Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've had machines go down in the past week. 2 mono SEs

I just got a mono X up and running, and have an set of models currently attempting to print on it.

I've done more research this week on 3D printers and associated topics.

and come to the conclusion that I may have ran into this hobby too quickly. and I'm nervous.

The off gasses from 3D printers contain VOC's, which are toxic to humans in large numbers of PPM.

I'm running my business from my apartment. I don't have a dedicated lab space with proper ventilation.

My roommate says I'm overthinking things, that the apartment is a temporary, and I can get that space i need eventually.

I agree with my roommate, but I also feel remorse about bringing potential toxic fumes into our living space.

roommate said its not worse than heavy smoking, or other things that are dangerous, and that life is dangerous. If you don't take risks, you don't succeed. furthermore we looked things up together and household products can off-gas VOCS too.

I need to clear my head. and I need help doing so. its affecting my life, being in this headspace for the past week, and I want to reject the concern and move forward.

how?

I haven't taken the plunge for similar concerns, I plan on building an enclosure.
There's different options for enclosures from repurposed growing tents to purpose-made containers and DIY options.
Searching for "3D printer VoC filters" has a bunch of articles making recommendations air purifiers using combination of HEPA and carbon filters that will deal with most of the material particles. Elegoo makes one, but I've never used it.
Having a good mask, not the paper dust filters, the rebreather types with changeable screw-on filters will help in the immediate vicinity when handling stuff, but not so much if it's always in the room with you.

As long as your space is well ventilated, and given that you don't sleep, eat & live next to your machines 24/7, I would lean on your roommate's advice.

If you can't calm your paranoia, I would recommend getting a air purifier that filters VOC's. They're the kinds with filters incorporating activated carbon.

Safety advice for 3D printing

1) Wear disposable Nitrile Gloves - they still get eaten through by resin (which is why you get disposable ones) however they have a functional lifespan for working with 3D printers in general. Latex is not suitable at all as it gets eaten into way too fast

2) Eye protection. You do NOT want resin in your eye. Uncured (eg off the build plate) or wet resin will be a major problem. I've spoken to people who got tiny tiny flecks in their eye and at best its a LOT of saline solution at the hospital/doctors to wash their eye clean and one person had to then go and have a bit of resin plucked off their eye.
All were fine (far as I'm aware) after; however its something that simple eye protection can avoid.

3) Air mask that covers your mouth and nose and provides filtration for organic vapours is also a must.



After that if you are living in the environment you print in and don't have a separate room (closed door etc... ) then you ideally want to put your printers in an enclosure and vent the air inside to the outside. You can use charcoal filters and they generally have a good effect at helping to filter the air; but they aren't as good as ducting the air outside to remove the particles.
This doesn't have to be super complex; a simple growing tent, cheap fan and bit of fan tubing and you've got yourself a venting setup. Throw in some tape and such to hold it together and to seal the exit point into the window etc...




3D printing can be very safe, but you have to take proper safety steps to make it so. Failure to do so is "risky" in a sense because many of the fumes/contact with resin won't cause problems instantly for many people. They might cause minor irritation, but the actual damage is more that it builds up an intolerance within your body. This can lead to allergic reactions.



Again I don't want to scare you off 3D printing, but you are right to take proper precautions to make it a safe experience. Especially if you are looking to print a lot with multiple printers.
Life is dangerous, but you still put your seat belt on

 Overread wrote:
Safety advice for 3D printing

1) Wear disposable Nitrile Gloves - they still get eaten through by resin (which is why you get disposable ones) however they have a functional lifespan for working with 3D printers in general. Latex is not suitable at all as it gets eaten into way too fast

2) Eye protection. You do NOT want resin in your eye. Uncured (eg off the build plate) or wet resin will be a major problem. I've spoken to people who got tiny tiny flecks in their eye and at best its a LOT of saline solution at the hospital/doctors to wash their eye clean and one person had to then go and have a bit of resin plucked off their eye.
All were fine (far as I'm aware) after; however its something that simple eye protection can avoid.

3) Air mask that covers your mouth and nose and provides filtration for organic vapours is also a must.



After that if you are living in the environment you print in and don't have a separate room (closed door etc... ) then you ideally want to put your printers in an enclosure and vent the air inside to the outside. You can use charcoal filters and they generally have a good effect at helping to filter the air; but they aren't as good as ducting the air outside to remove the particles.
This doesn't have to be super complex; a simple growing tent, cheap fan and bit of fan tubing and you've got yourself a venting setup. Throw in some tape and such to hold it together and to seal the exit point into the window etc...




