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3D-PRINTED PROTECTIVE VISOR

The visor frame and visor have been tested and liked by staff all over the world but there are a lot of different regulations regarding medical supplies, you must ensure to follow authority guidelines that applies within your region.
The footprint hub and its partners are unable to certify the appropriateness of this solution for your specific regional and regulatory situations, that lies with each medical service. We are however able to discuss the technicalities with them directly for you. Please refer any contacts you may have here.
3D-PRINTED PROTECTIVE GOGGLES

The goggle frame and visor have been tested and liked by staff all over the world but there are a lot of different regulations regarding medical supplies, you must ensure to follow authority guidelines that applies within your region.
The footprint hub and its partners are unable to certify the appropriateness of this solution for your specific regional and regulatory situations, that lies with each medical service. We are however able to discuss the technicalities with them directly for you. Please refer any contacts you may have here.
- FS3300PA (or equivalent)
- Lehvoss TPU (or evivalent)
- A4 Clear Plastic Report Cover Transparent 7.5 mm Polypropylene Acetate Sheet / Protection lens
- Material Scissors
- Elastic banding
- 3D Printer with capacity XX or above
EAR GUARDS FOR SURGICAL MASKS
Here are the QUICK LINKS for print-files and settings to make it easier if you already have a 3D-printer and would like to help. We can help you coordinate the steps from print to supply into your local healthcare service here.
Clip is simple enough to use, however have been tested and liked by staff all over the world however there are a lot of different regulations regarding medical supplies, you must ensure to follow authority guidelines
that applies within your region.
The footprint hub and its partners are unable to certify the appropriateness of this solution for your specific regional and regulatory situations, that lies with each medical service. We are however able to discuss the technicalities with them directly for you. Please refer any contacts you may have here.
- Printer brand: Prusa
- Printer: I3 MK3S
- Rafts: No
- Supports: No
- Resolution: 0.35
- Infill: n/a
- Filament_brand: n/a
- Filament_color: n/a
- Filament_material: PLA.
Notes: The designer suggests that these need to be made fast and in large numbers. Don’t mess around with TPU, just crank them out in PLA. Fit 9 on a Prusa print bed. Draft / 0.35mm. Infill doesn’t matter, it’s thin enough that it prints solid. Turn up the on-screen speed of your printer up to 150% from the start.
Get In Touch
You have made it this far you are a person requiring basic protective supplies and/or own a 3D printer and/or know someone with one.
Please have contact details, your needs, any information of input file format(s) your printer will accept and/or design suggestions you may have. We thank you in advance for your consideration and support of this initiative. We’ll do our best to respond and assist you to help those in need.

