MDF health hazard in the Hackspace

[martinkayak2000]

MDF has been milled in the 'clean room' - (laser cutter / 3d printer room)

MDF dust is not only bad for those machines but is f...ing dangerous to health.

Any one causing MDF dust in the hackspace is risking other peoples health.

(I personally dont even cut MDF indoors)

The only reason why SOME people use MDF is because it is cheap. There are loads of alternatives.

People regularly eat in the main room next door, ingesting dust is equally as dangerous as breathing it.

I feel we should ban MDF from the hacksace. 

[Barnaby]

The are lots of hazards at the space. The plastic fumes from the cutter are just at concerning. We regularly use leaded solder in the main room, any dust, welding, smelting and all the other stuff we do produced toxins. We need to manage them not ban things.

[martinkayak2000]

I agree Barnaby,

But when I went into the space today Thursday I felt an irritation from dust from Wednesday (when I saw it being milled), This maybe because as a School teacher I became sensitised to the dust.

The Hackspace does not have any extraction/filtering for wood dust as I understand, do we have any ventilation up stairs? Maybe a project is a dust detector?

[Barnaby]

I certainly think think we should make a dust shoe for the Shapoko. Maybe that could exhaust outside?

[Norro]

AFAIK the EU is quite strict on the binders used so in the UK at least MDF dust is not hazardous, only an respitory irritant. The scaremongering that likens it to asbestos is certainly FUD so theres no need to overreact, although it was a nuisance while working in that room and definately bad for the PCs if not the lasers.

Matt already talked about adding an extractor next to the spindle, I'm still not convinced that that is the right room for it to be in, as well as the dust it is quite noisy, seems more suited to downstairs to me. But either way it has given off a lot of dust already with hardly any use, so something needs to be done sooner rather than later really.

On Thursday, 2 April 2015 22:45:16 UTC+1, martinkayak2000 wrote:

[Ryan .]

Everyone is right. MDF dust sucks, and we need extraction. Is that the best material to be using on that machine, or is it just what the bed is made of?

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[Barnaby]

Yes the bed needed doing and was MDF, in general you can get much better results with other materials. Tbh once you factor in the wear on the cutter I doubt MDF is good value.

We haven't even discussed coolant, think we will need it is we aren't going to waste that big spindle? Guess the question is what materials do we want to optimise for?

[Ryan .]

For me the most useful thing to mill is aluminum

On 3 Apr 2015 09:33, "Barnaby" <b...@zi.is> wrote:

Yes the bed needed doing and was MDF, in general you can get much better results with other materials. Tbh once you factor in the wear on the cutter I doubt MDF is good value.

We haven't even discussed coolant, think we will need it is we aren't going to waste that big spindle? Guess the question is what materials do we want to optimise for?

[Barnaby]

I like Acetal, but HDPE is cheaper.

[M P]

BTW as far as cooling, lots of people cut Al without coolant; seems
the key is speed when cutting material, as 'slow' doesn't mean better;
you need to carry chips out of the material at good speed, as the
chips carry the heat away.
I've been experimenting with measuring the bit temp with an IR
thermometer and raising the speed. I haven't done any Al just yet tho,
it's clearly going to go a lot slower than what I do in Oak, but
still, I'm ramping it up :-)

https://plus.google.com/+MichelPollet/posts/1ttdsFcXvYV

M

[Barnaby Shearer]

Yes, I cut Alu on my Prixxon MF70 and don't really worry about cooling
just a bit of lubrication. But that it is putting 100W in; I assume
applying 1.5kW is a different kettle of fish?

[M P]

Not sure the equation is linear (unlikely) but you can always turn
down the RPM on the spindle; I've mostly used around 10krpm on mine so
far, and quite a bit less in plastic. Makes a lot less noise too ;-)

M

[Ian Petrie]

There is some grey HDPE ( Polystone ) downstairs from cutting the chem cupboard down to size

Ian 

[Matthew Daubney]

Apologies, one hell of a rant coming as I haven't had my coffee this
morning and this has pissed me off quite significantly.

Christ alive! You do something people complain, you don't do something
people complain. It's like herding geeks!

I've replied inline with the points below

On 02/04/15 22:45, martinkayak2000 wrote:
> MDF has been milled in the 'clean room' - (laser cutter / 3d printer room)

Yes it has, repeatedly. It's also been laser cut, as has rubber,
hardboard, leather and various other materials which give off noxious
fume. It's also been hoovered out each time it's used to reduce the
amount of dust build up.

> MDF dust is not only bad for those machines but is f...ing dangerous
> to health.

It's better than some of the fumes given off by some of the laser cut
things! It's also not as bad as the way the 3d printers have been
handled by people in the past!

