Eh, thats not how that works.
I sure wouldn’t bet someone’s life on it.
I’m of the suspicion that those bets are already being placed without any tools.
Could you explain how it does not work like that? Because I’m always in for learning something new.
I wouldn’t bank on this in place of true N95’s, but if those aren’t available, I would personally use the 3D printed ones.
The concern is when N95’s are back in stock, getting people to switch back might be difficult.
This is a good opportunity for a manufacturer to come up with the correct filter material to fit the 3D printed masks.
I imagine the standard masks start out with a sheet of filter material. I wonder if it would work to laser cut the sheets to the right size for the printed masks?
Neither the 3D printers nor the lasers are in a sterile environment for most workshops, which is another issue.
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It all has to do with the properties of the filter media.
For example(not exhaustive), particle size filtered, how much effort it takes to pull air through
media, etc
Here is an example of some hepa properties
This doesn’t even address proper fit concerns beyond the filter media.
This is going to vary greatly between media types.
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Allow me to be a source of information for you: N95 is for .3um as it’s standards filter media, same as the HEPA value rating you linked, so again, why would HEPA filters fitted to aperture not work?
Wife is an MD, who has become very interested in the specs of N95 masks as of late, and proper fit can be done with closed cell foam and straps, like a regular N95.
So again, I am unsure why you think this is not a valuable effort.
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there is a common legal guideline that if a company doesnt make attempts to defend their IP, then in the future a decision can be made to overturn it. The bigger the IP, the more often they have to send noticies.
the guideline is there to prevent people from registering patents / intellectuap property and then stealth lurking waiting until one company makes enough money and spring a trap to collect the money. which would be an abuse of the legal system.
sending all those letters does get expensive, but it’s part of maintaining social responsbilitiy.
that being said, everything i just said above is NOT going to work in this or any future pandemics. state property and public domain is essential to ensure distribution of goods and services efficently.
I believe oscar wilde would be proud of our current health system 
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from what i’m hearing from other nurses and vets. they want ANYONE to manufacture PPE that is reasonable effective. they know the variables and risks. they took the job anyway because they’re brave/
thank your wife for me! and let’s print her some ppe
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If you can print some, I’ll find a backdoor to distribute. Hospitals will directly say no(god bless legal liability shit even during a plague), but if you give staff directly, they’ll use them.
There is a test they can use at home to see if it works, they fit on mask, use a sickly sweet spray and try to see if they can smell it. If they can’t, they’re good to go. Perfume apparently is used at home in a pinch.
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I wonder if it might be safer to fabricate a PAPR (forced air respirator) that uses off-the-shelf (and actually available) HEPA filters like below. It’s clearly more complex and would require a fan, rechargeable battery, etc. Corrugated 1" pond tubing could get the air from the 3D printed waist pack to the mask.
The advantage of a positive-pressure mask is that it can tolerate leaks (at the mask itself) more safely because of the outward airflow. It’s also supposedly much more comfortable (cooler and dryer) than a traditional mask. Multiple people (not simultaneously) could share waist-packs while having their own masks and hoses.
Maybe hare-brained. I’m just bored right now and was thinking about it.
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“If i can print some”
I am expressly asking Dallas makerspace to open their doors specifically for this project. We have so much ability and expensive machinery sitting dormant that our community needs desparately. and i know we have people reading this thread doing tele work from home with expensive 3d printers decorating their garage. this is your chance to be a hero.
@mdredmond this project is attainable with simple box enclosures. those can be made pretty much any which way! and spare cpu fans! which run on 12v so easy enough to jerry rig any ol power supply. that and masks would be easier to make, even just a plastic bag ironed onto a fabric mask would hypothetically be sufficent!
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I doubt an opening is gonna happen. There are good reasons for the closure to continue.
I mean if you created a legit solid model of a waist-pack and could offer it to the Board for Laser Chair only to go up and start some prototype jobs, you might gain some headway.
