Right now, I’m targeting YouTubers in the maker space with large followings.
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Maybe we can get some politicians involved that can pass some regulations that do little or nothing to solve the problem except for make it more expensive for the end user. 
-S
See above:
I don’t know that that is possible or beneficial. I think there are too many unknowns about all the various chemicals that may be introduced into the environment. I don’t even know what regulation would look like.
I didn’t think you were meaning to, but you did anyway. Listing substances that “might be present” and “are known to be harmful”, but without anything about concentrations or anything quantitative, that’s the exact problem. At the very least, PEL = Permissible Exposure Limit should be a standard term of discussion. PEL is also a term used in regulation, but before it was regulation, it was health and safety science.
It’s not unknowable for a designated class of common materials. For laser, these substrates include bleached and unbleached paper. For milling, consider common softwoods like pine, larch, and fir, common hardwoods like poplar, oak, and cherry. These have been studied; figures are known. It’s perfectly reasonable for a manufacturer to designate a safe harbor of a listed class of materials and tell their users that other materials are used at their own risk.
For a 1.6 W laser, it just doesn’t have much capacity for driving chemical reactions of any kind, and then only a small fraction of those produce hazardous fumes. This is a physically measurable quantity (and has been measured for a number of materials). There’s a maximum rate of hazardous fume production that can be quantified. Combine that with other measurable quantities like absorption rate per unit flow, total dilution volume, etc. and you can make good engineering estimates that you’re below a PEL.
The biggest single problem with this filter product is that Snapmaker has done none of this quantitative work. I’m not an expert on industrial safety, but I have read plenty of specs for PPE, and the good-quality ones are all about quantitative disclosure.
I appreciate your activism about this device, because you correctly have the sense that it’s being oversold and that people could be harmed. It would be more productive, though, to demand quantitative data out of the manufacturer than simply to ask for some kind of blanket assurance in the form of legal language. After all, the real issue is whether people will be harmed, not whether they can successfully sue Snapmaker (and collect on a judgement) only after they’re harmed.
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Nitrogen oxides (NOx) physically adsorb onto activated carbon, but not at particularly high affinities. There’s quite a lot of literature on the subject; I’ve only skimmed it a tiny bit. I certainly don’t know the numbers. You could put “a lot” of activated carbon in a filter cartridge that would be enough to filter out “what little” nitrogen oxide species there are, but you’d need numbers or a measurement to have any confidence in this.
For anybody rolling their own, I’d suggest looking into molecular sieves. They’ll take out small molecules like NOx with ease, but to be economical they need to be regenerated when they fill up. Regeneration means heating (to provide energy to overcome the adsorption affinity) and removal of the adsorbate with a purge gas or high-vacuum system or (for some substances) a dessicator. If you pick vacuum, you can also regenerate activated carbon, since that can’t be regenerated in the presence of oxygen.
While I disagree with many of your statements, we do agree on the issue at hand concerning the purpose of the post.
You’re assuming that every person is knowledgable enough to know that information. The “might be present” part is related to my belief that substances aren’t always what they claim to be. In other words, I don’t assume that when I purchase PLA from one company, it is the identical chemical formula/material from other manufacturers or even different batches from the same manufacturer. I am not a scientist and neither are a lot of people. I have no easy way of knowing, for example, what glue a manufacturer used in the creation of birch ply. And I certainly have no way of keeping track of which batch of material from X manufacturer contains X glue.
I’m a simple guy who loves tech and building things. I don’t know anything about these chemicals and how large or small of a problem it is. That is my whole point. It is not reasonable to expect that a user is knowledgable enough to know exactly what they are cutting/printing/carving and what the possible consequences/side-effects of their actions may be.