3D printing can be very safe, but you have to take proper safety steps to make it so. Failure to do so is "risky" in a sense because many of the fumes/contact with resin won't cause problems instantly for many people. They might cause minor irritation, but the actual damage is more that it builds up an intolerance within your body. This can lead to allergic reactions.



Again I don't want to scare you off 3D printing, but you are right to take proper precautions to make it a safe experience. Especially if you are looking to print a lot with multiple printers.
Life is dangerous, but you still put your seat belt on

1. I use industrial 8mm nitrile disposable gloves from glove works. Having worked in manufacturing in a lab environment previously, I got a line with a good deal and use the same gloves as I did then.

2. I do wear glasses, but certainly can start using safety glasses. Didn't think of that. Thank you.

3. Masking is already done, but eventually I'm going to get a better filtration mask.

4. I can't vent directly to the outside.

I'm in a 2 bedroom apartment. The printer is set up near a sliding glass door (covered by a custom made shading panel to stop UV)

The problem with setting it up near one of our "regular" single hung windows is that we are in a neighborhood which is what I'm going to technically term "eh, safe."

Everybody in the complex generally keeps to themselves, but there have been break ins nearby.

Granted, someone could still smash through one of the back windows anyway, but constructing a se that would be secure enough would probably require changing the window entirely or otherwise go above what my lease allows.

So I'm settling on opening the windows while I am home during the day, figuring out a couple cheap fans to direct airflow, and buying a few air filters for the set up area.

I'd build an enclosure but without the ability to vent it directly outside i don't know if it would be effective.

I'm hoping to change this as soon as I can but that may be months.

*Laughs nervously*. Ehh the MEK and talc would get me before photopolymers.

I haven't recorded any large voc off a running 3d my printer CAT S61 VOC sensor so not calibrated like maybe 40PPB with a B for billion. There is a good white paper on printer VOC. Basically pla is worse for you. But you need to be running like 10 printers 24-7 to even get it into that threshold.

It's up to you. Definitely do your own research and read your msds. But my two cents wear gloves, don't atomize it, and don't drink it and you should be fine. Remember to cure waste before you trash it.

I think you are referencing VOCs from FDM

I am referencing MSLA resin 3d printing

I had the same concerns with my own business. I purchased a few 3D printers, thinking that I would replace spincasting 6mm vehicles with doing just prints, but like you, lack a good setup or area for venting.

I ended up buying one of these airthing monitors to run some experiments:
https://www.amazon.com/Airthings-2930-Quality-Detection-Dashboard/dp/B07JB8QWH6/ref=sr_1_4?crid=25S7RZEEV8OIN&keywords=airthings&qid=1644073703&sprefix=airthings%2Caps%2C65&sr=8-4&th=1

With 2 printers running for like 8 hours in a totally closed up room, with no window open, the VOC's got a little high, but never anything crazy. I would say on par with when my wife would clean the house and use spray cleaners, or when we would cook a meal. The only time the VOC's got really crazy is during the postprocessing part. Any time I cleaned with the IPA, or had the pickle jars open, those VOC numbers would spike like crazy. So really, less with the resin, and more with the cleaning process in general.

So anyway, even though I kind of gave up on the switch to printing, having one of these monitors sitting by the printers gave me peace of mind, because I could just check on my phone and see how the VOC's are doing. I will also echo the suggestion to buy yourself a mask that filters for VOC's. I also bought like a $250 air purifier to sit in the room, which further helped to get the VOC's back in the green pretty quick.

I would not run a resin printer in my living area.

thedespot29 wrote:
I had the same concerns with my own business. I purchased a few 3D printers, thinking that I would replace spincasting 6mm vehicles with doing just prints, but like you, lack a good setup or area for venting.

I ended up buying one of these airthing monitors to run some experiments:
https://www.amazon.com/Airthings-2930-Quality-Detection-Dashboard/dp/B07JB8QWH6/ref=sr_1_4?crid=25S7RZEEV8OIN&keywords=airthings&qid=1644073703&sprefix=airthings%2Caps%2C65&sr=8-4&th=1

With 2 printers running for like 8 hours in a totally closed up room, with no window open, the VOC's got a little high, but never anything crazy. I would say on par with when my wife would clean the house and use spray cleaners, or when we would cook a meal. The only time the VOC's got really crazy is during the postprocessing part. Any time I cleaned with the IPA, or had the pickle jars open, those VOC numbers would spike like crazy. So really, less with the resin, and more with the cleaning process in general.

