We’ve set up the form in the office. There are no windows you can open and I find I constantly inhale a bit of the alcohol and use it to wipe off the resin off my skin.
Just wondering how bad is it to breath in small doses? We are thinking of getting an air filter unit, though not sure if this will eliminate the fumes as its more for dust particles etc.
Can anyone shed some safety advise? Or what to do in an office with windows you cant open?
The recommendations are that IPA should not be closer than 50cm to any electronics, to have a ventilated area and the most obvious to use protective gloves. If you are going to use a fan in order to remove the fumes from your room, the fan needs to be approved for flammable vapours.
I try to open the box for a few seconds and hold my breath. The other thing is sometimes spilt resin will get on my fingers and I apply a small bit of the IPA to a paper towel to wipe it off my hands. Anyone know if its particularly dangerous to get this stuff on the hands?
Uncured resin is not good for you. Some people will get irritations and even allergies. You should always use protective gloves. And remember that uncured resin will penetrate the gloves after a while so change gloves regularly.
I’ve not had a reaction from it, though it’s tricky not to get it on the skin in small amounts. I guess will have to wear gloves more regularly.
Even though the resin is supposed to be odourless I still can smell it. I find myself head in the tank fishing out bits of cures resin flakes. Would breathing it in like this be considerably bad?
If you read the warnings in the resin MSDS sheet you will find that yes it is bad to be breathing that. You can find them down at the bottom of this page. They tentetively recommend a resporator.
The odor of the resin and the resin curing was so bad that it was giving me a headache and irritating the heck out of my coworkers. We are looking to improve our ventelation now.
I found this thread while researching the headaches I was getting. Looking farther back I found this…
I don’t get headaches, though I do get a bit of a tight throat. Guess everyone is different in reaction. I will start wearing a mask anyway. Sure breathing this stuff doesn’t do any good in the long run.
Hi,
I am not a doctor and I have no idea about IPA but I do not think is good to breath it on a regular basis (just common sense). Never seen breathing IPA as a recommended healthy habit
I always wear gloves and a half face mask while manipulating resin, IPA and prints.
Yeah I always wear gloves now. I either try to hold my breath or wear a full (breaking bad style) mask. I heard solvent fumes can over time rot cartilage in your nose 
so definitely not good to breath in.
IPA is commonly used in hospital settings in the form of alcohol pads. I’d say its safe for the skin, but the vapor is an irritant.
I work in a hospital. We don’t use it in any where near this concentration. I can’t even buy it via our normal purchaising system because none of our vendors/distributors have it.
The vapors from this concentration are massively worse than the stuff disinfecting pads use.
I am a design engineer and new to the forum. I am trying decide between a Form2 or a MakerGear M2 with some sort of enclosure. I am curious as to the safety of the resin and post-processing fumes. My office is in the basement of our house. There are only four small slider windows and none of them are in the office. One is in the mechanical room where the utility sink is however. Is anyone, in addition to the starter of the thread, have this sort of situation?
TIA,
Jim
Just keep the container closed when you can, the only time you need to open the IPA is to clean off a print for a short amount of time, and that’s not going to cause any problems. Just avoid having your face near the container when it’s open. As for resin, same thing just avoid keeping containers open when you don’t need to.
I forget to use gloves because I was too excited with my print. I have small wounds on my hand because I used too much soap over time on my hands. When I tried to put print inside IPA 99% i felt burning on wounds. Imedietely I went and wash my hands, is it too bad? 
I would recommend following guidelines for PPE. Gloves and ventilation being simple and fairly cheap.
I use shoulder length poly gloves with Nitrile gloves over them and an apron.
Poly gloves I use can be purchased from Uline at this link:
https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-20329/Vinyl-Poly-Gloves/Shoulder-Length-Poly-Gloves-35-Clear?keywords=full+sleeve+gloves
Maybe a bit overkill but I like them aside from the fact they get a bit sweaty if you wear them for extended periods of time.
For taking care of any air concerns there are two approaches, one as venting the air to an outside vent using an explosion proof blower and a fume hood.
If using this method its extremely important that the blower is rated for handling potentially flammable fumes and that all safety guidelines are followed when installing and the system is used.
If your designated cleaning area is setup well it really doesn’t take much to control and remove fumes.
There are also some small stand alone carbon based air filtration units that are rated for handling flammable fumes but I personally haven’t tried this method yet.
IPA isn’t terrible by itself, it is used to sterilize wounds, the main thing is it’s not good to breathe and it can dry out your skin. Resin is not good to get in a wound so it wouldn’t be great to get IPA that has dissolved resin on your hands if you have wounds.
Straight from the doctors on the internet “Isopropyl alcohol slows these functions and may shut them down altogether. … Inhaling large amounts of isopropyl alcohol can cause nausea, vomiting, irritation of the nose and mucous membranes, throat irritations, and even difficulty with breathing as coughing can occur making it difficult for you to catch your breath.”