Face Shield for lasercutter (Covid-19 protection)

thingiverse

Designing a protection face shield for the Covid-19 pandemic is our top priority. This design can be produced using a lasercutter, which is much faster than 3D printing and easily scalable to thousands of pieces. We developed this project at the ICTP Scientific FabLab with the help of technical assistants and some friends with expertise in hospital environments. It's a "open facial protection shield" designed for quick and low-cost production using fablab technologies like lasercutters. This face shield is used to protect professional operators from liquid jets or droplets possibly infected with the virus. However, it needs to be combined with a breathing mask since it doesn't provide any filtration of breathed air. The advantages of this design include: - We're using material we already have (PMMA/acrylic 5mm-thick sheets and PETG 0.5mm-thick thin A4 sheets). - The fabrication process is very fast, allowing us to make 30+ shields per hour. We've made about 300 shields, but now we're running out of material due to its difficulty in purchasing in Italy at the moment. Please note that our facial shields haven't been "authorised" or "certified" by any official authority. However, they have been tested and used in North-Eastern Italy during the pandemic by many professionals (security forces, police, health personnel, volunteers of civil guard - Protezione Civile, and others). Details: We used a lasercutter with 100W of power and a cutting size of 130x90cm. However, a smaller one will work as well, albeit at a slower speed/production capacity. Here are the files for the parts we designed, ready for use on a laser cutter: - The most important file is "protezione_V0.9" in three formats (pdf, svg, and dxf). It's used to cut the horizontal part of the face shield from a sheet of acrylic (PMMA) with 5mm thickness (but 3-4 mm are probably also okay, albeit not tested). - An optional file is "nastro4_8pezzi-linea unica" in SVG format. It's used to cut 8 pieces of "string" from a 9cm-wide rubber band. However, you can simply use a standard narrower rubber band for each mask or cut them by hand. The other important piece of material is a sheet of PETG with A4 size (around 21x30cm) and 0.5mm thickness, which has to be inserted in the curved slot of the acrylic part and will protect the face. You can also use thin sheets of polycarbonate or transparent PVC or other polymers (but be careful before trying to cut them at the lasercutter).