Tag Archives: Safety

3D Printer Warning: Heating Plastic To High Temps is Not Healthy

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If you’ve ever tried to cut a piece of acrylic with a tool designed to cut wood or metal, you know that the plastic doesn’t cut in the same way that either of the other materials would. It melts at the cutting location, often gumming up the tool but always releasing a terrible smell that will encourage anyone who has tried this to get the proper plastic cutting tools instead of taking shortcuts. Other tools that heat up plastic also have this problem, as Gizmodo reported recently, and it turns out that the plastic particles aren’t just smelly, they’re toxic. …read more

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When Encryption isn’t ‘Safe’ Enough

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Being on the hook for free services to friends and family members is a well-known risk for many professionals. Doctors get called in the middle of the night to see sick nieces and nephews, attorneys advise their siblings on traffic violations and airli… Continue reading When Encryption isn’t ‘Safe’ Enough→

Science Shows Green Lasers Might Be More Than You Bargained For

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This may come as a shock, but some of those hot screaming deals on China-sourced gadgets and goodies are not all they appear. After you plunk down your pittance and wait a few weeks for the package to arrive, you just might find that you didn’t get exactly what you thought you ordered. Or worse, you may get a product with unwanted bugs features, like some green lasers that also emit strongly in the infrared wavelengths.

Sure, getting a free death ray in addition to your green laser sounds like a bargain, but as [Brainiac75] points out, it actually represents …read more

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A Dramatic Demo of AC Versus DC Switching

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Switches seem to be the simplest of electrical components – just two pieces of metal that can be positioned to either touch each other or not. As such it would seem that it shouldn’t matter whether a switch is used for AC or DC. While that’s an easy and understandable assumption, it can also be a dangerous one, as this demo of AC and DC switching dramatically reveals.

Using a very simple test setup, consisting of an electric heater for a load, a variac to control the voltage, and a homemade switch, [John Ward] walks us through the details of …read more

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3D Printer Guardian Watches for Worst-case Failures

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Some devices have one job to do, but that job can have many facets. To [jmcservv], an example of this is the job of protecting against worst-case failures in a 3D printer, and it led him to develop the 3D Printer Watchdog Guardian. When it comes to fire, secondary protection is the name of the game because it’s one thing to detect thermal runaway and turn off a heater, but what if that isn’t enough? The MOSFET controlling the heater could have failed closed and can no longer be turned off in a normal sense. In such cases, some kind …read more

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Do You Need A Solder Fume Extractor?

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We’ll admit it. Most of us have been soldering since we were kids and we don’t think of it as a particularly dangerous activity. Just keep the hot and cold end of the iron straight and remember not to flick solder off the tip on your leg and you are fine. We sometimes roll our eyes a bit at the people with the soldering fume extractors unless you are soldering 8 hours a day, although we’ve occasionally used a small fan nearby just to get some circulation. [Tanner Tech’s] video on soldering fumes might make us rethink that, though (see …read more

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How to Ensure Safety from Fraud Within Your Business

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Fraud is a major problem in modern-day businesses. It significantly hampers the progression of business and leads to loss of revenue. Most fraud take places through advanced technology platforms such as hacking. According to PriceWaterhouseCoopers&#821… Continue reading How to Ensure Safety from Fraud Within Your Business→

Arduino Watchdog Sniffs Out Hot 3D Printers

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We know we’ve told you this already, but you should really keep a close eye on your 3D printer. The cheaper import machines are starting to display a worrying tendency to go up in flames, either due to cheap components or design flaws. The fact that it happens is, sadly, no longer up for debate. The best thing we can do now is figure out ways to mitigate the risk for all the printers that are already deployed in the field.

At the risk of making a generalization, most 3D printer fires seem to be due to overheating components. Not …read more

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