That is also the reason why it is important that Snapmaker NOT limit its liability if someone is harmed. I believe that if a company misleads a person into believing a product can do X and that person does it and is harmed, that is the company’s fault. Same thing if a person unknowingly uses it for an unintended purpose (this is a labelling/documentation/marketing issue). Same thing if a company is negligent in the design or manufacturing of a product. Yes, those are legal issues, but as an attorney, I can tell you those are pretty big legal issues to someone is harmed by a product.
I don’t care what the PEL is. I don’t care what quantity of X material is safe to inhale compared to what quantity of X material is actually produced. That also misses my point, which is that end users don’t know that kind of information. I certainly don’t, nor should I have to. There are one of two outcomes that I want to see:
a) They back up their product and say that yes, the air is safe when using it, in which case I will keep my preorder in place.
b) They say “It’s not safe to breathe in” or “We won’t be responsible if you vent it indoors” or “We don’t know if it’s safe enough to use indoors”, I’m cancelling my order.
Either way, the users deserve to definitively know.
And this is going to result in “this product is known to the state of California to produce chemicals that cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm”
I have a candy bar wrapper with the prop 65 warning on it…
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I should probably start laser engraving the warning onto our products at work in the small chance they end up in California.
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@MooseJuice i love how California just rules the country “we think it’s dangerous so every thing is required to have it even though it’s not manufactured nor coming here”
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They gave an answer here: Open Letter to Snapmaker re: Air Purifier - #15 by SnapmakerSupport
I think it’s clear that Snapmaker does not believe that the filtered air is safe to be vented indoors. I understand that part of it is the complexity involved with the many different types of materials that will be used. But, their answer means to me that their filter doesn’t add any value to the equation.
Regarding the safety and health of the environment, it could very well be that using their filter, which will be full of chemicals and would constitute toxic waste, is (net) more harmful for the environment than just exhausting non-filtered air from the enclosure outdoors.
I have e-mailed to cancel my order for the filter.
They literally provide the numbers to show the reduction in particles. What else do you want? It shows pretty clearly that it does reduce them by huge amount, so how can you say you might as well not use it?
Also if you properly dispose of the air filter (whatever that may be in your region) of course it will be better than releasing everything into the air, because it will be treated or recycled in the best way possible. Just releasing everything into the air is the worst solution to this! The “toxic waste” that is normally trapped inside a filter is now out in the air.
And who ever said that doing anything like having your own laser cutter and producing stuff needs to be net positive for the environment. It will always be negative - filter or not.
If this is your stance on being a responsible maker and human, then I don’t think you should own a laser cutter.
I’m not advocating for no filtering. Quite the contrary. I think I’m safe in saying that most people will not responsibly dispose of their filters. That is why I stated that it will likely be a net negative for the environment. Not only do you have the hazardous waste to contend with, but one must also take into account the negative impact it has on the environment for the production of such filters and then the filter cartridge itself being disposed of (separate and apart from the toxicity of the filter). I’m not aware of any stats on this.
What do I want? I want a filter comparable to the one produced by other manufacturers such as Glowforge that safely permit the exhaust to be indoors. Since their product doesn’t, I will search for other solutions that do.
It’s not about whether filtering is good or bad. Obviously, the goal of filtering is to reduce the chemicals released into the environment, which is good. Snapmaker’s filter does that part. But, for me, there is significantly less value if I still have to vent outdoors. Snapmaker has now owned up to that, which was the goal of my posts.
I just think it’s sad that their filter product not only doesn’t add any direct value for the end user (other than perhaps making the user feel good about helping the environment) and that the filters will most likely not be treated as hazardous waste and end up in a landfill due to users not knowing any better or caring that the filters end up harming the environment just as much because they aren’t properly handled as hazardous waste.
Okay, fair enough. I still think that using a filter and even just throwing it in the normal trash is better than releasing it in the air. It would be like saying a car doesn’t need any sort of filtering, because the particles are ending up somewhere anyways. Them being trapped in a filter is always better than being out in the air. That is the whole idea of carbon capture. Sure, if the carbon is being produced than it needs to go somewhere, but it being trapped is surely better than being out in the air. Of course it would be better to not have the carbon in the first place, but if its there anyways, trapping it is preferable.
