Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Carbon monoxide poisoning from 3D laser printer may have killed Berkeley couple

sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 228 posts

Re: Carbon monoxide poisoning from 3D laser printer may have killed Berkeley couple

#61

Post by failrate »

employee8000 wrote: post #56
stcredzero wrote: post #18

CO poisoning is cumulative. It takes a long time for CO to get unstuck from hemoglobin. (About 2 weeks, IIRC.) It could have snuck up on them slowly, then one evening with the cats "napping" they felt particularly tired and thought to themselves, "We must be in hibernation mode from the chilly weather," then they went to sleep then never woke up. CO is odorless. You might get a headache, or you might only feel tired.…

No it's within hours. A simple google search will show you that.

He indicates that the CO poisoning could have been gradual. This is not mutually exclusive with faster poisoning.

Re: Carbon monoxide poisoning from 3D laser printer may have killed Berkeley couple

#62

Post by [deleted] »

employee8000 wrote: post #56
stcredzero wrote: post #18

CO poisoning is cumulative. It takes a long time for CO to get unstuck from hemoglobin. (About 2 weeks, IIRC.) It could have snuck up on them slowly, then one evening with the cats "napping" they felt particularly tired and thought to themselves, "We must be in hibernation mode from the chilly weather," then they went to sleep then never woke up. CO is odorless. You might get a headache, or you might only feel tired.…

No it's within hours. A simple google search will show you that.

[deleted]

Re: Carbon monoxide poisoning from 3D laser printer may have killed Berkeley couple

#63

Post by detaro »

dekhn wrote: post #52
detaro wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you use a CO2 supply for with a laser cutter or 3D printer then? I can't think of anything.

Maybe I misunderstand how CO2 lasers work. But my understanding is that a high-powered CO2 laser can be run using a gas supply from a tank/regulator. As mentioned elsewhere, this is typically only done in industrial settings, but some home laser cutting enthusiasts want more power. The tank contains some mixture of gases, primarily CO2, but containing other gases, likely some CO. If the tank/regulator to laser tube c…

Yes, but those would feed CO2 into the laser tube, which I thought you just excluded ("I never said anything about the laser tube.").

As others have said, normal laser cutters have sealed tubes, although its of course possible they had some DIY rig for whatever reason. MIT students building their own CO2 laser just for fun doesn't seem all that odd, using it for long time in a cutter maybe more so. I don't know if a leak in a CO2 system would lead to CO poisoning or no. CO produced by the material cut seems more likely to me.

Re: Carbon monoxide poisoning from 3D laser printer may have killed Berkeley couple

#64

Post by dekhn »

detaro wrote: post #63
dekhn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I misunderstand how CO2 lasers work. But my understanding is that a high-powered CO2 laser can be run using a gas supply from a tank/regulator. As mentioned elsewhere, this is typically only done in industrial settings, but some home laser cutting enthusiasts want more power. The tank contains some mixture of gases, primarily CO2, but containing other gases, likely some CO. If the tank/regulator to laser tube c…

Yes, but those would feed CO2 into the laser tube, which I thought you just excluded (" I never said anything about the laser tube. "). As others have said, normal laser cutters have sealed tubes, although its of course possible they had some DIY rig for whatever reason. MIT students building their own CO2 laser just for fun doesn't seem all that odd, using it for long time in a cutter maybe more so. I don't know if…

Sorry, I guess it is a bit unclear: I assumed the leak preceded the laser tube proper. When you hook a tank/regulator up to an evacuated tube, there can be leaks "before" the laser tube (I spent a month building vacuum chambers, and most of my leaks were in the connections between the vacuum pump and the chamber, not the chamber itself).

however, after thinking some more, I agree that CO from material cut is more likely.

Re: Carbon monoxide poisoning from 3D laser printer may have killed Berkeley couple

#65

Post by cowkingdeluxe »

jamiesonbecker wrote: post #58

Article and headline are incorrect: "Carbon monoxide poisoning has also been ruled out."[1][2][3] Both MIT grads; one a founder of gaming company Glug Glug[2] and co-author of game Shard[4] 1. http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/01/25/berkeley-toxicology-t... 2. http://kotaku.com/game-developers-mourn-sudden-passing-of-ex... 3. http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Two-people-found-dead-Be... 4. http://shard-game.com/

The articles you linked are older (24th & 25th) than the article from the headline ( January 27, 2017 2:15 PM ).

Further investigation and toxicology reports revealed carbon monoxide (fixed) poisoning. It appears the initial statements ruling out carbon monoxide poisoning were in error.

