Please, use adequate ventilation (with a heat exchanger if you need to keep A/C in the room) if you’re going to be resin printing inside. I don’t want to see all of you guys get cancer from this hobby.
Please, use adequate ventilation (with a heat exchanger if you need to keep A/C in the room) if you’re going to be resin printing inside. I don’t want to see all of you guys get cancer from this hobby.
Let’s say the chemicals aren’t healthy. Disclaimer: RTFM (MSDS and technical datasheet) and consult with professionals.
There are a few issues here at play. One major issue is that repeated exposure has a risk of sensibilization. Once this happens there is no way back. Your life will change.
The consumer industry has already moved. I remember explaining to Anycubic sales what an MSDS is and why I need it (if you need a good argument in such conversations: REACH). These days you can download it on their website.
To this day the packaging might not be CLP conform. At least their marketing got better: Water washable has now a section about waste treatment but plant-based resin is still advertised as “low odor and safe to use” or “truly environmentally friendly”. Worst of all they still suggest that the odors are safe to breathe as everything is soybean-based: The truth is they aren’t and neither is it soybeans. What once was soybeans is heavily modified.
Sadly this is not just an Anycubic issue.
Btw. If you use Anycubic though resin: According to their MSDS they switched the product and kept the name the same (approx. 2 years ago).
I’d love to have understood any of your funny words magic man… eli5?
Don’t breathe it; don’t get it on your skin and wear safety glases. Don’t flush it down the toilet.
Gloves: Those single-use gloves are spill protection and nothing more. If you can avoid touching resin avoid it and swap them immediately if they contact resin. Keep in mind that approx. 1-2 gloves per box (100 pcs.) can have holes/defects.
For waste treatment: Follow local guidance. As a rough rule of thumb: expose the resin to the sun (fully cure it), let the IPA evaporate and dispose it as a solid.
Flammable liquid storage: Keep the amount stored (inside) as small as possible. If the room is an escape route move your IPA washing station to a different room. Obviously, have a smoke detector in every room of your household, test them every few months and replace after 10 years.
How to check for contamination? Most printer resins are UV-reactive. Get a handheld UV-lamp/black light (those to check bank notes) and if anything lights up in green (fingerprints or spots) you have contaminated it with resin at some point (unless the object/material is also UV-reactive). Especially at the beginning, such a device is useful for learning good work practices (e.g. resin on the glove and touching the curing station or spills on the silicone matt around the washing station).
Any chemical is as safe as you make it: If you are careless it’s dangerous. You do your homework and it’s suddenly safe to use.
If you don’t feel safe or scared by a chemical don’t work with it. In this case ask around if somebody already does resin printing and get familiar with it before doing it on your own.
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Honestly what worries me the most are the fumes
Is flushing it down the toilet going to cause fatbergs or worse?
No fatbergs, but it’s absolutely terrible for the environment in liquid form. If you need to dispose of resin, pour it into a pie tin or something and leave it out in sun for a day or two. After it’s solid, chuck it in the garbage.
Health and Safety says:
Don’t breathe in the fumes.
What is “sensibilization” and why is it not a good thing?
They mean sensitization. It’s where you react more strongly to exposure the more you’re exposed. It’s a problem for a couple of reasons. The scary one is some people move along the reaction continuum from “mildly annoying” to “oh shit call an ambulance” pretty fast. It’s not common but it happens. I actually have a condition that predisposes me to that so I always carry an epi-pen. Good times.
The more mundane one is, even with controls to remove fumes and PPE to avoid them, it’s not uncommon to still be exposed to a small degree, especially in a hobbyist setting. Let’s imagine you’re lax on avoiding exposure and become sensitized due to prolonged and/or heavy exposure, so you set up proper controls to try to avoid it. Now the small amount of remaining exposure which may have never been a problem with proper controls may actually become a problem. Now you can’t work with that material at all without having some sort of reaction.