Fire Safety in the Lab
 

Posting in here, Safety Captain and Local Volunteer Firefighter. Thought Id post a thread where people could ask me questions about fire safety in the lab and pit. Trust me, this is overlooked more than you would think (alarms, extinguishers, etc...) If you have questions, I will answer.:cool: BTW. Don't place any item in front of the access or, blocking the visibility of fire extinguishers or exits, no matter how temporary

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

hi, i was wondering something....today we were in the lab after school and i decided to hang my blazer and tie on the fire extinguisher on the wall.....our safety captain took it off and told me not to put it there for safety reasons....now what would you do in that situation? would you consider that a fire hazard or would you just let it be
:D :D ;)

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

i have another question.....what if we were to maybe somehow, accidentally, leave the soldering iron on all weekend in its stand (not saying we did....maybe). how much of a fire hazard would that be?? because i dont want to burn our school down
:D :D ;)

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

It is a fire hazard. Both cases.

Just FYI:

At the bottom right corner of your post you will see an edit button. Many "vets" get annoyed with double posting and stuff so this is just a warning/tip. Also you may want to limit your use of smiley faces. A few is okay but if you use a lot folks have a tendency to overlook your post because it doesn't look "serious". EDIT: Finally, CD threads should not be individual "chat-like" conversations that you have on AIM/GTALK/etc., that is against the rules and really annoying.

Good luck and welcome to the forums!

Pavan

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

Jack, I am your safety Cpt. So dont do either of those things again, lets be serious here.

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

ooooo Jack.... im bringing my touch in tomorow

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

Hanging a jacket over the fire extinguisher is a fire hazard because in the event of an emergency things get hectic and people might not be able to find that fire extinguisher because it is covered in you jacket.

The soldering iron is just common sense, its something that is hot and left unattended, it can heat up things that are close to it and cause them to catch fire, its just like leaving a burning candle unattended its just not smart many fires have started that way and caused millions in damages and loss of life.

Although I am not the safety caption for my team I am a Fire Fighter and take Fire safety very seriously. Any questions feel free to ask.

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

I don't think a touch is a fire hazard. On the other hand, a torch might be, if handled improperly. I know you are being facetious, but a torch might actually come in handy in a robotics lab. We use my lighter to help strip 24AWG wire all the time, but of course you have to be careful while doing it. (especially since my lighter is not a safety lighter, which makes it especially good for this application, but significantly more hazardous. You drop it, and it stays lit... not good if flammable stuff is on the table/floor)

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

Guys and Gals, I would like to reitterate what I have stated previously and say that a fire can ruin your season. When we come in to extinguish a fire there will be alot of water, everywhere. If your sprinklers go off because of a fire, there will be water everywhere. The smoke can take weeks of proffessional service to remove. Use common sense, and post questions here for me and any other FFs in FRC to answer, and stay safe!

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

I would stop doing this ASAP, this is not only not fire safe, but you are compromising the copper wiring by heating it rapidly, this can lead to failures, shorts and fires.

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

Another safety hazard is the things things that are commonly lit with a lighter, in other words ditch the lighter and the things that go with it....

After all, if you need a jiffy campfire, just rub some sticks together.

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

The biggest fire hazard I've seen is in the way teams charge their batteries. - sticking the alligator clips into the Anderson connectors. DON'T DO THIS! They come very near to shorting and the battery is capable of putting out several hundreds of amps for a short period of time. A shorted battery (by means of touching charger clips or otherwise) can produce significant sparks and tremendous heat, possibly resulting in a fire depending on the surroundings.

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

last year my team bypassed this by taking an extra Anderson connector and completely removing the alligator clips and connecting the connector to the charger with crimp connectors, solder, and heat shrinking it worked great.

just a tip for other teams.

...forest

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

Use the same connector as on the battery, solder it on where the clips would be and heatshrink it.

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

This is news to me. I'm curious why that is? I can see why it might be an issue with some kinds of insulation (like paper... ugh). However, I don't understand why the temporary heat would be affecting the copper in that manner, except for possibly adding energy that could speed up the oxidation reaction.


Just to be clear, I don't smoke and I never intend to start. Being near smoking actually causes me to cough incessantly (which is really annoying... I have to hold my breath while walking through certain areas of my school). My family has a long history of cancer, so that is a strong motivator away from smoking; in addition, I just don't see the draw of essentially committing delayed suicide in order to inhale the smoke from burning some random plant. I purchased my lighter shortly after a 4th of July when I burned on my thumb several times on a safety lighter. That wouldn't be so bad, except the little wheel thing shredded my skin over a night of using it and so the burn (while not severe) was extremely annoying. I have yet to either burn my thumb, or shred my skin with my Zippo, and it makes lighting a charcoal grill a breeze, even in a strong breeze. Plus, it makes that cool clicking sound when you open/close it.

