noun Computing informal
noun: vapourware; noun: vaporware
software or hardware that has been advertised but is not yet available to buy, either because it is only a concept or because it is still being written or designed.
However some definitions have it as never written, which hopefully doesn’t apply here.
Why doesn’t anyone sell a nitrogen fire suppression system for lasers? A small nitrogen cylinder could flood the closed laser cabinet at the push of a button, or turn of a knob. It leaves no residue and it’s cheap. Maybe there isn’t a nitrogen bottle of the right specs already in common use, or maybe there is some other good reason that it isn’t done.
Perhaps because liquid nitrogen is so cold.
Not liquid nitrogen. Nitrogen gas. It is cold when it comes out of the cylinder, but so is compressed gas from a halon extinguisher.
Gas cylinders normally hold liquid because you don’t get much gas in them otherwise.
I suspect it’s because until recently almost all laser cutting/engraving machines were in a commercial shop setting that is expected to have appropriate fire safety systems in place by OSHA, etc standards – and most commercial shops don’t put things in their lasers that will go up in flames. With maker spaces and more “commodity” lasers like the GF coming around there may be more of a market for such a system, though to make it user installable would be a challenge unless it’s from the OEM, especially on class 1 lasers that are a closed system.
Absolutely not true. CO2 is a liquid in its compressed state. Nitrogen and most other utility gasses are not.
And even a CO2 cylinder emits CO2 gas when you open the valve because the cylinder has liquid on the bottom with a layer of gas on top.
Excellent point, I bet that has a lot to do with it.
According to this: http://www.mfs-fire-extinguishers.co.uk/types.htm we need a class A fire extinguisher, so CO2 is not suitable. That only seems to leave the messy ones.
Yes…the specialized gas ones, such as FM-200 and others contain small amounts of baking soda to neutralize the the tiny amounts of HF acid that are the gas decomposition products. - Rich
I wonder what the actual reason is? Enough CO2 or nitrogen or argon will definitely extinguish a normal fire as you might get inside a laser cutter. But when you open the lid and air rushes in, something could reignite unless it was covered with suppressant.
air is already rushing in from the air assist…isn’t it? - Rich
I suspect that a blast of CO2 might disperse burning embers and spread a fire of class A materials. It is meant for electrical fires where things are generally fastened down.
As I mentioned in another thread, a sonic fire extinguisher seems perfect for this application. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkUv5gCA-1w. It doesn’t look hard to make one.
True. This hypothetical inert gas built-in system would have to turn off air assist when it activated. If you open the lid to fill your expensive Glowforge with foam I assume the air assist turns off automatically.
There’s been a lot of discussion wrt types of extinguishers, and Dan has mentioned that the canonical safety info will be included in the user manual (once lawyer vetting is complete).
Here’s my completely unofficial, personal take on the subject…
Like many others (including the GF staff), I’ve opted for a Halotron “BC” bottle. If you have a minor flare-up, a squirt bottle of water or even a damp cloth should be all you need. If a fire progresses past that, you will want to put it out preferably without damaging your GF. An ABC bottle filled with PKP or other chemical agents (typically propelled by CO2 or N2, btw) will probably destroy your GF. Better than burning down your house, of course. Halotron bottles are much cheaper than CO2, btw.
My unofficial suggestion is a tiered approach:
In 99.97%* of the situations, steps 1-3 are all that will ever be required. Using a laser-cutter is a lot less dangerous than using a skil-saw or the vast majority of power tools. #1 above is your friend.
That being said, every person needs to evaluate their own situation and develop a safety plan appropriate to the threat/risk.
NB: I am not a trained civilian firefighter (military, yes — but that’s very different).
* SWAG
My work was the precursor to development of FM-200 (heptafluoropropane). Yay! Made my day!
Neither of which addresses one of the OP’s specific questions - how flame resistant is the Glowforge case? @dan stated in the Dec 2016 Q&A that the case has been coated with something that absorbs laser radiation, but how resistant is the plastic case to a fire that gets started in the cutting/engraving zone?
It is used on almost all military vehicles now. We have one vehicle that still uses Halon, but we are now doing work to convert it to FM-200, aka HFC-227ea (1,1,1,2,3,3,3-Heptafluoropropane) 
Rich
My contribution was to show that ozone depleting bromine, chlorine, and iodine were not necessary to put out fires. I also developed the predictive model that showed that putting the hydrogen on the center carbon would reduce toxicity and improve performance.
It’s got an aluminum lining inside, (visible in some of @marmak3261’s videos and pics), and the top is glass, not acrylic. 