How Manufacturers Make Face Shields and Ventilator Parts

Making medical equipment for COVID-19

As the race to save lives continues, CAD designers and engineers are coming forward with solutions to the shortage of parts for ventilators, PPE, and medical equipment. Many of them are turning to companies like 3D Hubs to make parts for face shields and components for ventilators and other vital medical equipment. The most common manufacturing techniques are 3D printing and CNC machining.

3D printing - a practical and portable solution

3D printing, or additive manufacturing, has been with us since the early 1980s. It works by building a three-dimensional object from thin layers of material from a computer-aided design (CAD) file. The materials used come in powder, filament, pellets, or resin form. These include, but are not limited to plastics (usually Nylon, ABS, or Polyamide), wood/polymer composites (including paper), metals (usually stainless steel or titanium but gold, silver, and copper are increasingly being used), and even biomaterials (which can be used for transplants to replace diseased or missing body parts).