Electronics > Beginners
3D Printer Fire protection
Jeroen3:
Ehm. A hotend failure is a combined failure of thermistor and firmware, or single failure in control mosfet.
I'm not sure if the fan can keep a 100% heater cool.
If it goes, it literally melts out of the extruder onto whatever is below.
I do not think most of the 3D print materials even know what UL94 means.
janoc:
Guys (and girls), stop assuming that the only way a fire can start is due to to a thermistor failure! Or that the hot end by itself can't start a fire because it is not hot enough. That's just not the case at all.
E.g. this guy had an Anet A8 (a printer notorious for fires) catch fire, because the heater cartridge (not thermistor!) fell out of the hot end and landed on the plastic on the bed. A thermal runaway detection would have hopefully caught this before too late but this printer doesn't come with it by default.
https://www.thissmarthouse.net/dont-burn-your-house-down-3d-printing-a-cautionary-tale/
More problems with Anet A8:
https://vectormfg.net/anet-a8-firestarter/
https://letsprint3d.net/critical-safety-mods-upgrade-anet-a8/
Anet A8 bed connector overheating, causing fire:
https://dan.bemowski.info/2017/12/09/heat-bed-connector-tips/
Another Anet A8 bed causing a major fire (this guy had Marlin installed, so presumably the thermal runaway protection was present - didn't help):
https://www.thingiverse.com/groups/anet-a8-prusa-i3/forums/general/topic:25274
Here a kid died because hairspray fumes (hairspray is commonly used to help with the plastic adhesion to the bed) were ignited by a spark and caused an explosion, which ignited highly flamable materials nearby (flash paper!):
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/03/teenage-boy-killed-in-3d-printer-explosion-during-school-art-pro/
Fire most likely caused by a piece of insulation foam from the enclosure detaching and falling on an hot part of the machine (Rostock Max):
https://www.fabbaloo.com/blog/2015/9/30/more-on-the-case-of-the-3d-printer-fire
Monoprice printer almost catching fire due to poorly installed inappropriate connectors:
http://blog.lessdebug.com/2016/12/3d-printer-almost-fire.html
Wanhao i3 actually catching fire due to the same problem (the Monoprice above was a rebranded Wanhao i3), with a dumbass user turning it on again after it started to smoke:
https://www.3dhubs.com/talk/t/wanhao-i3-v2-1-catches-fire/8651
Another Wanhao with the cloned Melzi board:
https://blog.adafruit.com/2017/03/23/the-melzi-problem-or-why-did-my-wanhao-i3-duplicator-catch-on-fire/
And those are only a few examples. Except for the first one, none would have been prevented by the thermal runaway protection.
Printers without the thermal runaway protection with stock firmware (could be out of date):
https://community.octoprint.org/t/octoprint-tells-me-that-my-printers-firmware-lacks-mandatory-safety-features-what-does-this-mean/350
This includes CatalinaWOW's Ender 3 with stock firmware. BTW, that Ender 3 has also those XT60 bed connectors that are a fire hazard:
https://makersteve.com/2019/04/16/safety-first-replace-those-bad-xt60-connectors-ender-3-fix/
Fires don't always start where you expect them to happen.
Fire Doger:
Never leave unattended device working.
It's not just 3D printers, this includes every device in your house/work. In industrial field they shut off every (non 24/7 like fridge) device from the fusebox switches at closure.
CatalinaWOW:
I agree. For maximum safety you should open the mains breaker any time you leave the house. Even the fridge can cause a fire.
paulca:
100 points for safety, 1 for practicality.
However what I intend to do is put smart switches on plugs. The idea is that most rooms will have two "buses". Essential and non-essential. I already have this in my office/lab as it has the most things plugged in. So as I leave I have one switch to press which will turn off all non-essential items at the mains. Leaving only things like the network switch and server powered.
I'm going to extend this to the living room and the bedroom, which I don't think has an essential bus at all.
Ultimately, by grouping all the non-essential bus switches in the house I can hit a single button on my phone (or the wall at the back door) to switch everything off that can be switched off.
Nothing is every totally safe and life is about risks versus rewards.
EDIT: Actually there will be three buses in some rooms, the "High power bus" is where anything that pulls more than an amp or two goes. So I don't get into working out if I have an overload on 4 way plugs for example. Thankfully there aren't many of those and they would be considered non-essential anyway, but harder to smart switch.
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