Additive Manufacturing supports the NHS to supply PPE face shields

The 3DGBIRE technical team have been working tirelessly to help assist the COVID19 emergency shortage of PPE to support our NHS

Photocentric-Large format 3D printing - Enabling Customer Mass Manufacturing

Why chose between a large build volume and high accuracy, why not have both? LC Magna delivers the ideal combination of a large build volume with accurate printing making it the right tool for custom mass manufacture. Casting, prototyping, dental aligners, automotive, figurines and more! Offering highly accurate and detailed parts in a record time at a revolutionary scale, the LC Magna is tailored for every industry.

"We’re designing, 3D printing and testing medical components day and night to help hospitals. The protective face shield, intended to protect the wearer from disease and airborne contaminants, has been evaluated by 4 medical practitioners in both the UK and Germany in the last 3 days. Doctoral approval, our team and an inhouse fleet of large format machines are full steam ahead to manufacture thousands of these in a matter of hours, ready to deliver to those in need."- Photocentric LTD

Challenge

For every patient being treated in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), could use up to 14,600 sets of PPE are needed, per day to protect their staff from the virus. That means, over the projected course of the UK COVID-19 pandemic, one ICU could use up to 9.2 million sets of PPE to protect their staff from the virus.

Solution

Message from Our General Manager, Daniel Abram 'As the pandemic started to cause problems with existing supply chains for PPE and medical devices it became apparent that additive manufacturing was a great solution. 3DGBIRE quickly turned our R&D centre into a small 3D printing production farm and started to produce PPE for our local health care networks. Sharing design and production information is a simple process for additive manufacture process has allowed us to scale production with a network of print farms supported entirely by our customer base. The support from manufacturers, customers and staff has helped us and the wider industry to focus on where it can have an impact. We continue to work with government, healthcare and industrial organisations in developing the production of medical devices. '

Results

By 3D printing PPE face shield parts using our Photocentric LC MAGNA 3D Printer, we have been able to reduce the design-to-manufacture timeframes of specific PPE components and bring production in house to support our local NHS's. The Liquid Crystal Magna delivers the ideal combination of a large build volume with accurate printing making it the right tool for custom mass manufacture.

LC MAGNA - Wash & Cure Unit

Being able to utilise our Additive Manufacturing print farm highlights the capabilities of 3D Printing providing mass production of PPE equipment in unquestionable turnaround times.

Cost

"3D Printing in-house has made supporting the NHS with PPE possible for the team @ 3DGBIRE. Currently a platform of 135 applications is costing £1.09p per face shield on the Photocentric LC MAGNA for resin costings. Mass production alongside low costing of the PPE applications has made supporting our local NHS's in high volumes possible" Chris Keeling, R&D & Application Engineer,3DGBIRE.

About Photocentric

The most widely used, heavily optimised, reliable and low-cost digital imaging device in the world? Not a laser or digital light projector all of our printers use LCD screens. We manufacture 3D printers with tailor made high resolution screens; in all formats; near eye, phone, table, PC up to the large format TV.

About 3DGBIRE

The opportunity to work with BAC has been made possible because of the collaboration with 3DGBIRE, who first loaned an Ultimaker S5 printer to BAC. 3DGBIRE are the UK and Ireland’s premium professional 3D printing experts, supplying printers, service, support, training and other market-leading products within the 3D printing industry. They are focused on helping businesses integrate 3D printing into their workflow with the intention of reducing production costs, supporting manufacturing innovation and reducing lead times.

For all your technical support or warranty questions, please reach out and we will be happy to assist.