I don’t see how Glowforges filters are any better. They are huge and need to be discarded just like the ones for the Snapmaker one. So in what way is that better?
But anyways, to each their own. Of course I also think it would be nice if you could just have the filter indoors with no vent. But then it would be twice as large and twice as expensive - like the Glowforge.
From the disposal of the filters perspective, the Glowforge isn’t better. Its used filters are still hazardous waste. For the purposes of this part of the discussion, I’m merely talking about the exhaust from the filter unit and whether it is safe for indoor use or not. It’s not that I’m opposed to venting the Air Purifier’s output outside. But, I’m looking for something that makes it simpler/easier than that. I don’t have the luxury of having a separate workshop or a garage that it big enough to house this equipment. I have a workshop in my basement, which does have a window where the exhaust can be vented. But, that is not my ideal setup.
The other big part of my point is communication on the part of Snapmaker. Clear disclosure of what is okay and what isn’t okay. In my view, they have played hide the ball a bit. I think they should more clearly state something like:
We make no warranties that venting the exhaust from our filters is safe for human exposure. We cannot guarantee what chemicals will be vented since we don’t know what materials will be used with our product. We urge the user to exercise caution when using Snapmaker 2.0 and we do not recommend the use of our Air Purifier entirely indoors nor is it intended to be used that way. If you decide to vent the exhaust from our Air Purifier indoors, you do so at your own risk.
In the case of this type of filtration, I’m not sure it is better. I haven’t seen any research on this. If you are aware of any, I’d love to read it. My belief (assumption?) is that putting a chemical-laden filter in a landfill is just as harmful as releasing it into the air. The chemicals are still present. The chemicals are still released into the environment via rain and water runoff and can end up in the groundwater. It would only be better if the person responsibly disposes of the used filters.
The amount of unconscious and willfull ignorance that’s arrived in this thread is, well, all-too-common.
No, I’m not. You’re imputing that to me because you don’t want to spend the time to learn it. I’m not assuming this, it’s what you said here:
The reason that manufacturers should publish technical data is so that people who are able to evaluate such information are able to. If you don’t want to, fine, but spreading hysteria because you’re unable to evaluate it is objectionable. No manufacturing device, however small, is ever going to be a consumer product where there’s not some tradeoff between knowledge, capability, and cost.
Ignorance is the root of chemical hysteria. It’s not primarily ignorance about PEL and the like, but ignorance about one’s own ignorance. People who don’t realize how little they know can spread misinformation without realizing it, even about seemingly small things. When you don’t know anything, please refrain from spreading probably-bogus claims.
This perfectly illustrates unconscious ignorance. It’s the “Chemicals, bad, mmmkay” school of ignorance. Used filters are not categorically hazardous waste. Hazardous waste first has to be solid waste, and many substances are only hazardous when they’re suspended in the air and not when they’re trapped in a filter, wood dust being a simple example. It’s possible for a filter to be hazardous waste if it has trapped enough substance that’s hazardous as a solid, clearly, but used filters as such don’t have this classification.
Another example of the “Chemicals, bad, mmmkay” school. Some substances, when released into the air, are simply not hazardous at low dilutions. The old mantra “The solution to pollution is dilution” has a lot of problems, but perhaps the main one is that’s it’s sometimes true. When it’s not true, that’s when environmental disasters happen, but it works fine sometimes. It’s mostly true even for the Snapmaker. There are some exceptions, of course, and if anyone would care to become less ignorant I can comment further.
The “used filters are hazardous waste” meme recurs frequently above; I’m not going to bother to list them all.
Carbon capture is short for “carbon dioxide capture”. Carbon dioxide is a gas, not a particle. Carbon in particle form has nothing to do with carbon capture.
