Health question

[bill G]

Started repairing Wet type machines in 1974, Then dry toner type.
Royal Business Machines. 1974 to 1980 Monroe Business Machines 1980 1981. Colfax copiers 1981 to 1983. Copy store 1983 1992 Then I opened my own video business. I am now 72 I have bad neuropathy and high blood lead levels. Coupled with MS. Any old copy machine people out their having problems? Trying to put together facts of Chemical job exposure. No I don't have a lead water line in my house.

[slimslob]

I started working on copiers in 1972, Apeco. Saxom. SCM, Olivetti Copia, Old Town and 3M. None of them used anything lead that I ever new of. The only thing that I remember having anything lead was the RBC1. It had lead based thermo fuses in the fusing heaters.

As for plumbing it is not lead pipes that you need to worry about, it is copper pipes with lead soldered joints. Lead pipes were mostly used for drain pipes. One common lead source in many old buildings was lead based paint and primers. Mostly used in kitchens and bathrooms to help protect wood, plaster and drywall from moisture.

Did you ever do a lot of board level repairs without adequate ventilation?

[kingarthur]

Started on mechanical tills/adding machines in 78, started on sharp copies in about 81, used to repair boards on electronic tills/calculators, used to be breathing in solder fumes all day long - have probably ingested loads of toner/grease/ink over the years - as far as I know it hasn't affected me, I'm slightly batsh*t crazy - but I reckon I'd be that anyway cool.png. I've always thought ingesting toner etc was par for the course,

[Larhal]

I started in 1966 as an office boy, With a Xerox 914 copier. As a tech in 1974. Wet machines , Dry machines, Selenium drum polishing, etc Ate more toner as par for the course and blew al lot out of my nose as we did. I am ok no issues just old and worn out.

[copyman]

The old timers here like myself are lucky to be alive with all the shit we have been exposed to. Toner, arsenic & CDS drums, Fedron, Pikle polish, Ozones, etc etc etc....... Just to name a few

[bill G]

I started working on copiers in 1972, Apeco. Saxom. SCM, Olivetti Copia, Old Town and 3M. None of them used anything lead that I ever new of. The only thing that I remember having anything lead was the RBC1. It had lead based thermo fuses in the fusing heaters.

As for plumbing it is not lead pipes that you need to worry about, it is copper pipes with lead soldered joints. Lead pipes were mostly used for drain pipes. One common lead source in many old buildings was lead based paint and primers. Mostly used in kitchens and bathrooms to help protect wood, plaster and drywall from moisture.

Did you ever do a lot of board level repairs without adequate ventilation?

Oh yes the RBC 1 Still can picture every part of it. Then RBC !! , and 111 here is some info I found its a link to a study done titled Occupational exposure to photocopiers and their toners cause genotoxicity. Link below

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0960327117693068#table1-0960327117693068

[slimslob]

Ah yes the ozone created by charge and transfer coronas.

[Hansoon]

Interesting, this study comes from one of the most polluted countries in the world, India......

Hans

[blackcat4866]

Somehow I escaped mostly unscathed. Sure, I inhaled a lot of trichlorethylene, xylene, toner and other solvents that made my nose bleed and my hands split and bleed. As far as I can tell there are no long term effects. Even my knees are working better now that I'm not down on them all day long. I didn't spend much time polishing arsenic and selenium tellurium drums. It was futile. Polishing didn't do much good. Somewhere around 1992 it got much harder to get the really effective solvents, and we resorted to safer, second-best solvents like orange oil based cleaners. Maybe that was for the best.

Lead poisoning is usually slow, insidious, happens gradually over years, and yes, mostly from paint. How old is your home?

[copyman]

Started on mechanical tills/adding machines in 78, started on sharp copies in about 81, used to repair boards on electronic tills/calculators, used to be breathing in solder fumes all day long - have probably ingested loads of toner/grease/ink over the years - as far as I know it hasn't affected me, I'm slightly batsh*t crazy - but I reckon I'd be that anyway cool.png. I've always thought ingesting toner etc was par for the course,

Lol, back in the day you would blow your nose and there was black on tissue. Couldn't be good for you. What sucked is when the dry toner first came out the tech would pour toner from a bottle into a hopper. No cartridges back then. So that was a lot of exposure just pouring one bottle in maybe 4 times a day with different machines. If I remember correctly Shap SF810-820 the toner was replaced every PM and when toner ran out you did PM again. As time went on and the models changed end users started adding the toner.

[slimslob]

Lol, back in the day you would blow your nose and there was black on tissue. Couldn't be good for you. What sucked is when the dry toner came to market the tech would pour toner from a bottle into a hopper. No cartridges back then. So that was a lot of exposure just pouring one bottle in maybe 4 times a day with different machines. If I remember correctly Shap SF810-820 the toner was replaced every PM and when toner ran out you did PM again. As time went on and the models changed end users started adding the toner.

We sold the Royal RBC1 under the Apeco name. With it the customer got to add the toner as needed.

[BillyCarpenter]

For a couple of years, I worked as an industrial sandblaster and painter. Toner is the least of my worries.

[BillyCarpenter]

Started repairing Wet type machines in 1974, Then dry toner type.
Royal Business Machines. 1974 to 1980 Monroe Business Machines 1980 1981. Colfax copiers 1981 to 1983. Copy store 1983 1992 Then I opened my own video business. I am now 72 I have bad neuropathy and high blood lead levels. Coupled with MS. Any old copy machine people out their having problems? Trying to put together facts of Chemical job exposure. No I don't have a lead water line in my house.

Neuropathy is pretty common in diabetic patients. My dad suffered from it after having open heart surgery. Lead in the blood often times comes from eating fish and/or wild game that were exposed to it. What has your doctor said about it? There are a lot of variables to all of your ailments.