> Any one causing MDF dust in the hackspace is risking other peoples health.
> (I personally dont even cut MDF indoors)

As is anyone using leaded solder, using a 3d printer (if you really want
to scare people), cutting anything on the laser cutter, using any form
of solvent based glue, breathing when they have a cold, using hairspray
on the 3d printer bed, bringing in food that has a high risk of allergy,
not being immunised, printing on the laser printer, creating any form of
loud continuous noise, using strip lights, using displays, even the heat
pump can be seen as dangerous in some ways!

> The only reason why SOME people use MDF is because it is cheap. There
> are loads of alternatives.

There are, they're also expensive, hard to obtain and sometimes not
really appropriate to the job in hand.

> People regularly eat in the main room next door, ingesting dust is
> equally as dangerous as breathing it.
> I feel we should ban MDF from the hacksace.

So can we ban all activities that generate dust? Using leaded solder?
Using solvent based glues? Any noise above a certain decibel limit?
Anyone who has a cold? Being in a room for a given period of time?

Yes the shapeoko needs dust extraction, yes I've brought this up before,
yes I'm working on a dust shoe for it, I'm also trying to get hold of a
cheap hoover if anyone has a bagless one that they don't mind donating
that would be ace! If not, I'm waiting to see if one comes up on freegle
or ebay cheaply :) I've already ordered some brush stuff to go around
the dust shoe to contain the worst of the dust to within the shoe. This
is a project following making some hold down clamps for the shapeoko now
that I've cut the _MDF_ baseboard to have threaded holes for clamping
material. Once I can clamp material safely I can cut the dust shoe. Then
it'll all be waiting on an appropriate hoover (preferably something with
a HEPA filter, but we can probably hack together a HEPA type filter for
it). Hoover will go on top behind the vinyl cutter. The Shapeoko also
needs an e-stop, which I'll order shortly and then find somewhere
appropriate to mount it. I'm away next week, but expect a lot of this
stuff to happen in the evenings of the week following.

Of course, if anyone would like to help solve the problem earlier by
fitting an e-stop, more weather shield stuff around the box edges, or by
making up a dust shoe and finding a hoover, please do so! I certainly
won't complain!

[Andy Noyes]

Hey, I might have a spare hoover. I think I have a bagless cyclone one, but it's an upright and quite big, also a small cylinder type (bagged), but not sure what condition it's in as I may have previously hacked it for something.

[Matthew Daubney]

The upright one might do the job... We can always hack it to make it fit in a space :-) Thanks Andy

[Hugo Mills]

I have an upright bagged one looking for a good use, too. I was
going to ask if anyone would find it useful...

Hugo.

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[Malcolm Napier]

I have got an upright Dyson that I was going to volunteer especially for this project but in a more timely manner. One of the plastic pieces that routes the "suck" round the machine has broken - so it is unusable as an upright. It needs stripping down to remove all the "uprighty" bits at which point it may well be of an appropriate size to go behind the vinyl cutter.

I also had ambitions to use it as a vacuum clamp for the Shapeoko but dust extraction is more imporatant that this stage.

Regards,

Malcolm

[Andy Noyes]

Wow! Lets put dust extraction and vacuum clamping on everything!

I can bring my Hoover on Tuesday, if wanted.

For vacuum clamping you need a vacuum-cleaner that has a separate cooling fan for the motor. Most just use the normal airflow to cool the motor so if you stop the airflow it will overheat and usually there is a thermal cut out that stops the motor. The shop-vac or wet 'n dry type usually have a separate cooling fan and are more suitable for clamping.

[Malcolm Napier]

From previous observation is the wetware resources that are generally in short supply rather than the hardware. :-) 

[Stuart Ward]

The Ben Heck show did a hack where the vacuum was combined to provide extraction and clamping using the same vac. Presumably the airflow from the extraction would be sufficient to cool the motor in this case.

https://youtu.be/7NVlfZrv1GI

Stuart

-- Stuart Ward M +44 7782325143

[Alex Gibson]

Broken plastic pieces = unusable?  With a 3D printer around??? J

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[Andy Noyes]

I left the upright Hoover next to the Shapeoko, if one of the other vacs is more suitable it can be 3-week'd or passed on to whoever can use it.

[Tara Martel]

Oooh... we could have a Hoover Hackathon!

Everybody bring their hoover in and we'll see who can convert it nto the best gadget. I want to make mine into a ramjet!

[mikethebee]

FYI:

The Hoover did not suck, but had been emptied. I cleaned the filters shown. It is best done outside with a dusk mask. The screen on the cylinder thing was solid with dust and the foam insert was to. It does seem to cut out and restart every so often though.

HTH.

Mike