Face shield, Prusa style (compatible) - emergency PPE

thingiverse

Various efforts are underway in the 3D printing community to supply emergency Personal Protection equipment to health professionals quickly. Many designs are makeshift, but none have been exactly approved for medical use, primarily because fused deposition manufacturing isn't typically the approach of choice for making items that need to be decontaminated frequently. The closest I've found to an "approved" design for a medical protective face shield is something Prusa (a 3D printer maker) developed and made freely available, which was approved by Czech medical authorities for emergency use. Find the Prusa designs here: https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/25857-prusa-face-shield Prusa's website has extensive instructions on all aspects of their face shield design, including how to assemble the face shields, a cutting guide for the transparent visor part itself, various iterations of the headband and the bottom piece. It invites community remixes, carries gcodes for swift printing of the various parts, including some clever stacked prints for overnight batch manufacturing. They also have remixes suitable for 150mm x 150mm bed printers popular with schools etc - the "RC3" design is considered the best at time of writing, but won't fit on a 150mm bed. The RC1 design is printed pre-tensioned and takes much less bed space, and fits easily within 150x150mm, and prints a lot quicker than later revisions, but it's weaker and less comfortable. All designs can be split in two and joined with some kind of reinforcement and cynoacrylate glue. Note that CA glue will degrade/separate if steamed or immersed in hot liquids for long. I also prefer the RC1 strap toggle design, which should be perfectly strong enough unless there's something wrong with your filament. Looking at their RC3 design, I've selectively slimmed the bands in the middle where it doesn't significantly compromise strength, and done away with the arm-extension complication. With the same print settings, I'm getting 2hr 19min print time, using 37g (12.4m) of material, or 2hr 21min and 38g (12.7m) of material for the version that I've added inner lugs to for mounting a top shield. This is a work in progress, so expect further revisions, but I'm inclined to stick to the Prusa blade design and hole layout, because it's good to standardize these things. Note that this was intended by Prusa to be printed in PETG, which is more temperature-tolerant after printing than PLA. However, many health authorities/personnel are treating these as single-use, having no time for cleaning and sterilising them, in which case PLA is also an option, possibly better for the environment because it will eventually biodegrade. Accordingly, I have added a material code to the side of this design - raised, rather than sunken, as again I feel that the sunken "PRUSA" logo was a needless dirt trap. In the first instance, to get this up and shared quickly, I have only a "PLA" badged design, and, being British, I have stuck a "heart NHS" legend on the other side. This is a work in progress - I will add files and information here as and when I can. Whether or not you like or print my designs, if you have a 3D printer and there is a shortage of PPE among health authorities in your area, find out what they need and how best to deliver it (local clearinghouses) and get printing... there are loads of designs out there, and we can help. Please read the section on printing, because I ran into issues with Cura, and please also read the Prusa web site linked for information about the blade pattern, how to make and distribute these things, the bottom pieces required, etc.