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

As you heat up any metal with intense heat, especially at a gauge that small, you cause it to rapidly expand, and contract, which causes finite cracks. This causes the wire to become brittle and greatly weakened, so that when the electric current passes through, its heat, which a normal wire can stand, is now too great and will cause a short in your wiring, which causes high heat. This heat will in turn compromise your remaining insulation and further damage the conductor. Essentially a giant Cluster*^%&

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

Wouldn't soldering do that too?
EDIT: Wait a minute, shouldn't a wire act as kinda like a short anyway since it is supposed to have as low a resistance as possible and a short is a low resistance path? A short inside a single conductor wire would simply imply that the electricity has found a lower resistance path through the wire, which would then imply that rapidly heating and cooling the wire would in fact improve its electrical performance?

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

I doubt using a lighter or torch to strip wire would damage the wire itself, but the insulation probably releases toxic fumes when burned....and using open flame instead of the proper tool for the job (wire strippers) is just not good practice.

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

It may not be as serious with a lower gauge wire, but 24 gauge will get very hot very easily when heated. SO DONT USE A TORCH.
Yes, but the heat up is not as rapid, and the solder will fill any cracks. Use a wire stripper. Similar idea, just with aluminum:

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

I expect that most teams did that last year. The Kit of Parts included a plastic bag containing the components and instructions for doing it.

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

What kind of fire extinguisher would you recommend for a metal shop? And for our large "field room" which has computers, shelves of leftover stuff, and some boxes of paper (copier room next door stores extra paper here).

We (the construction company I work for) used to do a clothing chain store (long gone minor chain, for those who worry) that would store all their extra clothing racks in the rear egress hall. I would shudder every time I see that, but once we them got their Occupancy Permit, it was on their heads not ours.

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

You want a fire extinguisher rated for Class C fires. Class C is for electrical fires. Don't use water on electical fire. Most of the fire extinguishers mounted on the wall are rated for Class A, B, and C.

Class A is for 3D fires like houses, boxes, and structures.

Class B is for 2D fires like oils and liquids.

There are other sub classes (Charlie will know about these) but we don't need to go there.

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

I would Recommend a CO2 Extinguisher for your computer equipment, as it will not damage it, and Class ABC dry chem as well for your standard cobustibles. Is your metal flamable (lithitium, sodium, etc) if so you need a Class D extinguisher. If it is just steel, aluminum, etc, go with a large ABC dry chemical extingusiher ( 1 10-15 lbs extinguisher for every 100 sq ft)

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

PM me

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

Fire extinguishers guide http://www.fire-extinguisher101.com/

PM me for assistance with selections.

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

Could you elaborate? I doubt I need 13 extinguishers in my garage....

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

In an area you should have one extinguisher on the wall within 35 feet of every point. So if you have a room 100 x 100, you should have roughly 8 extinguishers, to per wall placed 35 feet from each corner. I recommend that they be 10-15 lbs because that is quite a bit of supression. If you have alot of stuff crammed in there, get more or heavier extinguishers. In general use ABC dry chem. For electrical that you dont want harmed, get CO2 have a dry chem to go with it. this is b.c CO2 cant be used on Class A (wood, paper, rags, trash, etc)

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

Ok, that's quite a bit different from one extinguisher per 100 square feet...100 square feet is a 10' x 10' area.

I have 3 extinguishers in the 30' x 44' shop, by each of the doors. Although they're getting old, should they be replaced periodically or inspected or what? the gages all show pressure, and there is no fire suppression company in our small city.

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

Inspect guages every month. replace every 10 years, or when rust shows, or paint chips

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

and of course if ever used, I have met some people that used them and put them back thinking they recharge them selves.

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

Is this in the school? If so, you are required to have them proffesionally inspected yearly.

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

No, it's my home shop. There is no workshop for the students at school....the FRC build happens on Fort Huachuca, and they are pretty good about fire safety there. We built the underwater robot at my house over the summer, and a promotional robot here this fall.

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

As stated here last years KOP had the item just described, a battery charger modification kit. This item was manufactured by Kell Robotics, Team #1311.

This item will not be in this years KOP but available for sale from the team website. 100% of the net proceeds go to a humanitarian fundraiser.

Funds raised will be used to bring safe drinking water to a school in Namibia. Your kit will help make your team safer. Safe Water - Safe Electrical practices. win-win.

A lot of people, including Dean have been working to find ways to bring safe water to the world. You can help too.

Go here to buy your kit:
http://www.kellrobotics.org/index.ph...=com_microshop

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

Wowzers splended topic Chuck! This Charlie fellah knows what he is talking about...he is a fire safety fanatic if I say so myself! And a swell guy to boot! This is definatly an important topic to cover and it doesn't get the attention it deserves. Good luck to everyone this year and for Pete's sake...be safe out there roboteers! Kick some bot!

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

idk jack that sounds pretty safe 2 mee:D :D

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

that sounds safe 2 me
:D :D :D

Re: Fire Safety in the Lab
 

im just kidding and seriously it is dangerous to leave your jacket on the fire extinguisher
and if it did happen to leave the sotoring iorn on for a weekend