So anyway, even though I kind of gave up on the switch to printing, having one of these monitors sitting by the printers gave me peace of mind, because I could just check on my phone and see how the VOC's are doing. I will also echo the suggestion to buy yourself a mask that filters for VOC's. I also bought like a $250 air purifier to sit in the room, which further helped to get the VOC's back in the green pretty quick.

Do those things correctly measure the chemicals that 3D printers put out? We have a few air quality sensors at work and they're typically only calibrated for a few chemicals.

Anyway, I didn't last long 3D printing in the same room as I work, even though it's a big room with large windows open and a fan running, it was too much for me. But hey, I have a lot of chemical sensitivities, so YMMV.

Personally I'm going to be building either an airtight enclosure with a filter in it or more likely just putting up a small lean-to shed in my backyard so I don't need to sharing airspace with it other than to set it up and get a print started.

So you know, various resins have much different odor levels. Anycubic resin and eEegoo transparents are particularly bad, and Siraya and Elegoo grey are pretty mild (the former is actually disturbingly pleasant, smelling like koolaid).

 Laughing Man wrote:
So you know, various resins have much different odor levels. Anycubic resin and eEegoo transparents are particularly bad, and Siraya and Elegoo grey are pretty mild (the former is actually disturbingly pleasant, smelling like koolaid).

I have no clue how I would have to calibrate settings if I changed from my usual anycubic resin to siraya-tech. Partially what has kept me from swapping

On VOCs - thats an easy solve.
The Photon Mono SE pulls air from inside the printing area and vents it past 2 minicarbon filters outside the back of the machine.
The Mono X has no Venting, so fumes remain mostly under the cover.

For the SE, there's a very easy solution - remove the backplate, print and install this:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2877754
put an air hose on, get an inline vent (100mmm fitting for the hose and the printed backplate) and yeet the air through an activated carbon filter.
Activated carbon is particularly good at filtering organic compounds.
That stuff is used in gas masks to prevent stuff like mustard and chlorine gas from killing you. It can handle VOCs from printing easily.
The same can be done with either an enclosure, like a grow tent, or similar venting solutions for the Mono X. Personally, I just drilled a 95mm hole in the cover, put the hose in and taped it airtight. That creates negative pressure inside the cover which means no fumes should ever be able to creep their way out.

I am no expert in the field, but I had side effects from exposure to resin fumes once and not ever again since. Also, the smell is entirely gone, even if the printer runs for 12h+ hours. If I smell anything, it usually means that something isnt airtight.

As for calibration - there's lots and lots of YT tutorials. Its basically just doing a few test prints with different settings and see what turns out best.

I've been pretty happy with Anycubic Eco Resin as far as low odor goes. I don't think I'd use anything else in my current living space.

 Thairne wrote:
On VOCs - thats an easy solve.
The Photon Mono SE pulls air from inside the printing area and vents it past 2 minicarbon filters outside the back of the machine.
The Mono X has no Venting, so fumes remain mostly under the cover.

For the SE, there's a very easy solution - remove the backplate, print and install this:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2877754
put an air hose on, get an inline vent (100mmm fitting for the hose and the printed backplate) and yeet the air through an activated carbon filter.
Activated carbon is particularly good at filtering organic compounds.
That stuff is used in gas masks to prevent stuff like mustard and chlorine gas from killing you. It can handle VOCs from printing easily.
The same can be done with either an enclosure, like a grow tent, or similar venting solutions for the Mono X. Personally, I just drilled a 95mm hole in the cover, put the hose in and taped it airtight. That creates negative pressure inside the cover which means no fumes should ever be able to creep their way out.

I am no expert in the field, but I had side effects from exposure to resin fumes once and not ever again since. Also, the smell is entirely gone, even if the printer runs for 12h+ hours. If I smell anything, it usually means that something isnt airtight.

As for calibration - there's lots and lots of YT tutorials. Its basically just doing a few test prints with different settings and see what turns out best.

This, while it may not be perfect like a separated space would be, gives me some peace of mind.

Granted both of my mono SE's are currently down.

Focusing on the mono X for a moment: you mentioned an enclosure like a grow tent but then also suggest that the odors mostly remain under the hood until the hood is removed.

If the entire point of the enclosure is to keep vocs out of the rest of the environment, then why would you use an enclosure on a Mono X when you must remove the hood to access the build plate once the printer is finished printing cool?

the cover is not air tight. It is supposed to absorb UV light, so fumes will leak out and you willsmell them. That's also one of the reasons why I actually like strong smelling resins - easier to catch if something is wrong.

