C02 laser cutting and oxygen safety


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Thread: C02 laser cutting and oxygen safety

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    Default C02 laser cutting and oxygen safety

    I'm running my laser, the oxygen is flowing at 45 psi and, I begin wondering: "okay, when does my basement blow up?".

    Go ahead, color me uneducated, but it wasnt until now that I realized I am heading straight for a Darwin award.

    Do any readers have commentary on oxygen being released directly into the lasing process? What do the larger shops do? Do they work in larger open areas, ventilate the O2 away, or not worry about it?

    Owen

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    I hope you don't have a gas water heater down there with you. I will admit that I'm not familiar with the use of flowing lasers. How is the oxygen being used? Cooling, creating the beam or the actual cutting process...... what? If anything I would at least vent the fumes outside via a squirrel cage blower. The normal air we breath is about 15% oxygen. When you start hitting 20% and above, first you become very alert and get a lot done to the point where you can't fall asleep. After that there is oxygen poisoning (death) and somewhere in-between, very rapid combustion rates. It's amazing how fast a cigarette will burn.

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    Default NO boom!

    Owen
    I just read an answer on the laser newsgroup....perhaps you can post it here?
    It did sound rather involved, but the name of the game is prevention of accumulated gas that could go boom in the night....

    BTW, Owen
    thanx for the documentation of your efforts to get your laser up and running.
    very nice....sets a bit of a standard for those doing a major job and yours was/still is major....after eliminating things that go boom in the night, are you going to share the more "chilling" things to come? (you did get a chiller,right???
    Marc and boyz



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    here some additional information on the subject. Item 1, I did some reading on the net. The issue I have is I was worried that increasing the oxygen levels in a confined area might cause an explosion. From what I've read, it doesnt sound like it. Here's an excerpt from the Texas Risk Management Report on Employee Safety and Health Program

    "When the oxygen level exceeds 23.5% by volume, a different danger presents itself. Known as an oxygen-enriched atmosphere, this condition represents a serious fire hazard. Flammable materials like clothing and hair will burn very rapidly in an oxygen-enriched atmosphere. Unattended or leaking oxygen lines or cylinders can increase the oxygen concentration to unsafe levels and should be recognized as hazards."

    This makes sense because when I've looked at a lot of commercial systems there is removal of fumes, but it just doesnt look like they are trying to draw away an explosive gas. Like, its not acetylene.

    What I'm getting from this is that problem is that the local area around the laser would just be more flammable, as in clothing or other items, but not necessarily explosive. I think if I just put together a good ventilation box around the cutting head the risk will be significantly lowered.

    I might also get less dizzy every time I cut.


    owen



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    This was also posted on another forum:

    "Normally, all of your work items are places on "air boxes", which are just a metal frame of sorts that you put in disposable cardboard or metal gridwork, suspension points, etc. Then you cover the whole box with typically sheets of thick paper, tape it down tight around the edges so that the whole box is airtight, and then there is a fairly large port on the side, usually for taking standard 3, 4 inch dryer type hose. The air in the box is then kept under suction via this hose that feeds into a building wide high power exhaust system. Then you put down some scrap to test out your program run, and the laser then cuts away only the paper that is under the beam, so that when you cut the real part, all of the smoke and other shmutz from the cutting is sucked out without getting into the local environment. You can buy these boxes or just make up your own, the key to them is that they need to be fairly even in height all the way around, and airtight. Then you would typically use your throwaway core material that will be about 1/8 to 1/4 inch higher than the sides of the box, and this also has to be very even and flat as it's what's holding your workpiece in focus under the nozzle. And in some cases, you would also have the bottom of the box setup with tapped holes on 1 or 2 inch centers to run hold down bolts if you are running heavy parts, and as well as for locating your mechanical 0, 0 origin point of your design. Some folks just rely on having a through the lens video system with a crosshair generator to locate their home point by some specific visual point like the lower left corner of your workpiece, or the corner of an existing part, etc. "

    owen



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    Quote Originally Posted by Marc Soren
    thanx for the documentation of your efforts to get your laser up and running. very nice....sets a bit of a standard for those doing a major job and yours was/still is major....after eliminating things that go boom in the night, are you going to share the more "chilling" things to come? (you did get a chiller,right??? Marc and boyz
    the chiller is on its way. My wife was up in boston and got it from the ebay seller. Its getting driven down today. *smug face*

    thanks for the compliments.



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C02 laser cutting and oxygen safety

C02 laser cutting and oxygen safety