topbanner_forum
  *

avatar image

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
  • Tuesday March 19, 2024, 5:40 am
  • Proudly celebrating 15+ years online.
  • Donate now to become a lifetime supporting member of the site and get a non-expiring license key for all of our programs.
  • donate

Author Topic: 3D Printers - Dirty Secret  (Read 9144 times)

Tinman57

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,702
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
3D Printers - Dirty Secret
« on: July 26, 2013, 08:47 PM »

3D printers have a dirty secret
Before your buy that magical 3D printer for your home or office, know this: that mini-factory-in-a-box could be harmful to your health.

http://www.smartplan...a-dirty-secret/25035

Renegade

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 13,288
  • Tell me something you don't know...
    • View Profile
    • Renegade Minds
    • Donate to Member
Re: 3D Printers - Dirty Secret
« Reply #1 on: July 26, 2013, 09:48 PM »
Sounds like some room for innovation in helping to keep them clean.
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Deozaan

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Points: 1
  • Posts: 9,746
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: 3D Printers - Dirty Secret
« Reply #2 on: July 27, 2013, 02:46 PM »
Print an air filter.

Tinman57

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,702
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: 3D Printers - Dirty Secret
« Reply #3 on: July 27, 2013, 08:17 PM »
Print an air filter. 

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!  Nice one!  I figure if I ever bought one, I'd use my wet/dry vac to filter the nasties as it was printing.  Just stick the hose up by the print head and let er' rip.....

  I would strongly imagine that the next generation of 3D printers will have some sort of fan driven filtration system, which will add another couple of hundred dollars to the system.....

Renegade

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 13,288
  • Tell me something you don't know...
    • View Profile
    • Renegade Minds
    • Donate to Member
Re: 3D Printers - Dirty Secret
« Reply #4 on: July 27, 2013, 08:51 PM »
Filtering particles that small is a difficult problem. I don't think your wet/dry vac would be all that effective. I'm sure it would get some, but how much is another question.

Probably an airtight housing for the printer would be a good start. At least contain the dust while printing.
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Vurbal

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2012
  • **
  • Posts: 653
  • Mostly harmless
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: 3D Printers - Dirty Secret
« Reply #5 on: July 28, 2013, 10:06 AM »
Even thought it's exactly the opposite problem this reminds me of a job I had with a company that provided printers for 3M factories. One of the two 3M locations in this area produces sandpaper. They had one room which IIRC was used exclusively for cutting the huge rolls of sandpaper into sheets and packaging them. Each station had a HP LaserJet for printing shipping labels.

What they didn't have was any type of cover over the printers which were sitting about 3-4 feet away from the sandpaper rolls. Every so often the printers would have to be "cleaned" which meant taking the paper tray out, picking up the printer, and dumping the sand out on the floor.
I learned to say the pledge of allegiance
Before they beat me bloody down at the station
They haven't got a word out of me since
I got a billion years probation
- The MC5

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of ''crackpot'' than the stigma of conformity.
- Thomas J. Watson, Sr

It's not rocket surgery.
- Me


I recommend reading through my Bio before responding to any of my posts. It could save both of us a lot of time and frustration.

Ath

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 3,610
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: 3D Printers - Dirty Secret
« Reply #6 on: July 28, 2013, 12:33 PM »
Unfortunately, the referenced article in the first post of this thread, doesn't mention the relativity of this 'polution' caused by 3D printers: it's comparable to grilling meat on a charcoal barbeque or smoking a cigarette, as mentioned here and in other articles.
Let us not get too worried.

As my father in law, who died over 15 years ago, used to say "the more accurate measurements they can make, the more bad stuff they are able to find, but still there are people dying of old age instead of all those 'bad disseases'".
Guess he had a point there :huh:
« Last Edit: July 28, 2013, 12:41 PM by Ath »

Tinman57

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,702
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: 3D Printers - Dirty Secret
« Reply #7 on: July 28, 2013, 08:30 PM »
Filtering particles that small is a difficult problem. I don't think your wet/dry vac would be all that effective. I'm sure it would get some, but how much is another question.

Probably an airtight housing for the printer would be a good start. At least contain the dust while printing.

  Wet/dry vacs have two filters, one filter that catches real fine particles like dust.  The outer filter which fits over the dust filter is foam.  I've used it on real fine saw-dust and nothing got by the filters, the exhaust was blowing clean air even though the foam filter was dry....

Renegade

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 13,288
  • Tell me something you don't know...
    • View Profile
    • Renegade Minds
    • Donate to Member
Re: 3D Printers - Dirty Secret
« Reply #8 on: July 28, 2013, 10:57 PM »
Unfortunately, the referenced article in the first post of this thread, doesn't mention the relativity of this 'polution' caused by 3D printers: it's comparable to grilling meat on a charcoal barbeque or smoking a cigarette, as mentioned here and in other articles.

I'm not sure... see below...

  Wet/dry vacs have two filters, one filter that catches real fine particles like dust.  The outer filter which fits over the dust filter is foam.  I've used it on real fine saw-dust and nothing got by the filters, the exhaust was blowing clean air even though the foam filter was dry....

The problem isn't so much the volume of dust. The problem is the size of it. Regular filters simply aren't equipped to deal with nano-particles. They're just too small.

A good example of the problem in action is when you see outbreaks of cryptosporidium in the water. It makes a lot of people sick and kills some elderly and kids. It's a very small pathogen that isn't filtered out of the water by things like Brita filters or granular carbon filters. You need an RO or high-quality compressed carbon block filter as their particulate filtering size is very small, and enough to get the pathogen. My guess is that the filters on a wet/dry vac are more like a Brita filter than an RO filter.

There are other kinds of filters that act fundamentally differently though - e.g. electrostatic and chemical/resin filters. I don't know enough about 3D printing media to know what kind of filter would help though.

From what I've read across a few different articles in different disciplines, nano-particles are very much different as they can interact on much smaller scales, which is what makes them so effective in many cases.

I have NO idea whether 3D printing material is safe or not or whether it's mostly safe or whatever.

I AM willing to bet that the small size of the particles is relevant to the discussion of whether they are safe or not. Beyond that, no clue.

My guess is that it's probably better to be safe than sorry, and to try to minimize the amount that you breathe in. Given how small they are, it's going to make filtering out all of it tough, but some basic precautions would still be a good idea.

Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Tinman57

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,702
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: 3D Printers - Dirty Secret
« Reply #9 on: July 29, 2013, 04:38 PM »

  I'm pretty sure that sawdust is on the nano scale, it's a very fine silt-like dust.  But even so, the wet/dry vacs use hepa-type filters, or at least the ones I buy.  The foam filters themselves filter out the real small stuff, and when wet nothing is getting by except air.  When I do paint sanding indoors I use my wet/dry vac to filter the air because I hate dusting the house.  lol

Stoic Joker

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • Posts: 6,646
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: 3D Printers - Dirty Secret
« Reply #10 on: July 29, 2013, 06:04 PM »
This is only an issue because some people really are that dumb.

chainsaw-crotch.jpg

Tinman57

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,702
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: 3D Printers - Dirty Secret
« Reply #11 on: July 29, 2013, 07:19 PM »
This is only an issue because some people really are that dumb.

  Couldn't he be considered for the Darwin Award for removing himself from the gene pool?   ;D