3M Adflo/FX issues

[Parm]

I don't know now, probably rapid welding supplies or one of the guys who sells 3M stuff on eBAy.

Way too much dodgy ness going on with anything PPE at the moment

 

[Brad93]

Way too much dodgy ness going on with anything PPE at the moment

Flipping hell. Well thank you Parm you've potentially saved my lungs there. Been welding 12% manganese with stainless wire for two days

 

[Parm]

Interesting. So there's people selling non ce marked stuff in the UK. I've only recently thrown the box away for the face seal. I think the face seal, combined with the fact the stupid seal in the hose is crap and the adflo playing up is all leading to my dust issues.

move bought another system now to see me through the next week on this poxy site (British Steel)

Correct. Members of the public don’t understand some of this stuff so end up getting duped.

im aware of quite a few situation that are on going pieces of work

if you’ve got the ebay details report it to them

 

[Brad93]

This is the seal in a brand new 3M hose. It's like polystyrene or something.

once you've had your hose a few months that seal basically gets compressed and no longer seals properly.

 

[Brad93]

Correct. Members of the public don’t understand some of this stuff so end up getting duped.

im aware of quite a few situation that are on going pieces of work

if you’ve got the ebay details report it to them

Well I knew it wasn't right the moment I fitted it. Positive pressure and all that.

my old once was starting to develop a small hole so had to be ruled out as the cause of the fume getting to to the helmet.

say I've bought a brand new kit today. Shame it took so long to arrive or I'd of been using it already.

 

[Brad93]

Brand new G5-01

 

[Munkul]

wow thats pretty shocking, but sadly not unsurprising. I bet most welding outlets struggle with speedglas part numbers, and I bet they'll have restocked from someone who said they had the right ones.
Glad that Parm's lot is on some of these fake/wrong importers.

The rubber O ring tube seal started to perish after 6 months in my esab kit, replaced with a generic one and been fine since...

Thing is, the 3M kit is still the best you can buy IMO, or at least up to recently... I'm assuming the cheapest PAPR kits really aren't fit for purpose.

 

[Parm]

3M stuff is good

it’s sold in multiple countries often with the same part number.

3m only sell direct or through thier agents. They do not sell thro eBay Amazon etc

any stuff your likely to see on these places is likely to be genuine but not official for sale in the UK

Folk the read the BBC news may have seen an article yesterday about 1million respirators. That’s my work and still on going

looking at PPE/RPE Supply since last year there is no end to amount of dodgy ness going on

 

[Munkul]

3M stuff is good

it’s sold in multiple countries often with the same part number.

I buy screens, filters etc for the guys at work, using good retailers who should know the products they stock... and I struggle with the part numbers every time for the inner/outer screens! I think the rest of the parts are OK though.

 

[Brad93]

Okay so a little update.

I can't get on with the g5. I flipping hate it.

And my brand new adflo with new filters is still letting dust past.

Shirty email going over to 3m now. They didn't reply when I asked nicely for someone to look into this.

I'm no better off with this £1200 rig than I was with my three year old FX setup.

 

[Brad93]

You can see dust is getting into the clean side of the filter. Around the fan and up the exit pipe.

 

[Parm]

You can see dust is getting into the clean side of the filter. Around the fan and up the exit pipe.

Thats on a level of not very good at all to the point that ive never seen that before

 

[Brad93]

Thats on a level of not very good at all to the point that ive never seen that before

You can imagine I was very dry mouthed at the end of that job!

 

[Brad93]

I've lodged a case with 3M by phone

If it's not too cheeky would you give me a call @Parm because I want to make sure I'm not barking up the wrong tree when a 3m technical guy calls me.

As far as I know these helmets are meant to be equivalent to P3 which means catching 99.8% of particulates is that right?

This is a genuine system with genuine brand new filters all through my distributor. New pre filter every shift.

I mean I was using two P3 disposable masks a shift when not welding, and they were getting blocked up, but I was sweating like a pig so I don't think that helps as the dirt/dust sticks to the outside.

 

[Brad93]

The inside of the helmet. The amount of dust. Whilst not being worn helmet was stored in its bag.

You can see how poor this new G5 is designed compared to the Fx.

 

[Munkul]

Looks like more than one problem there.
1. The adflo unit is faulty. End of. I'm only surprised that you didn't return the whole kit to the supplier after the first shift. Never mind WHY it's faulty. That's for them to worry about, assuming you assembled the filter setup properly (hard to go wrong here)
Bit late to return it now, 6 months on...
2. The hood seal is also faulty although I'm not familiar enough with those seals to understand if it's a design issue or a poor quality/assembly issue.

 

[Ged93]

I got the same problems with my papr system ( CleanAir ) , dealer and distributor cannot figure out how to solve all the problems , changed mask , then filters , then prefilters , nothing changed , but I get always dust and hodours inside the mask , luckily it was demo , tested inside a machine during mechanical maintanance , I was cutting some steel parts with a plasma torch and I got almost intoxicated , real garbage - so I got back to a classic mask under the welding one

I was considering to move to 3M but from what I see , I think I should wait
.

Why the hell is so hard to find a good and reliable product ? Humanity can go to the moon but nobody can manufacture a decent papr system ?

 

[Parm]

This is the seal in a brand new 3M hose. It's like polystyrene or something.

once you've had your hose a few months that seal basically gets compressed and no longer seals properly.

View attachment 302587

The parts should be inspected at the manufactures recommended timescales

Those seals are a wear part

 

[Parm]

I strongly suspect there will be other factors that need to be considered. 3M are a good make and don’t usually fail in this fashion

 

[Munkul]

I got the same problems with my papr system ( CleanAir ) , dealer and distributor cannot figure out how to solve all the problems , changed mask , then filters , then prefilters , nothing changed , but I get always dust and hodours inside the mask , luckily it was demo , tested inside a machine during mechanical maintanance , I was cutting some steel parts with a plasma torch and I got almost intoxicated , real garbage - so I got back to a classic mask under the welding one

I was considering to move to 3M but from what I see , I think I should wait
.

Why the hell is so hard to find a good and reliable product ? Humanity can go to the moon but nobody can manufacture a decent papr system ?

By and large, the speedglas adflo systems are just fine, most of the bigger fab shops I've been to use the 9100 or 9100FX systems, they are the industry standard, the benchmark for quality. We have 5 of them in our shop at work too. They just need maintained as per 3M's instructions, and I set up a regular planned maintenance schedule for the lads to check theirs thoroughly as well as daily pre-use checks.

You know it's good if Parm has nothing bad to say about them

There is something sadly wrong with Brad's kit though, and yours as well.

Used my Esab A50 PAPR last night for a load of plasma cutting and had a great time with it, as per usual. No odours, no dust, nothing. It may not be as durable as a 3M kit but it works absolutely as intended.