If you are able to spare any laser time, we would greatly appreciate it. Your help could save lives. If you know any hospitals that are in need, please also direct them to this site, as there is a place for them to sign up for deliveries of face shields.
Thanks for posting this.
Is this a US only site? If not, what jurisdictions?
Might be helpful to post the assembly guide in the laser section, not just the 3D printer section. When I looked first at only the laser section my question was “Now what?”
Thank you for the suggestion. We dont have any limits as to boundaries, and are collecting as much help as we can get. We will allocate any resources received as efficiently as possible. If we have a large collective in another country/region, the materials created there will be delivered to a nearby location in need.
This is fantastic. My makerspace is producing respirators and shields for local hospitals. They’ve got quite the production going on. I’m going to try to get my 3D printer to cooperate tomorrow and also sew some fabric masks.
I’ll register so you have my info. The woodworker’s association here in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada has a medical services contact that they are coordinating with to collect N95 masks, so I’ll let them and some of the local maker groups know what you are doing, if they haven’t already seen the Prusa info. A big challenge in all this is coordinating efforts so all those who want to help aren’t overwhelming the medical liasons.
More about the site setup. It seems very geared to people who have 3D printers and may also have a laser. I know Prusa is a 3D printing company so that’s where they are coming from. Right now, if you only have a laser and go to the “Cutter” section, you’re only getting the middle, no beginning or end. The “Before You Get Started” and “Important Notes” info in the 3D printer section is vital for the laser section as well, both to introduce laser users to the project and to emphasize required procedures. A link to the assembly instructions should be included so people get an overview of production and a sense of where they fit in. Lastly there should be an answer to the question “If I source the material and laser cut the shield, then what’s the next step?”
Oh, and I didn’t see anything about Glowforge settings on the site. Is “Please reach out on Slack if you need additional formats for your cutter” intended to cover that? I haven’t use Slack and have no idea how to find the right connection using it.
I hope this is helpful. Wouldn’t surprise me if some of it’s already being worked on but I wanted to point out the gaps that I saw. Again, thanks so much for posting this here, Takitus.
This is great feedback. The website was made this weekend, and is definitely a work in progress. We have been coordinating in slack mostly, so all of this is helpful feedback. I will relay it to the web team. Thank you!
Ha, it’s getting late, my eyes are tired so I’d increased the zoom level at some point. Thanks.
Edit: Had to zoom down to 50% and reduce text box to minimum to see the button.
For others checking this out, the Slack link is on this thread:
Thanks @takitus. I finally can put to use my PETG. I just have two spools now. Need to dry them out and get them in a sealed container. I have the driers and will work on a dry box after I bake. I have a lot to review on this. Printing in PLA right now to see how it works, then I’ll move my printers to a separate room and scrub them up and clean them. Tomorrow I have off. Sourcing the shield PETG? I’ll see what I can do.
I also have a spool of ABS and it’s about time I got an enclosure on my printers.
I need to get this going now before my ministry turns into the end-of-life concerns and that. I will focus on the funeral directors I know. Might be an important local need, Thanks for doing organization work.
From what I’m hearing the entire nation is running out of PETG. I have a special contact that is pulling some for me off of someone else’s order just go get more face shields out there.
You might have to fight to get it, but keep fighting. I’ve been getting pleading texts from hospital workers everywhere that they are in dire need.
And if you can’t get stuff for the shield part, only the halo, that’s fine. Send the halos in. We already have a few large producers making thousands of the shields, so we need a LOT of 3D printing power to match the laser output.
Maybe you should consider making the alternate shield described in the YouTube video I linked to above. He says it uses a lot less filament and prints in only 30 minutes.
We’ve started playing around with more rigid “halos” using Lexan and acrylic and cutting on the GF/CNC router. Also using transparency sheets for shields.
I have no idea the implications there. I’m just doing what I’m told. But something else to consider.
I joined the slack Prusa group and am reading up on everything. I’ve been thinking about this since the early posts about Italy and makers. Hard thing is that I don’t have much mental space left to study and decide. I have farmed that out to my nieces and nephews and the nurses I know, including a respiratory therapist. Right now I am in the planning and gathering materials stage. I won’t be ready for production quite yet and by then there will be some clearer directions for local use too. I have to get my PETG dry box finished and an enclosure built before I can really get going on this.
I’ll check it out later. Thanks for the info. The more the merrier.
Here is the shield in green posterboard since I don’t have any thin PETG. I will bring the AI into Inkscape and change the collors to make sure inside is cut first. I used the PDF. DIdn’t think to throw a magnet in the middle. But this is why I did the cardboard.
Hello there! I feel like a novice compared to most users and usually try to stick to default settings in Glowforge. There were a few laser wizards at my old makerspace who could figure out settings pretty quickly, but it’s always been more challenging for me.
I’m reaching out for two reasons:
Sounds like PETG is hard to find right now. I was able to get a sheet of .040 Clear PETG from my local Interstate Plastics today (in Austin, TX). The guy I talked to told me that they had 200 sheets in stock. Tel is (512) 386-7422. Pricing I was quoted is between $24.25 to $32.50 per 4’ X 8’ sheet depending on qty purchased.
Because I use my machine as a hobby, I’m not confident on the settings. I don’t want to melt my machine or put dangerous fumes in my house with my whole family stuck here. Can anyone share those here? It had a clear plastic film on both sides so I removed that, but I’m wondering if I need to tape up each side before cutting.
I’d like to create a couple masks to share with a few local contacts at places in town to see if it’s something they’d want to cut. But I keep reading not so great reviews of how it cuts on lasers.
@whitehill I had the same problem and have been trying to figure out PETG settings for the glowforge. I dragged the right-hand bottom of the comment box up and was able to click a submit button!
But something else to consider.