this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2023
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It’s interesting that previously you said bacteria and now you say plastic. You know a lot, so enlighten the rest of us. What’s the concern here? As others have pointed out, coffee hoppers are rarely cleaned by most people, and this never gets wet and mostly handles dry whole beans with a little bit of dry bean dust. PLA is theoretically food safe as a material itself (and used in plastic utensils and containers). What are we missing? Please explain thoroughly in a single long post, not a quip because too many of us aren’t understanding from short quips.
Why should I? So I get even more combative comments from people that don't know anything and go "nu uuuh I have done this and I'm fine"?
First of all, I didn't say "bacteria" only. I said that there is a difference between injection molding food safe plastics, and 3d printing them. The difference is huge in the terms of surface quality, with a 3d prints' layerlines being a great place for bacteria to form. And you don't need to put wet stuff into it, to make it form bacteria. Simply put, injection molding makes a uniform surface - by the design of the process, during injection the plastic gets squished to the walls of the mold, with incredible pressure (700kgf on some "hobby" machines, like the Buster Beagle, imagine what a real, few tonne press can do). The process of 3d printing naturally lacks that, leading to a porous end result.
The process of 3d printing introduces contaminates into the plastic. The hotend is basically a huge chemical hazard. Especially if you don't just print PLA. No amount of cleaning it can change that - burnt bits of plastic, especially on brass, are impossible to remove.
The process of printing also coats the model with tiny particles of plastic that are simply harmful to you when ingested.
Add in the fact, that PLA has other additives that are not food safe, and that you need an actual, certified roll to be "food safe". Most colorings aren't that. Most strength additives aren't that.
Overall there are countless reasons to keep 3d printing away from your kitchen. It's not "going to be fine", it's a health hazard.
I'll repeat myself for a third time, and stop replying to angry people here - you do you. I wanted to warn people who might not know the risk, who are not in the plastics business. I'm not here to engage in discussions on how to bend health and safety for a project that is not worth it.
I've got an education in Chem E, and biomolecular engineering. And Im an engineer in the hyrdo-carbon polymer (plastic/rubber) business. He'll be no worse then all of us really.
I personally wouldn't recommend using printed pla for anything food related. But if you want to be realistic , if you 3d print, you have this stuff in your body through cross-contamination consumption and your lungs from mass transfer. (If you can smell a chemical, it's in your blood stream)
In the grand scheme of things, the dude will be fine.
Gosh the internet is exhausting when people think they're saving someone's life. My house is literally made of asbestos, radioactive isotopes are in our teeth now from nuclear testing, every single thing in the world if you live anywhere near a road is coated in a layer of motor oil (cleaning that stuff to stop darkening during electron microscopy required pirhana solution and a 3 day bake and pump), the dust in your house is not insignificantly vulcanised rubber from car tyres, lead glass wine glasses leech lead....
we live in a world of poisons, it's all about dose. Eating soup from a 3d printed bowl (or any plastic, I refuse to store food in it these days) is pretty unwise but it's not like my 3d printer is made or arsenic and demons. I bet most of these chucklefucks touch 3d printed items and or wrench on their printers and don't wash their hands before eating.
Fuck man, your talcum powder is scraping plastic from the inside of the bottle and then you shake that shit in the air and apply it to children. A 3d printed funnel for try soft powder isn't a bomb haha.