If you worry about filament fumes, this is what you can do

Quote
kpapr1
...I must also let you know that I now print outside (into a small storage room at the back of the house). I had problems with sore throat and itchy eyes when printing inside the house, so I stopped. The storage room has no heating and currently temp is fairly low (around 10 degrees), but I remember last year same period I used a portable heating element, but same results...

....
Any thoughts or ideas that could help me are welcome :-)

I'll have a go at it - an idea to make you able to print inside your house again :-)

Place your printer in a controlled environment and recycle the air (though a carbon filter)

Find or build a small cabinet for you printer, anything with a hinged glass door so you can see whats going on

Air in: Make a hole for air inlet at at the bottom, e.g. backside of cabinet, feed the air to a square "air sock" that runs around the four sides at the bottom (distribute the air without any draft)

Air out at the top: Basically you make it like the air in but an air-sock would collapse so you have to use some sort of tubing + corner angles and drill a lot of holes

Air extractor idea: You will be looking for something with build in temperature control + speed control, the idea is that you set the lower speed to always create a small vacuum to keep the fumes form escaping - the temperature control part should be adjustable in the range of your printing environment temperature and keep that set point by speeding up the air extractor, this may be too big for a printing cabinet but you get the idea:



Extractor Vents TT 125 A + Power Controller Thermostat 125mm (280 m³/h)
[www.ebay.co.uk]

Ad a Carbon filter on the outlet side of the air extractor, e.g. something like this:



[www.ebay.co.uk]

..and of cause mount the temperature sensor in the middle of the very top of cabinet

NB:
As an alternative to the air in - air out air-sock/tubing you could drill holes along the four sides in the top and bottom and ad to the cabinet in both ends for air-in air-out

Erik

Good idea! I was thinking of making a cabinet connected to a flexible tube with an electric motor at the end that goes out of a window (like the ones that have in pro or semi-pro kitchens), but I have to cut the glass and my wife won't let me :-(

Do you think the carbon filter will block all the PLA micro-particles?

Quote
kpapr1
Do you think the carbon filter will block all the PLA micro-particles?

No the carbon filter will block the fumes only - but if you worry about micro-particles (I don't) you could ad Hepa filter inline and before the carbon filter

Whatever your choice will be, re-cycling the air or not, I would definitely choose an extractor vent with temperature control (like the one I linked to), stable temperatures and a draft free environment is required for perfect prints and will make your printing much easier

..BTW, a quick fix for your personal safety - this is an all-in-one solution I trust and use every day:

[www.sprayguns.co.uk]

Erik