[Swansea Hackspace] Minutes of Introductory Meeting 2013-04-02

[Tom Lloyd]

Doing risk assessments is a pain, but when you consider that the
alternative is sometime being seriously injured or poisoned, or us being
sued or shut down, it's kind of worth it.

Normally what you do is have a rule where before you can use a machine, you
have to be trained by a "competent person". This person doesn't have to
have a recognised qualification, although that obviously wouldn't hurt.
Then if something bad happens, the fault lies either with the operator for
not following training, or with the trainer for not training effectively.
Thus competency is self-policing: if you suck at training, YOU could
potentially be in hot water.
If the organisation has carried out a full risk assessment then the injured
party wouldn't have much of a case against them.
We would need to risk assess the area where work is carried out, and any
tasks done within that area, then review these assessments on e.g. an
annual basis. People would be signed off as trained for certain kit, and
these records would be kept safe in case they were needed as proof after an
accident.

All of this applies to us, but I imagine the HSE would cut us a bit more
slack than a commercial organisation, given our size and lack of resources.
I will ask about ways to protect against civil claims - waivers, etc.

Does anyone know what kind of H&S management structure established
hackspaces employ?

-- Tom
On Apr 4, 2013 5:47 PM, "Steven Whitehouse" <steve at chygwyn.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Thu, 2013-04-04 at 17:42 +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> > On Wed, 03 Apr 2013 10:56:48 +0100
> > Justin Mitchell <justin at discordia.org.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi everyone,
> > > thanks to all of those that were able to make it to last nights
> meeting.
> > >
> > > I have quickly typed up the notes i took, please let me know if there's
> > > anything you feel i forgot or got wrong.
> > >
> > > http://swansea.hackspace.org.uk/meetings/
> >
> >
> > On the H&S side - you can't just "avoid" things you need to do proper
> > risk assessments. 3D printers are actually quite dangerous devices with
> > high temperature heads waving around exuding hot plastics. In addition
> > several of the offered kits contain design flaws (notably the wrong grade
> > of glass for heat beds meaning condensation can shatter them), and many
> of
> > the materials they print emit hazardous fumes.
> >
> > If they were operating in an industrial environment they'd require proper
> > screens, an interlocked lid, safety goggles etc when in use, plus for
> many
> > materials also ventilation.
> >
> That is one reason that using the University ones is attractive - we
> wouldn't need to come into contact either with the machines or with the
> solutions used to dissolve the support material after the item(s) have
> been printed. Just a question of submitting payment & design and waiting
> for the result :-)
>
>
> Steve.
>
>
>
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>
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