But DMS isn’t going to open for tinkering. It might open in an extremely limited way, for an extremely limited number of people, for a legit and selfless plan that includes zero fun or personal projects.
In other words, DMS might donate some of its resources to address a community emergency only.
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This is what i’m getting at actually.
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That’s how I read your proposal.
Have you emailed [email protected] with your proposal? I think that’s the right way to go about asking the BoD for such an exception to the standing closure…
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We donated 5k plus single use ACTUAL n95 frr. I don’t want to quote OSHA chapter and verse, but we did our job. It’s not about the printed paintball masks, it’s the fact they are 95% effective at a size 0.3um that the virus is much smaller. NIOSH has laws that the hospitals must still follow, etc.
3d print things to keep people’s hands from touching stuff yes yes yes… but we should most definitely NOT print masks nor mask parts.
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Are N95 Masks Really Effective against the flu?
A little online research will reveal that the flu virus is .17 microns in size. Clearly smaller than even N100 masks can filter out. However, it is critical to understand that the flu virus does not float in the air by itself. The flu virus is transported from patient to patient on droplets of excretions from sneezing and coughing. These particles are typically 5 microns or larger. When a sick patient wears a respirator, the respirator can be very effective at preventing infectious material from leaving the patients body, and when worn by healthy individuals, it prevents inhalation of said material. More importantly, wearing a mask is a excellent way of preventing the user from rubbing or touching their mouth or nose, which is a very high risk factor. At the end of the day will an N95 mask guarantee to protect you from the Flu? No. But it can substantially reduce your risk or receiving or transmitting the disease.
perfect is the enemy of good enough.
also, raw filter material of the correct nm resistance can be bought or otherwise acquired.
I should share that SURGICAL MASKS which do not have the same rating are running just as low as n95s. The surgical masks have a much lower rating but are still far better than nothing. They are used for the general hospital populace.
We’re all engineers / thinkers here, most of us anyway. We can understand that a trend is happening and a week or two from now will be too late.
I am linking my google drive document proposal here as I am collecting more information relevant to my proposal. My proposal grows as more anecdotes are collected and information is found.
Below is a copy of the email I sent to the board of directors. There were unclear instructions on agenda items being “submitted to the wiki within 48 hours” but no specific context on how or where or what format. As for the 48 hour deadline, The design I am proposing was released online something in the range of 3 days ago
https://copper3d.com/hackthepandemic/
design and explanation can be found at the link above.
Supplies:
3d printing filament (PLA or ABS)
Sponge Rubber Foam (Cosplay department might have some)
HEPA air filters - cut into squares / circles – anti microbial rated or higher!
Plumbing gaskets - 1 or 2 per mask. (the specific gasket size will need to be specified )
Plumbing epoxy. (or other strong airtight bond.
Elastic 1/4 or 1/2 inch, or string / twine. fasteners
I propose that we post on talk asking members to drop off relevant donation supplies into the delivery drop box outside the entrance to minimize contact.
Construction:
The construction would require running 3d printers, which ideally would be done night and day until filament supplies are exhausted. I personally can run the night shift as I am going to start tele work soon and call volume is slow on overnights, I would just need an ethernet connection to continue doing my work taking emergency calls for Thyssenkrupp.
Running the printers around the clock would be vital as time is more expensive than filament when it comes to slow 3d printers.
The HEPA filter material cut to size / shape. Plumbing gaskets would fit into the fitting, creating an air tight seal except for the filter.
The foam would be precut to the edges and ship with the product, unattached waiting final fastening.Cosplay style EVA foam is more than sufficient as a seal and is identical to the design found in the famously scarce n95 that health care workers use.
An efficient way to do the repetitive eva foam cuts would be to have an template and simply repetively drag a box cutter / roatary cutter around the edges. Drawing up a CNC design for the EVA cut would require far too much troubleshooting. Time is of the essence.
