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?
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.