Hey 3D printing fellas,
Are you worried about failures that can lead to disaster like printer catching on fire and burning down firniture and house? Do you use any kind of protection against fire?
I know metal enclosures are the best, but my printer is in the Ikea Lack enclosure. I checked connections and everything looks great, but I soldered cable on the heated bed anyway. Im not super worried tbh, but Im thinking about buying Stovetop Firestop and mounting it inside the enclosure just in case. This one is triggered with open flame only, so probably false activation is not possible. I would probably buy 2 more for kitchen.
There are also balls and other extinguisher shapes, but the one from the picture seems more recommended. Bad thing is I cant find that one availabls in europe. There are also smoke detectors, but they can only alarm you or cut the power.
What do you use? Can you recommend any good automatic extinguisher available in europe?
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Well I wasn’t all that worried about this until now! Thanks for unlocking new anxiety. My prints run through the night in the basement. Does this happen often with modern printers?
It was a significant problem in early machines. Most now have thermal runaway protection. As long as your wires don’t short out, it shouldn’t be a problem.
And the only wires that have enough energy to be a problem are the heaters- hot ends, heated beds/enclosures.
The firmware keeps track of how much energy is going to them and will shut the printer down if the energy is inconsistent with the reported temperatures. (Aka thermal runaway protection.)
You can also usually add secondary thermistors and if they deviate too much, triggers the same result. (And the machine will usually start trilling to get attention, etc,)
The only other thing to worry about are mosfets failing in an ON state.
Not sure if it’s the same risk with SSR’s
Eh. when was the last time a mosfet melted on anyone? not saying it can’t happen, but mosfets are at fairly reliable. as long as you’re not trying to push wayyy too much power through them; and also proper surge protection to avoid things like bad power in your house frying them.
It’s not that they melt as much as they just keep dumping heat into the heater cartridge and wires.
And if failed in an on state thermal runaway isn’t going to stop it.
It’s relatively rare though. I’m not too worried about it but it’s one of the reasons I watch my printer and of course there’s thermal fuses for such occasions if you really needed it.
Ideally the heater shouldn’t be powerful enough to set itself on fire even at 100% power I guess.
For bed heaters there are thermal fuses.
The heater no, but a blob of filament with the heat pumping into it is worrying.
It doesnt happen often ofcourse. It is super rare, but there are many horror storries on google. I think the biggest reason for fire hazard is a kitchen stove, still most people dont have any protection even there (including me).
These cans cost like 2-3 kg of filament and hopefully they will never be used and end up like a “waste of money”. Im spending money on this hobby anyway and this upgrade might help me sleep better 😁
Sorry for anxiety my friend
I have those exact ones for that exact purpose
BlazeCut Tseries 50cm is about right for a 3d printer enclosure volume.
https://blazecut.com/t-series/
Prusa sells a 30cm one as an option for their enclosure, but it is undersized for the enclosure volume, so I bought the 50cm one separately.
Thx for sharing. Usefull information
I used to have a ball, but I got rid of it because I heard reports that it can be dangerous and may not be very effective. It made me paranoid enough to just watch my equipment better.
Never bought any, but I was looking at this type of automatic extinguisher: https://www.firerescue.eu/en/automatic/1027-viper-car-automatic-extinguishing-system.html
This one would be more difiicult to mount in my cabinet, but the main reason Im eying can type is that I found multiple recommendations and also that thing cant be activated without flame afaik.
Im glad that people in this community dont have much experience with these, but that makes it more difficult to find the best product
I have the spheres. I of course, for science…, tested one over a small garbage can fire I set purposefully. It worked way better than I thought it would. I have one in my server racks, multiple ones over my mining equipment, and did have one over my older 3d printer. The miners are the only thing I think would ever actually catch fire.
I run my printer through a Shelly. That way, I can observe prints remotely (webcam) and kill the power, should software shutdown fail. My Shelly is also set up so that the machine cannot exceed what the PSU is rated at. That would probably not be a good enough measure for a runaway (and melting) hot end once that has started a fire, but I feel pretty calm about the thing printing while I’m at work. I check the camera every half hour or so for print issues or worse.
The thing is: Should all runaway countermeasures on the software side fail, I’d have to be able to see the molten aluminium dripping onto the bed before it’s too late. I figure it’s a risk you have to take if you use a machine that will heat to up to 300° C to melt shit for hours on end.
My printer is behind shelly plug as well and I was thinking I could mount temperature sensor and smoke detector that shuts down printer through homeassistant and alarming me if needed. Testing and trusting that automation might be difficult tho. I do have camera as well, but that thing wouldnt help if shit happens while im in the deep sleep. Extinguisher would live on top of that.
The best protection is a machine that is well build:
We have ovens in our kitchens that are designed to reach upto 400°C (for cleaning) and nobody is afraid of them catching fire. Why? They are engineered to be safe.
Similiar a 3D printer that has good engineering is safe and doesn’t require an automatic fire extinguisher.
If we talk about low-end China printers then the answer is they might not be as safe but the solution is to fix them instead of adding the fire suppression system.
Thx for input.
I agree with you mostly, but there are also unfortunate examples even with big eu brand as well. Im not paranoid, but home 3D printer is more like production machine than kitchen appliance imo. They have moving parts and print failures happen sooner or later. Fire in a kitchen is not that rare it seems anyway.
Before reading comments, I wasnt aware that prusa is selling fire suppression system, but I guess there is a reason for that
Cars are a very high-vibration environment with km of wiring and some carrying high currents, flammable liquids and hot parts. With e-autos there is even more including a 50’000 Wh energy storage waiting to catch fire.
While cars do catch fire it is unlikely to the point where they don’t need fire suppression systems.
Some cars have fire suppression systems but those are race cars. Built differently to maximize performance. (or military vehicles)
Similiar there are 3D-printer that might benefit from a fire suppression system but the run of the mil 3D-printer won’t need it.
Not convinced? Look at CNC-mills or swiss lathes. Those are designed to run nonstop for years in a production environment at the highest speeds to maximize production. Most of them don’t have a fire suppression system (they do have a mist extraction/collector to prevent them from exploding).
If we talk about low-end China printers then the answer is they might not be as safe
Bambu had to recall one of their printers for a faulty bed heating wire that either was causing or had the high likely to cause fires. We have robots with flame swords that we’ve trained to not burn our house down. Yes some robots are better built or trained than others but it’s still a robot with a flame sword nonetheless.
I like BambuLab. They handled the issue seriously. Resolved it and now it is fixed.
What I meant with low end China is like QIDI-tech having exposed 230V (not fixing it), Tronxy choosing high and low voltage wires with the same color and no PE connection to the chassis, Ankermake having issues with the heatbed insulation (not fixing that either) and crushed wires. That’s just three examples and don’t expect that other companies are better. BambuLab is a rare exception.
Once you teardown “industrial”/professional machines the point of view changes: PE connections, strain relief, drag chain rated cables with appropriate bend radius, crimped ferrules instead of solder on wire ends, … they are built to last and run 24/7 without catching fire…
