I have been thinking about getting a 3D printer for sometime and almost ordered an A1 Combo, but after reading about how much fumes are generated I now wonder. It will primarily be for hobby, so I see mostly pla, being used as the material, but as I have never done it I don’t know for sure. I had planed on putting it on the coffee table next to my recliner, but now wonder if that is a good ideal. I am now leaning toward a P1S with maybe a bento box and fans. I suspect it should be farther from me. The temperature swings would be too high to put it in the garage, as it swings close to 0 F to 1??F.
My experience with PLA is it’s pretty benign. It’s not irritating to me like ASA is where you get a nose full and it burns a bit. Part is it prints at lower temperatures than some other filaments so less decomposition and more melting.
The MSDS indicates pretty benign but does have a fair number of “no data available” entries. How cautious you want to be with those is up to you. But it seems very mild and is a simple molecule. Burning a wax candle could possibly be much worse.
P1S like the X1C are not entirely sealed and along with the chamber fan you will experience some fumes. I’ve had a bento box in place as I print with ABS etc and can tell you in my experience it isn’t a solution. If you go up a step and park a P1S in an enclosure tent, there may be some respite. It is a toxic hobby, there are solutions but it won’t be a desk/side-table unit. They say PLA is safe, it still gives me nausea sometimes.
Thanks for your reply. Did your bento box recirculate inside with charcoal and a hepa filter, our route it out via a vent hose? I can see the tent would be more effective.
It’s hard to gauge an individual situation. Respiratory issues, as I’m sure you know, are no laughing matter, whether it’s allergies or something more serious like your situation. Personally, only ABS gave me any issues; PLA has never bothered me, and truth be told, I am now noseblind to the scent, and my printer sits less than 4 feet away from my keyboard where I spend 9-10 hours a day. But you will have to gauge for yourself.
What I might emphatically suggest is to avoid the open air printers and go for an enclosed printer like the P1S. This will greatly diminish the risk of airborne irritants and as was stated, the option to add filtration is one that this lends itself to.
Here’s the link to the Bentobox referenced above.
Note there are other options but know that the built-in Bambu carbon filtration systems is very flawed design since it exhausts air to the outside. The advantage of a self contained chamber filtration system like the Bento box is the recirculation of air constantly removing the offending matter. It’s a wonder why Bambu took their approach.
Some pretty inventive solutions are out their if you’re the tinkering type but the Bento box is one of the few off-the-shelf solutions.
The Bento was pretty weak initially, I upgraded the fans to 5015 and still felt it wasn’t enough (hepa/charcoal). Door and the back leak a fair bit so ducting to an external window would be my suggestion.
Printing in PLA while using an enclosure may be difficult if the room/chamber temp is above 30c.
My father has fairly advanced COPD. Not quite needing oxygen, yet. He doesn’t seem to be affected by anything that “merely” has a bad smell. Now, I don’t mean to be dismissive in saying this — COPD is no joke — but rather combine his words of sentiment with my own experience of toxic versus poisonous versus obnoxious versus PLA “fumes”.
ABS and ASA are obnoxious to me, quite unpleasant and probably somewhat dangerous in high enough doses. Pure PLA though has a subtle “cooking caramel” sugary sort of smell. It’s actually quite pleasant, to me. It’s chemically quite similar to cane sugar, so this is not surprising. More recent PLA blends have a very slightly less pleasant smell but none of them are what I would call unpleasant and certainly not strong or pungent.
PETG smells more like a plastic, is not pleasant as such but not intrusive or pungent either, to me. ABS though … not a fan. I mean, I love it as a medium where it’s warranted but the smell aint good while it’s printing. My X1C does an average job of filtering but I don’t like to be next to it for long when printing ABS or ASA.
Smoke from burning PLA — or any other plastic — is no fun at all, of course but you may have bigger concerns if a printer in your home was doing that.
I cannot offer science but I can confident opine that long term exposure to a machine printing PLA in an average to large room with any form of ventilation at all is extremely unlikely to bother you, let alone exacerbate COPD symptoms or cause.
Just a thing on fumes is repeated and long term exposure to low levels of something can be more damaging than an acute exposure. But PLA is a simple polymer that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
There’s another consideration and I have no idea how to get the information is about the colorants and fillers that are used. They could be pretty much anything including wood and carbon fibers with their own fumes and vapors when heated. Low melt temperatures help with all of that too though.
Olias’ advice is probably the best - use an enclosed printer and build a bento box fume scrubber.
Thanks everyone, for chipping in. I plan on going forward with the P1S with a bento box. I am on oxygen and have limited mobility so this should make a good hobby for me.