The final assembly:
Final assembly would happen with the person receiving the item:
either boiling hot water, hot hair dryer, or heat gun to soften the plastic, then apply to face fitting. Ensuring firm nose bridge contact and cheek/ chin coverage. Connecting / contacting the chin edges with the bottom cheek edges.
We can post a short cell phone video instructing how to fit. Minimal video editing. Time is of the essence and we need the information out.
Shipping bag contents:
printed mask
10 HEPA filter papers cut to the size.
1 pumbing gasket
eva foam cutout. for the reciving health provider to glue during assembly.
https://copper3d.com/hackthepandemic/
"What about the legal liabilty" You might be thinking.
The CDC has guidelines allowing for emergency measures when needed. Adaptive respriators and even down to advising health care workers to use cloth masks. This mask, i firmly believe if deployed will be FAR more effective than a cloth mask. Cloth masks have actually been proven by some studies to be WORSE than wearing nothing at all.
I dont know if you have been reading the news, but we are at a extreme shortage of PPE in medical facilities. even ones right down the street. I am close friends with a veterinarian in Denton that is currently working with minimal PPE (face shield) because her backstock was donated to a quarrantine ward directly. That supply has likely been since used up.
Doctors are out there REUSING DISPOSABLE MASKS. This proposal aims to resolve that.
I would need exactly one evening at the makerspace with applicable materials to do a test construction. Perfume is often used as a poor man’s test. If it can be smelled, then particles have transmitted past the mask. I personally recommend Obsession by Calvin Klein.
The individual health care providers are free to accept these donations. I have spoken to several health care providers, even those not working in the COVID quarrantine wards that would love to have these. The individual health care workers are free by CDC guidelines to make decisions on PPE, and I strongly feel these masks are better than reusing disposable masks with degrading filtration quality.
Further than that, these masks can be distributed to various at risk groups that are public facing whenther delivery drivers, store employees, etc.
I will gladly share more details with the board members as needed. I understand you guys are having a video conference on Sunday. I beseech our Board of Directors to consider my proposal.
When we tell our grandchildren what we did during the epidemic that killed 700 people PER DAY IN ITALY I will be absolutely goddamned if my answer to the next generation is “I sat around watching Japanese Cartoons on Netflix waiting to be told what to do”
This proposal is linked at the top of this post as it is adapting and growing in size to fit the needs of the adapting and growing size
3D printers are slow. Injection molding is fast.
Have you thought about getting an injection mold engineer to teach us how to make something useful on the HAAS that a local plastics company could use to spit out a plastic part every ten seconds?
Can the materials we need even be cut out on our laser cutters?
Should your time be first spent talking to mask manufacturers about what we can and can’t do for them with the tools we have at our disposal?
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this sounds like something that someone else could be doing? who else can we talk to? I’m only one person.
currently revising my proposal to include more details and contigencies.
just confirmed with an unnamed source in oregon that surgical masks are being reused all day, bypassing the “letter of the law” that we’re all clutching our pearls about in forums.
I will be adjusting my proposal to a link to a document as I am still developing it to completion.
ABS and PLA in an FDM process are porous materials that trap bacterial and moisture, and FDM as a process makes a result that’s harder to sterilize due to surface irregularities. This is why it’s always been recommended one not make foodstuffs with typical 3d printing and materials.
The purpose of a filter mask like these is moot if the mask itself introduces more problems.
- fitment issues arise on rigid masks (this is why your reusable masks with replaceable filters are soft materials with smooth contours). Without proper fitment, the mask does not offer filter protection
- filter media: using HEPA filters from things like ACs or equipment poses problems due to airflow. Breathing through a properly designed N95 mask is substantially different than trying to breath through a shop or HVAC HEPA filter.
I find this extremely suspect in the context presented, as surgical masks aren’t even intended to protect the wearer like an n95 is.
so far everyone that’s asked about this has been someone advocating with a group on facebook, but not actually anyone that from those supposed hospitals that allegedly want 3d printed masks to replace n95
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