the frequently asked stuff...
LOCAL STANDARDS & REGULATIONS ?
Our clinical design team is working tirelessly with the medical providers in each area to source the original designs of products they already use for inclusion into a 3D design and subsequent additive manufacture (3D printing) process. Another challenge we are working on is the sterilisation of community printed products into the hospital system.
WHAT MATERIAL DO I PRINT WITH ?
So far, all the most common rigid plastics used in Filament based 3D Printing has shown promise to work well.
If you are buying filament especially for this project, go with PETG or another Co-Polyester, these have better temperature resistance and a slightly better tolerance to some chemicals, but if PLA is all you got, go with it!
The filaments you should NOT USE are...
- Anything flexible, TPU, TPC or similar.
- Anything deliberately porous, like Polymatte or Colorfabb LW-PLA
- Wood or other natural fiber filled polymers, these can absorb fluids.
- PVB, PVA or BVOH, anything that is easily soluble in either alcohol or water, (PolySmooth is not a suitable filament for using to make these since it will dissolve in the disinfection the hospital will likely use).
- PMMA, since it has very low resistance to alcohols.
Materials have been tested and liked by staff all over the world but there are a lot of different regulations regarding medical supplies, however you must ensure to follow authority guidelines that applies within your region. The footprint hub and its partners are unable to certify the appropriateness of this solution for your specific regional and regulatory situations.
BEFORE YOU PRINT : VARIETY OF PRINT FILES
commonly used hole patterns for hole punches and ring binders (thanks to wikipedia)
VISOR CONFIGURATION :
Australasia / Europe / Most of the World ( International Standard ISO 838 )
How to do the punching:
-
- Set your hole punch to the setting for a A6 sheet, this is done by pulling out the guide bar until it says “A6”
- Make a test punch in a piece of paper, then measure how far the holes are from each edge and make sure it is symmetric
- Make one punch on one side of the long side of the A4
- Flip the A4 sheet around its short axis, and make one punch on the opposite side
- Voalah! You end up with 4 holes along the same edge
Download mirror (GitHub)
VISOR CONFIGURATION :
US Letter paper format : US / Canada / Parts of Mexico & Philippines
The 3-hole pattern turned out to not be sturdy enough, so they used a 1/2″ spacer to create a 6-hole pattern with a 1″ offset instead. This is the version to go for if you are making these in North America and want to use letter size sheets.
How to do the punching:
- Set your hole punch to the setting for a Letter sheet
- Make a test punch in a piece of paper, then measure how far the holes are from each edge and make sure it is symmetric.
- Print the Spacer piece and put it on top of your guide bar. This is what creates the hole offset needed.
- Put the Letter (8.5″x11″) and make one punch along one of the long sides, with the short edge resting on your spacer piece.
- Flip the Letter sheet around its short axis,
- Make one punch on the opposite side, so you end up with 6 holes along the same edge.
Download mirror (GitHub)
VISOR CONFIGURATION :
Swedish National hole punch standard ( triohålning ).
If you are considering to laser cut your shields, this is the sturdiest fastening.
How to do the punching:
- Set your hole punch to the setting for a A6 sheet, this is often done by pulling out the guide bar about 10mm.
- Make one punch on one side of the long side of the A4
- Flip the A4 sheet around its short axis,
- Make one punch on the opposite side, so you end up with 8 holes along the same edge.
Download mirror (GitHub)
FOR THE TECHIES : PRINTING GUIDES
The settings described below is described with the terminology used in Ultimaker Cura, but they should be possible to enter in any slicer on the market that allows you to change settings.
Quality-checking:
- Layers adhere properly to each other
- Walls are completely fused together
- Surfaces are smooth without gaps
- The print has decent flexibility
What filament do I use ?
If you are buying filament especially for this project, go with PETG or another Co-Polyester, these have better temperature resistance and a slightly better tolerance to some chemicals, but if PLA is all you got, go with it!
The filaments you should NOT be using are...
- Anything flexible, TPU, TPC or similar.
- Anything deliberately porous, like Polymatte or Colorfabb LW-PLA
- Wood or other natural fiber filled polymers, these can absorb fluids.
- PVB, PVA or BVOH, anything that is easily soluble in either alcohol or water, (PolySmooth is not a suitable filament for using to make these since it will dissolve in the disinfection the hospital will likely use).
- PMMA, since it has very low resistance to alcohols.
They have not evaluated the use of resin printers to print face shield frames.
Print Settings...
What infill percentage should I use ?
This means that you can set your infill percentage to 0%, as long as you follow the suggested line width and wall number settings below. This will make your print the strongest and fastest to print.
It is important that the print has as few voids as possible, since this will increase the drying time every time it is dipped in disenfectant solution and make it harder to clean.
What nozzle size / line width should I use ?
The parts are fully printable with nozzles up to 1.2mm if you choose proper settings, and if you have a high-flow hot-end like the Mosquito Magnum or the E3D Supervolcano you should try to use these to your advantage. Set all your line widths to a multiple of approximately 4 mm.
Be aware that Cura hides quite a few of the settings as default, so turn the setting visibility to “expert“. Set your number of walls to be equal to ~2.5 mm, so with 0.8 mm line width you should have at least 3 walls thickness, with 0.4 mm it should be at least 5, and with 1.33 mm line width only 2 walls is needed.

What layer height should i use ?
If you just want to start printing:
Start with our suggested layer thickness and line width for the nozzle you are using, and a print speed of at 40mm/sec. This should work on almost any printer. Make sure to set all the different print speed settings to the same number, this design caters very well to this.
The only one that should be lower is the “initial layer print speed”, since it important for bed adhesion. A good starting value is about 20mm/sec.

For a regular E3D V6 this is about 10mm3/sec, wich with a 0.8mm nozzle and 0.3mm layer height is calculated as: 10mm^3/(0.8mm*0.3mm) = ~40mm/sec,
A high-flow hotend like the Mosquito magnum with a 0.8mm nozzle and a 1.0mm line width can on the other hand push more than 30mm3/sec, or 30mm^3/(1.0mm*0.5mm)= ~60mm/sec
A super high flow hot-end like the E3D Supervolcano can melt up to 100 mm3/sec, and with a 1.2 mm nozzle and 1.33 mm line width it can push 100 mm3^3/(1.33 mm * 0.6 mm) = ~125 mm/sec
In practice, it might be hard to reach these numbers for other reasons, and if you see signs of your printer under-extruding or wanting to grind, start by lowering your print speed by 5 mm/sec and increasing your print temperature by 5 degrees.
What should I look for in the layer preview section ?

- All lines follows the shape, no zig-zag patterns except on the thin surface in the front.
- No weird break-ups in the lines where it looks like multiple short lines make up a longer one with small spaces in between
- All lines seem to be touching each other, no large spaces in between them
PRINT LEGENDS.
Whitgift School teacher 3D prints hundreds of protective visors for Croydon University Hospital NHS staff.
Thomas Wendes, a DTE teacher at Whitgift School, has started making visors for healthcare workers with 3D printing. His protective visors have been approved as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) by Croydon University Hospital and the first 150 have already been delivered. With his new “quick to manufacture” methods, the aim is to make and deliver up to 100 visors a day.
Source: My London News 2020.
Read on here…