SLA 3D printer resin safety (or otherwise)

[Chris Veitch]

The article 3D printing, a beginner's perspective by Johnny Duffett in MRJ290 has rather got me thinking about the safety of SLA resins in the home environment. I am a 3D printing beginner in that I've recently bought one, but am at the continually frustrated stage hereby I can model what I want quite happily, but the optimum combination of exposure times, resin types and printing angles continually eludes me (while seeming to come so easily to others).

What rang alarm bells with me was the mention of the carcinogenic nature of the resins - I know they're marked as "toxic" and have comprehensive data and safety information available, but "toxic" is a broad term and there's a big difference between a transient headache or skin rash and a potentially fatal illness.

I've not been able to find anything that gives what appears to be objective information of the safe use of these in the sort of environments we probably use them in. I've seen articles pointing out that the plant based resins are actually no safer than any others, but some of these seem to be produced with the aim of boosting PPE and fume extraction sales.

So, do any forum members (possibly with a professional insight) know of any publicly available objective studies of the risks of SLA resin use in the home? My gut feeling is that the very rapid rise of the technology in this environment - as opposed to its use in industry which by its nature will be better regulated and equipped with the relevant protection and mitigation measures - means that there probably aren't any long term studies to give any meaningful data.

NB: this may have been more appropriate in Question or queries, but I've dropped it in here as it applies to a specific workbench technique - moderators please move it if they think fit!

 

[ICH60]

This YouTube video gives a good overall view

 

[GrahamMc]

This YouTube video gives a good overall view

Thank you for that, very helpful to have all of that information in one place.

 

[Bill Bedford]

Formlab's new polyurethane resins carry the following warning:

Disclaimer: For commercial and research use only. Not for use in or around households or residences, or for recreation purposes, or outside of a commercial or research facility or institution.

So we can probably assume that standard resins are reasonably safe around households or residences.

 

[simond]

At least one variety of Gorilla glue, a popular household adhesive, has an MSDS that makes you take a lot of care about storage and use, if you have it at work.

Presumably the same precautions would be sensible wherever it’s used, but you don't get factory-inspected at home.

 

[John Bradshaw]

Ultimately it's one of those areas which can only be answered if you have an actual MSDS and also understand what it means, exposure information etc. Just about everything we use and consume will have some properties associated with negative health, and I'm guessing most railways modellers regularly work with paints, adhesives, solder, cleaning agents etc which can be highly toxic, carcinogenic and other undesirable properties and are still around to tell the tale so it's easy to get blasé about things. For all that, I would expect that 3D printers and resins sold for domestic use to be regulated and to have necessary safety information.

 

[Chris Veitch]

This YouTube video gives a good overall view

Thank for that. I've got to say that I find Gregg's delivery a bit, errr...distracting. However he gives a pretty good overview of how the stuff works (at least he does to someone who's not tried to understand organic chemistry for a number of decades) but his safety analysis seems to just conclude the most of the stuff is mostly harmless, in most circumstances - although I do think his comments on the interpretation of safety data sheets and the various risk levels were quite useful and did get me a bit further.

I do take the points from others that if we combed through the MSDS for some of our other modelling products we'd probably have kittens about some of the stuff we've used over the years, and that relatively speaking these resins are no more or less harmful.

One aspect which wasn't covered and which I think is of particular interest is which type of possible accidental contact - i.e. skin contact or inhaling vapour - is most harmful, and what is the best approach for eliminating the risk? Skin contact is obvious but I've not seen anything which suggests a suitable level of respiratory protection. My printer was supplied with a couple of what I believe are N95 particulate filters, but my understanding is that this provides no protection against the fumes from activated resins. I usually wear a respirator with A1 Organic Gas and Vapour filters, but I don't know enough to know if this is overkill or a false sense of security.

If anyone's interested (or still reading) my own printing environment is my workshop - a spare bedroom - which has a fairly large spray booth (which is ducted out through the wall) next to the printer which I keep running during all printing and washing operations. IPA for wishing is stored outside and the wash tank only brought indoors for the duration of the washing process.

 

[Bill Bedford]

A respirator is overkill. Here is a short video which shows four Formlabs print farms with up to 100 printers in the same room. There is no sign of any of the operators wearing respirators, though most wear anti-virus masks, mainly because the photos were taken during 2020/1.

https://3d.formlabs.com/recording-combining-digital-manufacturing-with-digital-twins.html

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