Resin fumes question..

[caric]

Hi All,
Does anyone happen to know if resin fumes happen to be lighter, heavier, or about the same weight as air? Starting on an exhaust setup.

thanks!
Doug

[IllDante]

Hi All,
Does anyone happen to know if resin fumes happen to be lighter, heavier, or about the same weight as air? Starting on an exhaust setup.

thanks!
Doug

I'm also interested in this - as well as an exhaust setup since I have an apartment with no real place for ventilation. I also have pets, so would like to filter out as much as possible from the air while printing.

[Umpa]

CO or carbon monoxide is heavier than air, but you don't fit detectors at floor level.
CO2 is heavier than air, but you don't see dogs being gassed at the side of the road (even with 100 years of traffic).

So even though these gasses are heavier than air - its not by much and warm air rises anyway.
So you should take the stance that fumes from the printer will rise or be at the same level as normal air.

I don't think the fumes from resin are that bad, its the ISO that stinks the most.

When it comes to resin fumes this guy lays it on thick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrglNNw5A8Q

[Hot Mess]

Came here looking for information on venting fumes from my daughter's new Saturn 2 8K printer and this popped up in my first search. Having been the victim of an industrial vapor poisoning accident, I feel eminently qualified to comment, but I am not an Industrial Hygienist, I just ended up working with a bunch of them.

First; there is nothing associated with the gasses produced by resin printers that is safe for living things, full stop. Carbon monoxide & CO2 are just two results, and Umpa's assumptions regarding gas and air flow are worse than uninformed. If ya don't know, better to simply remain quiet rather than trying to share your lack of knowledge as help and getting people hurt. READ the MSD sheets for any and all resins that you intend to use and strictly follow their guidance, not the advice of internet sages, and ALWAYS err on behalf of the more cautious path.

The VOCs generated by resin printing either contribute to cancer, kill and disrupt elements of your Central Nervous System, or both, while also negatively impacting your endocrine system. The fact that these little industrial machines are being sold in large quantities to ignorant consumers world-wide is a bit of a puzzle, but when there's a buck to be made, human health has always been one of the first casualties. Consider this prophecy; as time goes on we will see more health and welfare regulations being promulgated, so be smart and protect yourself til then.

ANY 3-D printer (yes, the filament types give off dangerous gasses too, as well as ultra-fine particulate pollution) will give off unhealthy gasses, as well as particulate contaminants. It's why you get a sore throat and/or a cough, or worse, when you're around them, but if you haven't yet, it's simply a matter of time before you do, so listen to your body if nothing else. You see once you reach your body's limit for dealing with these type of poisons it eventually says "no more", and the results can be long lasting, if not fatal. For example; acetone, hexane, & formaldehyde are just a few of the compounds that I can no longer tolerate, or even smell, in even the most trivial quantity. I have seriously degraded hearing, vision and smell, as well as on-going vertigo and balance issues that completely keep me off of ladders. Previously I was in extremely good health and condition, but now I'm stuck dealing with these things for likely the rest of my life, 'cuz once you kill the nerves back far enough, many of them cannot grow back. The reason; well I had stuff to do and it only stunk a little bit, and besides, the effects wear off in a little bit once I'm done - until they don't!

Why would I ever allow myself to be anywhere near one of these, much less a resin based system? Well 'cuz they're incredibly cool to work with, of course. Joking aside, I wouldn't if I wasn't confident that I could make their operation completely safe, both for myself and my daughter, which brings me back to why I came here in the first place...

The bad gasses are not something to be tolerated, they need to be removed and dealt with, and simply venting them into the atmosphere is definitely NOT a responsible solution. So what to do? Well carbon works incredibly well as a sort of lock-down sponge, you just need to understand that it doesn't tell you when it's full and cannot absorb anymore. That means that we have to replace it before it becomes saturated, so life expectancy is going to vary according to the contaminant load. Since I cannot tolerate ANY additional antagonists that means I'll be replacing a cubic foot of charcoal from my ventilation system every two months. The spent charcoal will be added to our substantial composting efforts (we farm & raise livestock) where the unsavory carbon chains can be broken down into something more benign.

