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With Covid-19, there is a critical shortage of basic medical protective equipment for essential personnel, in particular at hospitals and other medical service locations. One item in particular that is in short supply are face shields. These protect the wearer's entire face from flying objects or infectious material (sneezes, coughing, etc). Joseph Prusa at PrusaRearch has been working with their local health teams to 3D print these for all types of medical professions.
https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/25857-prusa-protective-face-shield-rc3
https://blog.prusaprinters.org/from-design-to-mass-3d-printing-of-medical-shields-in-three-days/#_ga=2.52482669.493294408.1585185830-126869237.1573885292
Our goal is to do the same in our local DMV area. I have already been in contact with a local hospital that needs a LOT of these and is running low. I have also already handed some out to doctors and nurses that I have seen recently for non-covid19 related things (allergy shots).
Myself and a bunch of my co-workers want to help and can put in the time and effort to 3D print enough to hopefully supply a hospital and more; what we lack to get started in funding.
I have a goal of $5k set and have a pretty good breakout of what it would take for us to help the hospital we are working with:
Up front costs: A small farm (less than 20) to pump out the 3D printed parts. 10 Creality3D Ender-3 Pro's is ~$2,300
Consumable Supplies: Our goal is to create 1,600 face shields worth of 3D printer materials per month. A single spool of PETG filament should be able to make 20-21 face shields so we need just under 80 spools, this is roughly $2k.
Misc
For the larger scale organizations, we are going to help them identify where to get supplies for the clear cover as those are not 3D printed.
For smaller groups such as the small allergy doctor I go to, we are going to have some of the clear shields to give away to them as well to keep them safe. There are also some minor materials that may come up (parts if a printer has a problem, cleaning supplies to do this in s safe way).
Everything we are creating we are giving away for free. We hope the larger institutes can help fund this project once we get kicked off but we will continue to do this regardless because it is the right thing to do.
Update: 03/28/2020
There are many people busy with this idea, including someone that had NIH connections and was able to get a modified 3D print NIH approved (not FDA but awesome none the less). We'll continue with the same general goal but adapting their design instead. While I was working with the local hospital, many of their questions this design addressed and meets NIH's requirements; that will almost for sure mean it would work for the hospital in this situation or at least bring us closer to their needs. They also got guidance regarding reusage of these face shields which we were not expecting to be as aggressive as they indicated and may actually make this task much easier. If we manage to make "too many" for the one hospital, there are plenty of other hospitals, doctors offices, emergency response we can expand to help.
https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/25857-prusa-protective-face-shield-rc3
https://blog.prusaprinters.org/from-design-to-mass-3d-printing-of-medical-shields-in-three-days/#_ga=2.52482669.493294408.1585185830-126869237.1573885292
Our goal is to do the same in our local DMV area. I have already been in contact with a local hospital that needs a LOT of these and is running low. I have also already handed some out to doctors and nurses that I have seen recently for non-covid19 related things (allergy shots).
Myself and a bunch of my co-workers want to help and can put in the time and effort to 3D print enough to hopefully supply a hospital and more; what we lack to get started in funding.
I have a goal of $5k set and have a pretty good breakout of what it would take for us to help the hospital we are working with:
Up front costs: A small farm (less than 20) to pump out the 3D printed parts. 10 Creality3D Ender-3 Pro's is ~$2,300
Consumable Supplies: Our goal is to create 1,600 face shields worth of 3D printer materials per month. A single spool of PETG filament should be able to make 20-21 face shields so we need just under 80 spools, this is roughly $2k.
Misc
For the larger scale organizations, we are going to help them identify where to get supplies for the clear cover as those are not 3D printed.
For smaller groups such as the small allergy doctor I go to, we are going to have some of the clear shields to give away to them as well to keep them safe. There are also some minor materials that may come up (parts if a printer has a problem, cleaning supplies to do this in s safe way).
Everything we are creating we are giving away for free. We hope the larger institutes can help fund this project once we get kicked off but we will continue to do this regardless because it is the right thing to do.
Update: 03/28/2020
There are many people busy with this idea, including someone that had NIH connections and was able to get a modified 3D print NIH approved (not FDA but awesome none the less). We'll continue with the same general goal but adapting their design instead. While I was working with the local hospital, many of their questions this design addressed and meets NIH's requirements; that will almost for sure mean it would work for the hospital in this situation or at least bring us closer to their needs. They also got guidance regarding reusage of these face shields which we were not expecting to be as aggressive as they indicated and may actually make this task much easier. If we manage to make "too many" for the one hospital, there are plenty of other hospitals, doctors offices, emergency response we can expand to help.
Co-organizers3
Christian Laguerre
Co-organizer
VIJAY SIKHA
Co-organizer