Toxic? Where to put printer?

My form 1 has set by my desk for a couple of years and the smell has never bothered be. The alcohol smells worse. I have had it on my hands with no ill effect. We did have a vendor that was a old time injection molder ask me what material the resin was made out of. When I told him I didn’t know, he promptly took a piece and set it on fire and took a big whiff. It did not smell good! He claimed it smelled like some material I can’t remember and went on his way.

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Hahahaha nice way to test things :stuck_out_tongue:

I wonder if he does that for everything he wants to have more information about… hide your kids people!

You don’t need to worry about it much, the resin and the IPA should be kept in a closed container (or the closed printer) most of the time so it’s not like it’s releasing fumes into the room constantly, even from printing it’s not doing all that much.

LMAO. I do the smell test quite often…but it is not normally chemicals I’ve set on fire!

You can get used to any smell, even Skunk. It’s a phenomenon called “olfactory fatigue”, your nose edits-out odors that are present all the time so you can smell new stuff better. But anyone who’s had their dog get skunked knows that your nose doesn’t take long to recover from “olfactory fatigue”. You wash the dog 10 or 15 times and you think the smell is getting better. Then you leave the house for a few hours and when you come back inside you realize all washing the dog did was spread more skunk smell all around the bathroom.

I don’t live in the room with the printers, so I most definitely notice the odor when I enter the room after being away for a while. But it’s no big deal (though yeah, some resins smell worse than others and I mostly use Tough which isn’t too bad).

I also have a little device called an “Atmotube” that constantly monitors the air quality in the room for (amongst other things) VOCs, which is the generic name for the chemical odors that outgas from stuff. Atmotube says my air quality is generally “good” and it only gets as low as “moderate” if I light up a cigar. But this room is well-ventilated with an always-on exhaust fan to the outside.

My point however, is that just because you don’t like a smell doesn’t mean it’s particularly bad for you. Like a Skunk’s odor is foul but the odor won’t actually hurt you physically. Same deal with FL resin according to the MSDSs. So while you don’t have to worry about physical harm, if the odors bother you enough, one option is to maybe do what I did and put a small exhaust fan in the room’s window to suck them out.

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Hello Everyone.
This thread caught my attention. I have a Form 2 and was very concerned about fumes. We have a new baby in the house and the thought of fumes was a great concern. We don’t have a garage, so the printer is in my work office. We also have a cat that likes to get into everything, so the printer needed to be isolated.

I decided to build a containment box for it. I wave a 120 mm fan at the top and one at the metal tube exit point. i also have another 120 mm fan at tube end and run this to a window right next to the unit.


So far this setup has worked very well. No fume smells, I can refresh the interior air with one run of the fans. No complaints from family about fumes. It has another advantage of keeping dust away from the unit.

In retrospect, the fumes aren’t that bad. Actually the IPA is the strongest part of the fume experience. Most of the time I only run after a print when the door will be open long enough. It also gives a the ability to stabilize the temperature inside the unit. The storage box underneath has been handy for keeping the alcohol and resins. Glad I did it, I’m concerned less about fumes & odor.

Chuck
www.chuckejones.com

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There are probably more toixins in the city with the trucks and busses sitting in traffic and they pose more risk than a 3d printer. The IPA is worse than the resin imo. I wouldn’t worry too much.
I do like that box though, be nice to keep dust to a minimum.

If it doesn’t have it already, you might want to consider a HEPA filter at the box’s air inlet so it lets in plenty of sweet, sweet air but keeps out all the nasty, nasty dust. Otherwise, besides being a Form2 fume extractor it’s probably also going to be a great household airborne dust and cat hair collector!

I made a dust cover for my printers to keep household detritus out of the workings. And the room my printers are in has fans (4x 4" Boxers) that exhaust to the outside, too. But I also smoke cigars in this room so if I didn’t have good ventilation I’d need a good divorce lawyer.

:slight_smile:

The fumes are deemed non-toxic. But I agree with your added caution with a baby in the house. And while the fumes are non-toxic and the resin is not. If you add a lock, having the printer inside a cabinet where a curious kid can’t get to it easily may save you some pain further down the road.

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Wow this is all very interesting!

In that case I’d love to have the printer in my work area! The only problem would be that my work area is connected to the living room and pretty much at the entrance of my house so I’m just wondering if there’s going to be a permanent smell or only when and after using the printer.

If there is a permanent smell, I think I’ll keep it hidden in my guest room.

Very glad that there’s no toxic fumes etc - as planning to put my new F2 next to my hamster!

I don’t remember who, but if you search the forum you’ll find someone who’s selling custom-made “slipcovers” for the Form1 and Form2 printers. I made my own. When the printer isn’t actively being loaded or unloaded it’s covered. Even while printing. I think this probably does a lot to keep the odors down.

But you can pretty much always smell a little something of the resin in my “man cave” room (cigars, too). I don’t think the odor is offensive (doesn’t smell like a dead animal or anything) but my wife would probably be unhappy with me if the house was permeated with the smell of the resin (or cigars). YMMV but I’m betting the guest room is probably your safer option.

I really don’t smell the resin but using pretty much only clear. Does the other resins stink that much? I know one of the 3rd party resins is pretty pungent but I don’t use that. IPA is more offensive and noticeable than the resin itself. Curious on all the fuss.

I’ve never been particularly bothered by the odor of any of the resins I’ve used. But they all do smell a little different. And some will certainly find the odors difficult to tolerate. I haven’t used Flexible in a while but my recollection is that it was a bit more “acrid”, stronger than the others. I used Vorex in my F1+ for a while and it had a nicer smell compared to any of the other FL resins I’ve used (clear, white, black, grey, flexible, tough, various revisions of each).

My hobby is Radio Control and we use a lot of Cyanoacrylate and “kicker” accelerant to make the adhesive cure faster. The kicker has a very distinctive smell which isn’t particularly foul but is kind of strong. Many don’t like it. But there’s one manufacturer whose kicker smells kind of like Lilac. Perfumy. I buy that brand whenever possible. I probably use more of it than I need to because it smells nice. Maybe FL should engineer their resins for how they smell as well as how they work? :smile:

I have one from Zak Timan (or ZVatIndustries) but I believe he only has an offering for the Form1. Not sure how active he is on the forum anymore.

I have heard people claim that one of the Tough versions smelled of blueberries, mine just smells like methylmethacrylate soup…

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:joy::joy::joy::joy::joy::joy::joy::joy:

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I had to throw out my Vorex after a firmware/software update quite awhile ago. How do you compensate for the software changes? I am pretty happy with the FL resins, but was happier for awhile with a different grey brand until the changes. I am hoping to get to like GreyV3 as well, but the non-FL grey was actually easier on my F1+ … until it wasn’t.

Once I got my Form2 and Tough started working, I’ve stuck with Tough. Haven’t used Vorex in a while, will probably have to toss out the stuff I’ve got simply because it’s getting old…

Just to add to this, I have noticed I get a bit of a tight throat when in the same room as the printer for long periods of time. Not sure if it is a reaction to the resin fumes. My girlfriend who hasn’t moved into my apartment yet is alergic to paint and chemical fumes and was freaking out when I bought the Form 2 (after reading about the health risks of FDM printers, entirely different thing :laughing:

By the way cjones cabinet build is awesome! I need something like this :slight_smile:

I just bought a form2 and it is quite loud. anybody knows a place to buy a fume hood or cabin where it fits in in europe?