Containing and capturing all of those contaminants is the challenge, and in my case in particular, the solution has to be fail safe and absolute, so here's my plan: move copious amounts of air through a system that is as closed as possible while removing particulate and gaseous contaminants for safe disposal.

To that end, HVAC systems have some hard and fast rules that dictate my approach. Smooth laminar flow is utterly destroyed by things like constricted airways, surface friction & turbulence, so the usual dryer-type flex duct is completely out of the question since its interior wall surfaces create nothing but extreme turbulence. Also, anytime you change the direction of air flow you disrupt that desired smooth & efficient movement, so sharp turns will be avoided by using wide, gradual turns in round duct. Oval duct is to be avoided (unless you up-size it) 'cuz squashing a round duct into an oval actually degrades its flow characteristics significantly. Square duct has corners and complications of its own, so ultimately round is the preferred duct shape, the shape of the duct shall be round (all apologies to MP).

I'm also building a small air brush paint booth and soldering station, so the exhaust system will have several branches, all controlled by blast gates, similar to those used in wood shop dust collection systems. The fan will be protected by layered physical filters as well as the aforementioned carbon chamber, which within itself will contain four smaller chambers to help provide better gas exchange opportunities between the carbon and the contaminated air. This part of the system is somewhat experimental in that I'll be adding modular chambers if needed to keep maintenance periods reasonable.

So what happens when you try and suck air out of a room? Well, your fan is going to have to work pretty hard, since it's basically trying to pull a vacuum, so to keep back-drafting and energy use to a minimum you can introduce fresh air from outside of the environment. This is basically what household combustion devices like wood stoves and gas water heaters require to operate safely and efficiently.

The additional complicating factor with this is that you also end up introducing unconditioned outside air at the same time, so during colder periods that air is going to require some sort of tempering, and there's also the issue of controlling humidity, so more development to do there as well.

The fresh air, or make-up air, intake will use an unusual sort of geothermal heat ex-changer that I built for water cooling electronic components, so in-coming air will be within 10 degrees F. of indoor ambient pretty much year round. I was going to add a small inline thermostatically controlled heater to bump the in-coming air temperature up to whatever proves to be optimum for 3-D printing, but again, there is still the humidity issue to contend with. The conditioned basement space where this is all located is always remarkably dry, so that helps.

Not exactly clean room specs, but essentially I want to try and create the safest environment possible. For myself, I'll still likely have to wear a fresh-air hooded system to work there regardless, but that's my own fault for previous mistakes. I have several HVAC tools that I'll be using to tune and test with, so I do expect that I'll be able to accomplish my stated goals.

Regarding the attachment of the Saturn 2, it's a Christmas gift that remains unboxed as yet, so I'm not 100% certain of what I have to work with (beyond the little bits of info provided in the sales propaganda), but I kind of envision some sort of very strong magnetic, or possibly a physical cam lock of some sort, with compressible silicon gasketing to attach the printer port to the duct adapter so that the printer hood can be removed.

That means there's still going to be open air handling of the resin, or uncured printed objects & solvents, which will also release unwanted fumes, so I"m thinking that the entire 3-D printer workbench is going to require its own air handling capabilities in order to keep nothing but clean air in the human work environment.

I can't describe how upsetting it is to see and read about young people in particular, running these things in their bedrooms or apartments with nothing but maybe an open window to deal with these dangerous fumes. The world that we live in is already killing us a little at a time, between the C-8 debacle, pesticides in everything, polluted water, flame retarders and degassing building materials, we already suffer enough, so I urge everyone to PLEASE, do what you can to try and mitigate those risks, 'cuz time and good health are the two most precious resources that we can never get back once they've been squandered.

As for the adapter that I came here looking for, I guess today's as good a time as any to start practicing some 3-D design skills.