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

sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com

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

#161

Post by bexp »

Article summary by AI bot http://hntop.org

BERKELEY (CBS SF) – A couple found dead in their Berkeley home under mysterious circumstances earlier this week was killed by carbon monoxide poisoning, a law enforcement source told KPIX 5 Friday. The source said that the couple was using a laser 3-D printer that was venting into their residence. Symptoms and signs consistent with carbon monoxide poisoning were found in their bodies. Valerie was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco. © Copyright 2017 by CBS San Francisco and Bay City News Service.

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

#162

Post by homero »

tomaskafka wrote: post #154
dmix wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The air filter costs an additional $750 extra when you buy the $3000 Glowforge, I could see students skimping on that and no realizing the implications. https://glowforge.com/order That said I watched the video for this product and I'm really looking forward to when these are widespread. It's a very exciting industry. I'd definitely buy one of these when it gets to around $1k.

The order page definitely doesn't have any warning about the basic - even I would go 'Nah, what's the $720 for? Upsell?' How about: Glowforge Pro + Air Filter: $5,995.00 Glowforge Basic + Air Filter: $3,745.00 Glowforge Basic: $2,995.00 Warning: You may die when using Glowforge inside without Air filter (link). You may also die when cuting these materials (link) inside even with air filter.

And all come with 2 co detectors, internal and external

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

#163

Post by anigbrowl »

sulam wrote: post #53
anigbrowl wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing this is undergoing a hurried rewrite, to add something along the lines of 'or you may die.' they're gonna get sued out the yin-yang for this even if the dead couple totally ignored the instructions, on the grounds that the instructions didn't state the danger clearly enough. Having said that, while good safety information is important, two MIT-trained engineers should really have known better.

Why should they have known better? He was a software engineer and she may have had exposure to lab technique but a Glowforge doesn't scream "needs an industrial hood" or anything. Yes, they clearly _could_ have known better, but 'should' seems to be making too-strong assumptions about their class work, MIT or other. They could have had economics degrees for all we know (less likely given their careers, but you get my…

I read the safety notices that manufacturers affix to their products and take them at face value unless I have reason to believe otherwise. It seems kinda stupid not to.

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

#164

Post by saycheese »

patcheudor wrote: post #151
allenrabinovich wrote: post #101

Hi folks. Val and Roger were dear friends, and I am on the ground here, and I'd like to respectfully ask that you refrain from speculation. The press is rushing to print sensational items, and they don't know the actual facts. I've been talking to the police directly, and nothing is conclusive yet. Nothing has actually been ruled out, nor determined to be the cause. They don't even have full toxicology reports yet, t…

Condolences for sure. Do you happen to know the size of their place by chance? CO becomes deadly at about 400 PPM or 0.04%. Doing the calculations I can't for the life of me figure out how a small laser cutter could produce enough CO under any condition to become deadly. Even with the smallest of places, lets say 24x20x7 studio, that's 3,360 cubic feet of air & at 0.0807 pounds per cubic feet of air, that means rough…

Based on public records, appears the building is a fourplex and the total floor space for the building is 3328 square feet; as such, my guess is the their unit was 832 SQFT. Room height based on exterior photos roughly appears to be 8-10 ft.

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

#165

Post by anigbrowl »

dragonwriter wrote: post #86
sulam wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should they have known better? He was a software engineer and she may have had exposure to lab technique but a Glowforge doesn't scream "needs an industrial hood" or anything. Yes, they clearly _could_ have known better, but 'should' seems to be making too-strong assumptions about their class work, MIT or other. They could have had economics degrees for all we know (less likely given their careers, but you get my…

Yeah, while I get that the general public misses this, I'm surprised to see people who apparently think that "engineer" means a Star Trek-style omnicompetent generalist.

I dunno man, if something says you need to ventilate it by putting an exhaust hose outside, I figure there must be a good reason for that. I have a lot of hazardous chemicals in my house because I paint and a lot of artist paints have toxic ingredients. I read the safety warnings carefully even though I know little of chemistry.