An enclosure like a grow tent can not only keep the temperature high enough to keep printing, but it will have the same effect - mostly air tight, but usually with a hole through which you can do a venting solution which runs the entire time. And it doesnt require drilling a hole in the cover.
So when you open the enclosure, the entire thing doesnt just POOF into your room which would require you to vent the entire room, which is nasty, especially in winter

 Thairne wrote:
the cover is not air tight. It is supposed to absorb UV light, so fumes will leak out and you willsmell them. That's also one of the reasons why I actually like strong smelling resins - easier to catch if something is wrong.

An enclosure like a grow tent can not only keep the temperature high enough to keep printing, but it will have the same effect - mostly air tight, but usually with a hole through which you can do a venting solution which runs the entire time. And it doesnt require drilling a hole in the cover.
So when you open the enclosure, the entire thing doesnt just POOF into your room which would require you to vent the entire room, which is nasty, especially in winter

Oh sweet then I could just do a grow tent with another four inch in line fan to a carbon filter right?

My Mars resin printer seemed to have much less smell when running than my Saturn, so they must have differing air intakes and such. I did make the code change on my Mars to only have the fan run when the printer was actively printing and that was great, as it was quite a bit noisier than the Saturn. I have not made the fans turn off when not actively printing on the Saturn since some research shows may not be optimal, but still smells worse.

Thairne wrote:On VOCs - thats an easy solve.

The Mono X has no Venting, so fumes remain mostly under the cover.

Where do you suppose they go when the print is complete, and you need to take the cover off to retrieve it?

lord marcus wrote:The off gasses from 3D printers contain VOC's, which are toxic to humans in large numbers of PPM.

I'm running my business from my apartment. I don't have a dedicated lab space with proper ventilation.

My roommate says I'm overthinking things, that the apartment is a temporary, and I can get that space i need eventually.

I agree with my roommate, but I also feel remorse about bringing potential toxic fumes into our living space.

roommate said its not worse than heavy smoking, or other things that are dangerous, and that life is dangerous. If you don't take risks, you don't succeed. furthermore we looked things up together and household products can off-gas VOCS too.

I need to clear my head. and I need help doing so. its affecting my life, being in this headspace for the past week, and I want to reject the concern and move forward.

how?

You already know perfectly well the answer from your own post. You are essentially running industrial processes in your home, and are looking for assistance handwaving away your own knowledge of the dangers of doing that, functionally.

You should not be 3D printing in your primary residence, and certainly not a small apartment as you describe with limited external ventilation. Again, pretty sure you came to this conclusion already.

If you insist on doing it anyway, then you have to take steps to mitigate the danger. The best way would be getting a tent for it, some ducting, and actively both pulling air out a window so the tent is always negative pressure. Since you say is not likely to be possible, then the next best thing would be trying to seal the room as much as possible, getting a tent or enclosure for the printers, and investing in an industrial grade HEPA filter which is rated to filter VOCs in that space. I am not an expert in this field, but I know enough to know that a $200 air filter from Amazon would be woefully insufficient. I think you want something more like a BOFA 3D PrintPro 3.

The third option is to be honest with yourself that this has health risks and you accept that. I can't imagine a single smoker things it's a safe pastime. Only you can decide how much you value your health, ultimately. If it's a few cheap box fans recirculating dirty, no one else can tell you otherwise - but do so with your eyes open instead of trying to intellectually deceive yourself. You seem smart, you know what it is.

I suspect the people who say "life is dangerous" still look both ways before they cross the street. Funny, huh?

i run mine in the garage that has a little too much ventilation. its too cold to print right now and my printers like 80's plus. I don't think printing in the room you are living in is the best idea. i know you took a leap at this but its ok to stumble a little in the beginning i know i did.

 lord marcus wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:
So you know, various resins have much different odor levels. Anycubic resin and eEegoo transparents are particularly bad, and Siraya and Elegoo grey are pretty mild (the former is actually disturbingly pleasant, smelling like koolaid).

I have no clue how I would have to calibrate settings if I changed from my usual anycubic resin to siraya-tech. Partially what has kept me from swapping

I didnt really change my settings to switch to sirayatech fast tbh. The only thing with it is the support removal is MUCH harder...buuut its because the resin is way way stronger.

 lord marcus wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:
So you know, various resins have much different odor levels. Anycubic resin and eEegoo transparents are particularly bad, and Siraya and Elegoo grey are pretty mild (the former is actually disturbingly pleasant, smelling like koolaid).