Re: Carbon monoxide poisoning from 3D laser printer may have killed Berkeley couple

#66

Post by spqr0a1 »

lappa wrote: post #42
zokier wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also say: > Lasers normally require some ventilation via a small tube out a nearby window. Our optional Air Filter that sits under Glowforge and ventilates using HEPA filters and charcoal, meaning no outside ventilation is required. Best to my knowledge HEPA and charcoal don't help against CO. So running one with the filter in an unventilated space might still be hazardous.

"To qualify as HEPA by US government standards, an air filter must remove (from the air that passes through) 99.97% of particles that have a size of 0.3 µm." Carbon monoxide is a few orders of magnitude too small to be caught by a HEPA filter, in fact a filter that could filter CO would filter oxygen and nitrogen as well. Such a filter would just be a pump. There, however, exists a patent for a filter for CO, it work…

It is possibly to filter gases of similar molecular weight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membrane_gas_separation

This technique is routinely used to generate concentrated supplies of oxygen or nitrogen, but is wildly expensive compared to ventilation.

Re: Carbon monoxide poisoning from 3D laser printer may have killed Berkeley couple

#67

Post by TacticalMalice »

dghughes wrote: post #37
stcredzero wrote: post #18

CO poisoning is cumulative. It takes a long time for CO to get unstuck from hemoglobin. (About 2 weeks, IIRC.) It could have snuck up on them slowly, then one evening with the cats "napping" they felt particularly tired and thought to themselves, "We must be in hibernation mode from the chilly weather," then they went to sleep then never woke up. CO is odorless. You might get a headache, or you might only feel tired.…

I have a fascination with CO poisoning for some reason or at least the chemistry behind it. CO has more than 200 times the affinity for hemoglobin than oxygen does. You can't just go outside to get fresh air since the CO just won't let go. I believe the normal way it works is oxygen and carbon dioxide use different sections of hemoglobin molecule so they never interfere with the way each are transported. But CO hogs…

> But CO hogs it all oxygen has no chance of affixing to hemoglobin since there is nowhere to stick.

CO's action is not purely competitive. Its binding at one binding site influences the three other sites to bind oxygen so strongly that oxygen won't dissociate from the complex where it is needed; In tissues, starving them of oxygen.

Re: Carbon monoxide poisoning from 3D laser printer may have killed Berkeley couple

#68

Post by TacticalMalice »

cowkingdeluxe wrote: post #65
jamiesonbecker wrote: post #58

Article and headline are incorrect: "Carbon monoxide poisoning has also been ruled out."[1][2][3] Both MIT grads; one a founder of gaming company Glug Glug[2] and co-author of game Shard[4] 1. http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/01/25/berkeley-toxicology-t... 2. http://kotaku.com/game-developers-mourn-sudden-passing-of-ex... 3. http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Two-people-found-dead-Be... 4. http://shard-game.com/

The articles you linked are older (24th & 25th) than the article from the headline ( January 27, 2017 2:15 PM ). Further investigation and toxicology reports revealed carbon monoxide (fixed) poisoning. It appears the initial statements ruling out carbon monoxide poisoning were in error.

CO or CO2? Both are possible, CO2 poisoning is quite horrible though, whereas CO poisoning may go unnoticed.

Re: Carbon monoxide poisoning from 3D laser printer may have killed Berkeley couple

#69

Post by robotmlg »

cowkingdeluxe wrote: post #65
jamiesonbecker wrote: post #58

Article and headline are incorrect: "Carbon monoxide poisoning has also been ruled out."[1][2][3] Both MIT grads; one a founder of gaming company Glug Glug[2] and co-author of game Shard[4] 1. http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/01/25/berkeley-toxicology-t... 2. http://kotaku.com/game-developers-mourn-sudden-passing-of-ex... 3. http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Two-people-found-dead-Be... 4. http://shard-game.com/

The articles you linked are older (24th & 25th) than the article from the headline ( January 27, 2017 2:15 PM ). Further investigation and toxicology reports revealed carbon monoxide (fixed) poisoning. It appears the initial statements ruling out carbon monoxide poisoning were in error.

Carbon monoxide is "CO". CO2 is carbon _di_oxide.

Re: Carbon monoxide poisoning from 3D laser printer may have killed Berkeley couple

#70

Post by jmount »

jamiesonbecker wrote: post #58

Article and headline are incorrect: "Carbon monoxide poisoning has also been ruled out."[1][2][3] Both MIT grads; one a founder of gaming company Glug Glug[2] and co-author of game Shard[4] 1. http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/01/25/berkeley-toxicology-t... 2. http://kotaku.com/game-developers-mourn-sudden-passing-of-ex... 3. http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Two-people-found-dead-Be... 4. http://shard-game.com/

Very tragic.

All the signs were CO poisoning from the start. I think first responders said the body discoloration looked like that. The "ruled out" is probably just a mangling of: water heater, oven, and furnace all ruled out as CO sources.

Post reply on HN