3D printers, health concerns and nasty niffs.

Having spent many hours researching which 3D printer to buy I read a quite scary article online yesterday which has made me have second thoughts about buying one at all.

**LINK**

So for those of you owners and users might I ask your opinions on the above article.

If I do decide to buy one it will be sited in a small spare upstairs bedroom adjacent to our main bedroom. With the small bedroom door shut will we experience burning plastic smells in OUR bedroom?

My printer of choice would be:

Flashforge 3D Printer Guider 2S

Chosen because of good reviews, good choice of different filaments (nylon and CF really interests me) enclosed and fitted with EPA filter.

I ditched the original choice of a Dremel3D45 because it seems to only perform well with its own (expensive) proprietary filaments.

Your comments will be much appreciated.

Rik

Stick to PLA - less voc's than the carpet in your house, and food safe. No burning smell, but a slight sweet smell depending on the colour you are using - and keep the temperature as low as you can. FF default is 220 which is mad high, i run at 210 to 205. Nylon is a bit tricky to use, and gives off much higher voc's.

I think there are things you can print which will adapt a dremel for ordinary filament.

PLA doesn't smell much, ABS is a bit whiffy.

You can get little air purifier/filters that run off a USB power supply and have a HEPA filter, leave one of those running next to a 3D printer using PLA and you won't have to worry about smells of particulates. Only 2 watts.

Neil

Do what you do in other rooms where smells are frequent, use an extractor.

.

i.e. __ Share the problem with the rest of the planet

Oops … haven’t we got caught-out a couple of times already?

MichaelG.

Michael, are you really inferring that the fumes from a 3D printer are a real environmental problem?

Steve

.

I am merely commenting that convenient disregard for ‘my little bit’ has got us where we are.

We came close to killing our rivers with pollutants

We dumped [and still dump] raw sewage into the sea

We have degraded the Ozone layer

etc. etc.

Draw your own inferences … I’m not preaching.

MichaelG.

Yes, you are right as a species humans have done all of those things, but in the scheme of things the fumes emitted by a 3D printer are completely insignificant.

Do you stop having a cup of tea on a dark windless day because the power station is going to have to produce the electricity to boil the water and all the environmental impacts that has? I will say no more.

Steve

Getting back to the opening question ... This page [and particularly the closing line] might be useful.

**LINK** : https://www.whiteclouds.com/blog/toxicity-of-abs/

MichaelG.