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Topic: Safety Precautions - Extruding Plastic

What kind of safety precautions you guys take when extruding raw plastic into printer filament? (Also, to a lesser extent when running a FDM 3D printer.)

My understanding is that burning plastic can release dioxins and have other health effects. That makes me think that at least some type of breathing mask and gloves would be necessary when melting plastic.

Thanks!

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Re: Safety Precautions - Extruding Plastic

Problems happen when plastic is burned, but that isn't the same as melted.  As long as it isn't going up in flames or smoking, there isn't much to worry about.

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Re: Safety Precautions - Extruding Plastic

Also some plastics are worse than others. ABS and PLA are relatively benign, though I use both only in well ventilated areas.

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Re: Safety Precautions - Extruding Plastic

Guess I shouldn't smell my printer while it's working huh?  Oh well, at least I dont have to give up licking lead paint smile

SD2 - Glass Bed, Fans on PCB and Y motor, Custom enclosure
Slicer - Simplify3D

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Re: Safety Precautions - Extruding Plastic

I started chewing on road tar to try and kick the lead paint habit I had.

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Re: Safety Precautions - Extruding Plastic

LOL... Road tar.....May have to give that a try. smile

SD2 - Glass Bed, Fans on PCB and Y motor, Custom enclosure
Slicer - Simplify3D

7 (edited by adrian 2014-01-30 00:33:41)

Re: Safety Precautions - Extruding Plastic

... yeah, none of those ideas helped with my Benzene dependency ... arguably the road tar made it worse tongue

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Re: Safety Precautions - Extruding Plastic

adrian wrote:

... yeah, none of those ideas helped with my Benzene dependency ... arguably the road tar made it worse tongue

You must be having a good day....keep smiling big_smile

Printit Industries Model 8.10 fully enclosed CoreXY, Chamber heat
3-SD3's & a Workbench all fully enclosed, RH-Slic3r Win7pro, E3D V6, Volcano & Cyclops Hot End
SSR/500W AC Heated Glass Bed, Linear bearings on SS rods. Direct Drive Y-axis, BulldogXL
Thanks to all for your contributions

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Re: Safety Precautions - Extruding Plastic

It's very good think to wear gloves and mask while plastic is melting.

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Re: Safety Precautions - Extruding Plastic

I spent six months with the printer next to my bed, only printing during the day but probably not great for me. I do have an enclosed printer so it is noticeably less scented when kept close.

Anyway, eventually I made a small carbon filter with a squirrel cage fan inside my print chamber, for extra precaution. It's a smaller area and easy to filter.