[sdiy] uh-oh..etchant saftey???

[Tom Wiltshire]

On 29 Mar 2009, at 07:26, Dan Snazelle wrote:
> i hate to be paranoid but in the last few weeks there has been a  
> very strange Plastic like scent in my shop. (which is next to our  
> living room)
> a sort of burnt plastic smell. i have been searching for weeks for  
> the source with no luck.

Every time I've smelled a sort of burnt plastic smell, it was because  
there was some plastic burning somewhere. Sorry, I'm not taking the  
mickey, but it is usually that simple.
The most recent example was a strange plasticky smell in our car when  
the ventilation was on. The car is old and has a number of "quirks"  
including not starting correctly. Then it began to do a very strange  
thing where the electronics in the instrument cluster would "crash".  
It proved to be possible to reset this by turning the headlights on  
(no, seriously...).
An ex-mechanic friend of ours tracked this down to a failed  
alternator. It was over-charging the battery almost 20V. The  
excessive voltage was crashing the instrument cluster, and turning  
the headlights on provided enough load to pull the voltage back down  
to a safe level. The funny plasticky smell turned out to be the  
battery. It didn't like the extra voltage at all and would get hot  
and had started to swell. If left, they can explode.

So, I think you need to be looking for plastic items that could  
feasibly get hot - power supplies maybe? Things dropped down the back  
of the radiator?

In short, I think etchant is unlikely to be the source of the smell.  
Usual rules apply where there are small kids about though - have you  
got any bits of wall left where you can put a high shelf?!


Good luck tracking it down,
Tom