I have no clue how I would have to calibrate settings if I changed from my usual anycubic resin to siraya-tech. Partially what has kept me from swapping

WAIT you're running a 3D print service and you don't know how to calibrate printer settings?

https://atlas3dss.com/learn

Download the Ameralabs Town print from that site. Put it on the build place, slice it, print it, wash it, dry it, do NOT cure it. Keep gloves on (its uncured resin) and take a photo of all 4 sides and the top. Then watch the video on how to read it also on the same link. You can also share the photos, along with your resin, printer and printer settings, in 3D print groups. That should help you dial in the resin that you are currently using for best results. And you can repeat the process for any new resin that you get.

 Overread wrote:

 lord marcus wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:
So you know, various resins have much different odor levels. Anycubic resin and eEegoo transparents are particularly bad, and Siraya and Elegoo grey are pretty mild (the former is actually disturbingly pleasant, smelling like koolaid).

I have no clue how I would have to calibrate settings if I changed from my usual anycubic resin to siraya-tech. Partially what has kept me from swapping

WAIT you're running a 3D print service and you don't know how to calibrate printer settings?

https://atlas3dss.com/learn

Download the Ameralabs Town print from that site. Put it on the build place, slice it, print it, wash it, dry it, do NOT cure it. Keep gloves on (its uncured resin) and take a photo of all 4 sides and the top. Then watch the video on how to read it also on the same link. You can also share the photos, along with your resin, printer and printer settings, in 3D print groups. That should help you dial in the resin that you are currently using for best results. And you can repeat the process for any new resin that you get.

More like I know how to calibrate printing settings, but I've never had to switch resins so I've never had to do it before.

Theory versus practice.

How did you calibrate for your current resin ?

You should really be, ideally, doing a fast calibration every time you switch to a new bottle if you want to get the best possible performance. There are instructions and a calibration file preinstalled on the thumbstick that came with the mono X.

 Ouze wrote:
You should really be, ideally, doing a fast calibration every time you switch to a new bottle if you want to get the best possible performance. There are instructions and a calibration file preinstalled on the thumbstick that came with the mono X.

For merchants I think per bottle "Batch" is probably good enough. For more casual printer people every bottle is more sensible because we are more likely to buy bottles now and then and thus have them from different production batches. Or at least have more chance of them being from different batches.

But I do agree a merchant really should know how to calibrate so that they know their settings are good and can change resins; keep up with changes (temp or other environmental changes can affect best printer settings)

 Overread wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
You should really be, ideally, doing a fast calibration every time you switch to a new bottle if you want to get the best possible performance. There are instructions and a calibration file preinstalled on the thumbstick that came with the mono X.

For merchants I think per bottle "Batch" is probably good enough. For more casual printer people every bottle is more sensible because we are more likely to buy bottles now and then and thus have them from different production batches. Or at least have more chance of them being from different batches.

But I do agree a merchant really should know how to calibrate so that they know their settings are good and can change resins; keep up with changes (temp or other environmental changes can affect best printer settings)

I know how to calibrate settings and run tests. My wording and phrasing choices were poor.

I know that different resins are, well, different. I mainly use translucent resins. I meant to say that I would have very little idea of where to start if i needed to swap to an opaque resin as the setting profiles used for opaque resin usually differ.

To address your comment about the town file, why would you picture it uncured?

@Ouze. I appreciate the dose of reality. I'm going to make this as safe as possible while planning a workshop build for the future.

The town file is compared uncured because the curing phase will change the properties and appearance of some fine detail points of the file which are important to know in an uncured state as they give an idea of how well they will hold supports and such.

So the uncured version is what's used.

 Overread wrote:
The town file is compared uncured because the curing phase will change the properties and appearance of some fine detail points of the file which are important to know in an uncured state as they give an idea of how well they will hold supports and such.

So the uncured version is what's used.

Yes, Overread is 100% correct - any test for exposure you use should not be cured to get your settings dialed in. I use the easily found JSI Wundel test, which only takes a few minutes to print, since it is flat. I never did this on my old Mars, but only when I was dialing in my Saturn and found out I was WAY overcooking my prints on my Mars. I almost felt like going back and reprinting everything I had done for the past few years! While not a super extreme difference, it really did make a difference!

Albertorius wrote:
If you can, try and run this test:

https://mega.nz/file/ZBxAXJjK#PJCPDXaxDLOzN9nIhiKVsoHvKZEGMCHmCM_BXS-sJ90

It's pretty quick, so you can run a bunch in a short period of time.

For starters, try 50 microns at 2.5s, 2.2s and 2s, and see what are the results (don't use AA on these, ever), and repeat it for 20 microns starting at whatever value you know works, and then lower it bit by bit. From there we'll be able to see if you're over exposing or if it's something else, I think.