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

#166

Post by Gibbon1 »

JshWright wrote: post #149
abalone wrote: post #15

Tragic. Recently California started requiring carbon monoxide detectors in most homes.[1] Make sure you have one. That's a surprising cause though. How much CO can a laser printer/cutter produce, worst case? [1] http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/Planning_and_Development/Housin...

New York has a similar law: http://www.amandaslaw.org/ As both a maker and a firefighter, I would be _very_ surprised if CO from a laser cutter was actually the cause here. Laser cutters can absolutely emit harmful fumes, but CO needs to be in the hundreds of ppm range to be fatal, and that's a _lot_ of CO. For context, we had a call a while back where a guy was running a gas powered (two-stroke) rotary saw [1] for a…

My dad mentioned that he almost died from a wall heater in college. He was 'sick with the flu' and getting worse. One night laying in bed the wall heater fired up. He saw the light from the flame flickering on the floor and he thought 'that's odd it's orange not blue'

The exhaust was blocked with soot.

I also had a friend and his GF that died from an improperly installed furnace.

I also wonder about cyanide from cutting plastic as well as carbon monoxide. No idea, but they both seem about as toxic.

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

#167

Post by DanBC »

bexp wrote: post #161

Article summary by AI bot http://hntop.org BERKELEY (CBS SF) – A couple found dead in their Berkeley home under mysterious circumstances earlier this week was killed by carbon monoxide poisoning, a law enforcement source told KPIX 5 Friday. The source said that the couple was using a laser 3-D printer that was venting into their residence. Symptoms and signs consistent with carbon monoxide poisoning were found in the…

You might not want your bot to post in threads like this, which involve the deaths of people known to some in this community.

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

#168

Post by verelo »

fma wrote: post #159
verelo wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently started getting very interested in air quality in my house. I decided to take a similar approach to air quality that I do with the stock market: lots of small, well distribute bets whenever possible. For context, our house is 3 levels with a furnace in the basement (cold climate; Canada) I ended up with 3 different brand of CO detectors, 2 different brands of smoke detectors and 1 radon detector. By far th…

Which VOC detector do you have? After I purchased my new house (USA, Georgia) I put in the detectors. My wife is from China where people are rightfully paranoid about formaldehyde - due to low quality building material. It's basically the same in the USA, except people are a lot less knowledgeable and informed about it. My cabinets, drywall, paint all had high level of formaldehyde. Had to always had the windows open…

Eve Elgato: https://www.elgato.com/en/eve/eve-room

Sadly they do not break it down by substance type (which the website almost suggests it does), but i find it very interesting to monitor and that the measurements are highly correlated with painting or opening a window.

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

#169

Post by nrjdhsbsid »

noobermin wrote: post #118
nrjdhsbsid wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol pr damage control much? Even if it wasn't a glowforge poster points out a huge danger with the "filtered units"

Even if it is damage control, it's a legitimate request if any. Their brand could be damaged by mere speculation, especially in this case where it involves a founder who seems safety conscious and most likely an ally for people who care for user safety.

This feels like the aftermath of the exploding hoverboards. Some products are safe but the standards are so inconsistent that the reputation of anyone building them will suffer equally.

Personally I hope the cause wasn't a laser cutter, this could really hurt a young and fragile and mostly innocious industry :(

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

#170

Post by hunterashmore »

dmix wrote: post #125
Animats wrote: post #44

"3D laser printer" probably means a Glowforge. Nobody else calls them that. Their documentation says "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." That won't do much if you cut something that emits carbon monoxide when heated. That includes so…

The air filter costs an additional $750 extra when you buy the $3000 Glowforge, I could see students skimping on that and no realizing the implications. https://glowforge.com/order That said I watched the video for this product and I'm really looking forward to when these are widespread. It's a very exciting industry. I'd definitely buy one of these when it gets to around $1k.

Why are we talking about the air filter? a) whether it was a glowforge system is still speculation b) air filters do not have anything to do with CO, only particulate.
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