First fire thankfully no damage

[pete hagan]

OK, interesting day had my first real fire in the cabinet today. I was rastering a large acrylic panel today 22" X 30" (2 hours +) and when it was time to vector cut the finished piece, the panel flamed out rather badly. Ruined the panel but I was standing within 5 feet of the machine and was able to hit it with the CO2 extinguisher right away. I've vector cut peices this large many times before but I'm thinking that the amount of dust from the rastering was the main culprit. Used the same setting as many times in the past.

Three items I believe contributed to this. (1) This was a paper backed 1/4" acrylic versus the less expensive plastic covered. (2) LOTS of raster debris even with the air assist pumping pretty well clearing it away from the beam as it went. (3) I removed a front panel to allow a larger piece of acrylic to sit on the table. There was a lot more air pulling through the cabinet because of this and what may have saved the machine.

So if you think it can't happen to you...well I'm living proof.

Happy New Year and stay safe tomorrow night!

[Margaret Turco]

I'm glad to hear neither you or the laser were seriously hurt! Makes me think I will clean the debris before vector cutting if I do something large in the future.

[Gary Hair]

First, congratulations on being so close and keeping the fire from spreading!

Second - make sure you clean the laser well, co2 is very caustic and will damage any exposed metal. If you can find one, a Halon extinguisher is the best for our delicate lasers. Halon has been phased out but I think there are subsitutes that work - I just happen to have several that I had in an airplane I owned. If you think co2 is bad on the ground, try putting out a fire in an enclosed cockpit with one... it sticks to the windscreen and kinda puts a damper on vision - not so great for flying!

Gary

[James Jaragosky]

Glad to hear that you and the machine are none the worse form the close call.
Jim J.

[David Fairfield]

Acrylic strikes again ! Glad you got it out in time.

[Doug Griffith]

About all I do is cut acrylic (with paper), Delrin and mdf and I've never had a problem with flare up. I rarely engrave so don't have any raster debris in my machine. That sounds like it could be a major culprit when it comes to fire.

It's good to hear you and your machine made it out alright.

Doug

[doug king]

Much better outcome than what could have occured.

[Norberto Coutinho]

"" I removed a front panel to allow a larger piece of acrylic to sit on the table. There was a lot more air pulling through the cabinet because of this and what may have saved the machine. ""
fire loves more air... or I am wrong?

[Frank Corker]

Glad you escaped with nothing more than a good lesson.

[George Brown]

co2 is very caustic and will damage any exposed metal.

You mean dry chemical.

[Gary Hair]

You mean dry chemical.

You may be right... I just know that Halon can't cause any damage and the only cleanup is from the damage caused by the fire, not the extinguisher.

Gary

[Randy Digby]

Glad it was mostly your feelings that got hurt. It certainly could have been a lot worse.

CO2 is a good extinguisher to have around a laser. I need to get one also. I have a dry chemical that I had before the laser was purchased. Even with a CO2, I'll always keep a dry chemical close by, just in case the CO2 dosen't get the job done. I worked in a heavy industrial environment where we would often have electrical panel fires. Most of the time a CO2 would handle it but sometimes we would have to being out the heavy stuff. By then the fire had pretty much destroyed the panel contents and the objective became to stop extension of the fire. I do keep a spray bottle of water next to the laser (like when I'm grilling out :-) ), and so far I've never had a flare up. I never leave the laser unattended when vector cutting palstic, other than stepping into the adjoining office.

Halon was mentioned in an earlier post. While Halon is basically gone, there are several replacements. FM200 is one brand name or you can search for "clean agent extinguishers". They are good, but they don't come cheap.

For those of you that run a home business like I do, if you don't have an insurance policy that covers your business equipment, you should consider have a chat with your home owners insurance company. I discovered my home owner's policy would not cover any of my business equipment. I had a separate policy taken out to cover the business equipment. Coverage included a visit from the company, basically to confirm the equipment I had listed on the inventory list did actually exist. We had grown over the couse of six years and really was not aware of the replacement value of our equipment until I put together an inventory list.

[George Brown]

You may be right... I just know that Halon can't cause any damage and the only cleanup is from the damage caused by the fire, not the extinguisher.

Gary

Halon used to be used in computer rooms for that reason.

[George Brown]

was not aware of the replacement value of our equipment until I put together an inventory list.

Surprising how quickly it all adds up!

[Randy Digby]

You've got that right George. I usually don't think about the insurance except that the yearly bill came in the mail today. Happy New Year!

And on another note...right up ther with insurance and extinguishers is data back-up. I try to never be more than two days from my last back-up. I should do it daily, and I do if we have generated several invoices that day. We finally worked into a pretty good system over the past six years we've been doing this.

By the way -- Happy New Year to all that travel the Creek.