Crowd-sourced Building of NIH Approved Face Shields

The Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) has placed a great strain on the supply chains for various kinds of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) desperately needed by those working the front lines in the fight against the disease. Due to the widespread availability and private ownership of 3d printers and sewing machines, we have a way to fill some of the gaps in PPE availability. But just building PPE isn’t enough, we need to do our best to ensure what we build is safe, reliable and easy to use. The primary goal of our work is to build face shields, based off a design approved for use by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services - National Institutes of Health (NIH). The procedures we’ve built allow us to do our best to establish a “chain of custody” that will help ensure the PPE we provide has not been compromised.

If you have a 3D printer, sewing machine or access to the types of commercially available plastic dividers for 3-ring binders, we need your help!

Please check out the full instructions for how we’d like you to go about handling the 3d prints, sewn ties and sheets of plastic to ensure we can keep the PPE made as safe as possible.

This build pipeline is how we’ll be getting the headbands (printed with the DMS 3d printers) assembled, cleaned and delivered to Scottish Rite hospitals. There are a lot of members out there with personal 3d printers and with your help we can massively scale out and produce even more of this PPE.

3 Likes

4 posts were split to a new topic: Another PPE post

Alternatives to using elastic or rubber bands:

Two-part strap
https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/29020-adjustable-printable-strap-for-prusa-face-shield

Buckles for 3/4" webbing
https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/28957-34-webbing-strap-buckles-for-prusa-face-shield-rc3

1 Like

If you are sewing masks and/or 3D printing face shields (or have other PPE) and are looking for some place close to home to donate to, visit Give - Get Us PPE to find someone local who you can help.

There is an interactive map at the bottom to find a local drop off point, or you can use other resources on the site.

The efforts of Andrew, et al above are great, but I live 30+ miles from DMS so some place closer to home works better for me. FWIW, recently I’ve been coordinating with the local Sheriff’s Dept to donate face shields.

2 Likes