In addition, carbon capture is principally a political tool to provide a fig leaf for coal mining in West Virginia; there’s no practical and widely-applicable technology for it. The only place in the world where I’ve heard of it working is in Germany, and it relies on a relatively rare underground geological formation for sequestration.
As either a belief or an assumption, it’s wrong. It partakes in two of the above fallacies and adds a third: that all “chemicals” are persistent. Some are, some are not. Most of what a Snapmaker produces are not, and even then only with certain feedstocks.
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You’re still missing the point. These machines are marketed at people who don’t have this knowledge. In some cases, a user doesn’t even know that it’s a problem to watch out for. I’m not inducing hysteria. In fact, I don’t see any level of hysteria here or in my other thread. I’m highlighting a gap in the information/marketing presented by Snapmaker.
If you go back to my OP, I’m simply raising awareness of the importance of ventilation/filtering.
You’re not inducing hysteria? You are kidding right? You literally contacted YouTubers as well as said you’re going to contact every press organization you can. If that’s not inducing hysteria then I don’t think you know what the meaning of the word actually is. Not trying to be mean but the answer is not to just go gungho and contact every reporter or influencer to blow things way out of proportion.
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This is amusing. The problems being tossed around here range from purposeful malicious manufacturer neglect to environmental genocide.
My problem with the option is that it isn’t suitable for exhaust indoors. In order to start using my laser, I need to vent outdoors - with or without the purifier… That makes it a pile of money to put in the middle and nothing more. It’s just a gimmick - aimed at opportunistic virtue signalers and nervous nellies. It has no value to me.
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And that is how it all started and was the original purpose of the complaints. Somehow it ended up as “WE NEED TO TELL REPORTERS AND YOUTUBERS ITS UNSAFE” blah blah blah.
False. You have no idea what I sent to the YouTubers. I never said to anyone that Snapmaker products are unsafe. The purpose was to get answers and raise awareness that it isn’t safe to vent the Air Purifier exhaust indoors. I contacted 4 and heard back from 2. One of them indicated that he reached out to Snapmaker. Shortly after this YouTuber responded to my e-mail indicating that he would reach out to Snapmaker, we received a response from Snapmaker.
Also false. I did not contact any press organizations.
Why did I reach out to YouTubers? See here:
Snapmaker has had a quiet presence in this forum.
No. I’m not kidding at all. It seems like the people who are upset about this topic are missing my point. This isn’t about suing Snapmaker. As I have stated previously, I’m a fan of their products. This has been about a) obtaining answers to 2 questions about the product and b) raising awareness. You don’t have to agree with me. That’s fine. But, why would anyone object to asking Snapmaker to be more transparent about what the Air Purifier can and can’t do? In this case, the Air Purifier must still be vented outdoors, which to some is both a) counterintuitive and b) disappointing because it reduces the value added by the not-inexpensive filter.
Perhaps some of the people who are upset believe that Snapmaker should not be criticized. To that I ask, have you never thought to criticize a company for how it does business?
Some of the people who are upset have stated that this is all about suits and “legalese”. Some of the responses have stated that the users should take responsibility instead of putting the responsibility on the company. I didn’t make the rules or create the legal system in the United States. I only studied them in school. If anyone here doesn’t care for the state of affairs with respect to manufacturer liability in the United States, you should contact your lawmakers and ask for product liability reform. Until that happens, however, my point that Snapmaker needs to do a better job with marketing/messaging. That’s all I’m suggesting Snapmaker needs to do.
That’s your opinion and one I do not share. According to Merriam-Webster, hysteria is defined in this situation as: “behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess”. There is neither unmanageable fear or emotional excess on my part. I’m raising awareness of an issue that I believe needs to be addressed by Snapmaker. That’s all. If there has been emotional excess, it has been from posts that either misunderstand my points/goal or are upset by the idea that a manufacturer can be held liable in the United States, neither of which I am responsible for.
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