Glowforge release

[Gary Hair]

There is more to this than what is in that article. I read another from a local Bay Area paper that said carbon monoxide was ruled out but that their deaths were suspicious.

Very sad if true. Be careful out there.

A San Francisco couple and their two cats died from poisoning after a laser 3D printer ventilated carbon monoxide into their home.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4167150/San-Francisco-couple-died-leaking-3-D-printer.html

[Kev Williams]

Probably had nothing to do with a laser or 3D printer at all. Most anything harmful from a laser will start to choke or gag you, and you'll run outside to find clean air. In other words, you'll more than likely notice something's wrong before laser smoke will kill you.

CO on the other hand just puts people and animals to sleep, and any NG furnace or water heater with a bad heat exchanger or flue out of position can get you. Or a car left idling in the garage...

[Scott Marquez]

Too bad for the loss.
This could be the beginning of the end, of people using lasers in their houses, I hope not.
Scott

[John Noell]

...Or a car left idling in the garage...

I have heard that catalytic converters reduce CO emissions to the point where it is no longer easy (or possible?) to kill yourself with car exhaust anymore.

[Steve Morris]

cats convert CO into CO2 - will still kill ya

[Bill George]

cats convert CO into CO2 - will still kill ya

The sad part is there is just enough CO left to cause brain damage.
While I don't know about Cats, I know my Dog at times has created some fumes.....

[Dave Sheldrake]

More likely is extraction caused negative pressure and sucked heater fumes back into the room IF it turns out to be CO poisoning. As gasses go from lasers CO is one of the least problems and 3D printers don't give off CO anyways.

[Mark Taylor2]

I'm gathering there's some confusion here from news stories... some call it a laser 3D printer, others a 3D printer. If it's a laser, it should be vented to the outside. I do know of one person with a 3D printer and it's not vented.

[Bert Kemp]

Sad story But I still don't get why they call them 3 D Printers. These are Laser engraver/cutting machines,
3D Laser Printer I think was the invention of Dan's wild imagination . Which he is making a killing on all he spins about this so call wonderful GF.

[Kev Williams]

More likely is extraction caused negative pressure and sucked heater fumes back into the room IF it turns out to be CO poisoning...

Makes perfect sense. And this is a major reason why I've never bought into the 'air-tight home' theory. Houses need to ventilate. At any given time I have 3 blowers sucking 3700 CFM of air out of my house. If it was sealed off like these new homes can be, the likely place the majority of replacement air would come from is down the furnace/water heater flue pipe. But this is a 51 year old house with all the original single pane windows and doors I can see daylight thru. There IS a ton of insulation in the attic at least, and it does help. Regardless of my home's supposedly terrible insulating properties, according to the gas company, my heating bill is like 4% higher than average, which equates to about $6 per winter month. --another reason I don't need a sealed up house, ain't worth the money...

As for whether it was a laser or 3D printer or maybe a Glowforge, it could be that Glowforge's online popularity found its way to a few newsrooms, and newspeople being newspeople, they may be using GF's '3D laser printer' moniker generically. My best guess is the machine is a Chinese Laser, possibly a small Rabbit or Full Spectrum..

[John Lifer]

Not a Glowforge according to their site, and supposedly their 3d printer and laser were found OFF. So probably simple heater if CO deaths.

[Lee DeRaud]

I'm gathering there's some confusion here from news stories... some call it a laser 3D printer, others a 3D printer. If it's a laser, it should be vented to the outside. I do know of one person with a 3D printer and it's not vented.

Don't those liquid-resin widgets (I forget the technical term) use a laser to harden the resin? I suppose technically that would be a "3D Laser Printer".

[Art Mann]

The technology to which you refer is called stereo lithography. It uses laser light to solidify liquid in a tank to create 3-D objects. We used one of those machines extensively to create 3-D models of automotive instrument panel components to check for integration into the rest of the assembly. The models were accurate in size and shape but they were flimsy and would break if handled roughly. Also, the liquid is obscenely expensive. I think the technology has been largely replaced by the melted plastic filament technology.

[Lee DeRaud]

The technology to which you refer is called stereo lithography. It uses laser light to solidify liquid in a tank to create 3-D objects. We used one of those machines extensively to create 3-D models of automotive instrument panel components to check for integration into the rest of the assembly. The models were accurate in size and shape but they were flimsy and would break if handled roughly. Also, the liquid is obscenely expensive. I think the technology has been largely replaced by the melted plastic filament technology.

Yeah, the only time I saw one "live" was in 1990 or so and the machine was in the $250K range. I know they're still around in various forms but not "home-friendly".

(And I never understood the "stereo" part of the name.)

[William Adams]

There is at least one company making hobby-oriented stereo-lithography / resin printers available, the Form 1/1+/2 --- there's been a lot of work on the chemistry as well.

News reports now include mention of a noise complaint related to a generator, but CO has been ruled out? http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/01/...couples-death/