04 May What’s happening right now here at Felfil?
During an emergency situation, 3D printing can help in producing individual protection devices: this is what we did to help a hospital here in Northern Italy.
As we all know, the Covid-19 pandemic is causing a global shortage of medical supplies.
Some weeks ago we entered in contact with a hospital here in Northern Italy, near us, that was running out of medical supplies, and especially face shields.
Immediately we understood that we could be able to help them by harvesting our experience in auto production and DIY. We decided to convert our production in order to create some facial shields!
We started with the 3D model by Prusa Research 3D printers, since we were sure that the open source nature of the project was the best way to reach a solution worldwide. Shortly we delivered the first prototype to the hospital and we had some precious feedback: we needed to shorten and widen the screen. Not difficult at all: just a little edit in the 3D file and we had some brand new face shields just within some days.
Fortunately the prototypes were ok, so we started our little batch of production, and we delivered all the needed within a week. The face shields we delivered were not, for sure, the toughest ones, nor the cheapest, nor the prettiest; but we were able to start fast, and to deliver something that had the final user at the endpoint of the design.
Right now a lot of big companies (at least, bigger than us) are starting to produce medical supply. Right now they can deliver, and we cannot, big numbers, at low prices, very fast. We are ok with that because we are sure, and we have always been, that rapid production is not meant for mass production, but it is suitable to create in just a few days something that perfectly respects the end user exigences.
We have to say a big thank you to Solido Collettivo & Fablab Torino, both did not hesitate at all for helping us, totally for free, lasercutting all the screens.
In the first picture you can see the result: Alessandro, our CTO, is proudly wearing it ?
If you need the 3D model, or know something the is looking for it, here you can grab the stl file
Photos by LaPresse.
