, any one taking care?
P.S.: Fans (with the HEPA filters slapped behind them) are required to get the hot air out of the enclosure, or else the hotend fan cannot cool down the hotend, then PLA wil lcause a guaranteed blockage after an hour or so.
Any suggestions? I built the HEPA filter found on Thingiverse (with the carbon pellets) and it's not enough to cool the inside, not enough heat evacuation. I can indeed guarantee the blockage as I have one each time I print with the door closed. Once the temp on the wall of my enclosure reaches about 29 deg C I get a clog.
How did you set up your cooling? Should I slap on a couple of 120mm fans?
Re: Toxic emissions, any one taking care?
Because I am running the printer in a small room I installed an air filtration system that just runs all the time and I'm not spending time in the room while the printer is running.
Re: Toxic emissions, any one taking care?
P.S.: Fans (with the HEPA filters slapped behind them) are required to get the hot air out of the enclosure, or else the hotend fan cannot cool down the hotend, then PLA wil lcause a guaranteed blockage after an hour or so.
Any suggestions? I built the HEPA filter found on Thingiverse (with the carbon pellets) and it's not enough to cool the inside, not enough heat evacuation. I can indeed guarantee the blockage as I have one each time I print with the door closed. Once the temp on the wall of my enclosure reaches about 29 deg C I get a clog.
How did you set up your cooling? Should I slap on a couple of 120mm fans?
Discard anything that involves pellets and look for something more like this:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2160321
I edited the stl a little to bolt two of these to my case, a piece from a cuttable carbon filter sheet in front of it (where the fold able mechanism is), and a piece of HEPA filter behind the fan.
The 99.999% HEPA filter sheet is problematic, almost lets no air through at all even when 2 industrial 32V fans blow through it, so i'm looking for a 99.5% one, or a 95% one
Re: Toxic emissions, any one taking care?
What's the problem with pellets?
And carbon vs HEPA, why both?
Mine actually sucks the air through the hepa and pellets, and blows it out, but I still have 40% of air going back into the enclosure. I'm going to try to block that hole so 100% gets thrown out.
The question also is, where and how do you make sure enough fresh air can enter the enclosure. Do you drill some holes in the bottom, or on the lower part of the walls? And do these require any filters?
Re: Toxic emissions, any one taking care?
This is the one I made:
Re: Toxic emissions, any one taking care?
And here is mine, installed:
Re: Toxic emissions, any one taking care?
The question also is, where and how do you make sure enough fresh air can enter the enclosure. Do you drill some holes in the bottom, or on the lower part of the walls?
I'm thinking of drilling a bunch of holes, possibly a 1/4" hole for every square inch of the left and right sides of the enclosure.
then placing a "snoot" on each side with some pipe attached to the left one that turns 90 degrees several times. the idea is to not allow a passing breeze to affect the flow. the right side has an exhaust fan attached to it.
on the left side, between the "snoot" and the holes would be a slot to insert various blockers for the holes to adjust the flow. not sure about this yet, maybe a variable speed exhaust fan would achieve the same thing.