The build volume of Gigabot was the original draw for their sign project, but in order to make the purchase financially worthwhile to them, they wanted the bot to have a second, longer-term use. This is where the RFID tags enter the story.

Fire stations operate under a system of strict regulations: a truck must have a certain amount of equipment before it can respond to emergencies, and this equipment has a variety of imposed lifetimes that need to be tracked. Chuck explains, “When I started 35 years ago in the fire service, no ax had an expiration date on it – either it worked or it didn’t. And now that’s all kind of changed. So the need for technology has really, really ramped up.”

On top of this, equipment must cycle in and out of the repair room as it’s damaged. A tiny crack to a mask takes that mask out of service until it’s fixed. Keeping track of what equipment is damaged, what needs to be replaced on trucks, where damaged equipment is in the repair process – they’re all more processes that need to be tracked.

All of these components add up to quite the logistical headache for fire stations: monitor the ticking clocks on your equipment to make sure active tools are not outside their expiration dates and take things out of circulation when they are, keep track of damaged items in for repair, and ensure your trucks have all the equipment they need to be ready to respond to a call at a moment’s notice.

It’s quite the operational feat for organizations whose main function is to save lives and battle fires.

In the interest of allowing firefighters to do what they do best, stations are looking for ways to manage all their equipment tracking in the most efficient way possible. Magnolia Fire found a solution in RFID tags from Silent Partner Technologies. The small radio frequency identification devices have an adhesive on one side to affix them to objects and they can be scanned from a distance and tracked via software on a computer. Chuck explains, “It very quickly gives the firefighters the chance to scan the truck and know that the vehicle is ready for them to respond to a call the minute they come into work.”

The problem was, Magnolia quickly realized that the harsh firefighting environment in conjunction with the wide variety of materials they had to tag was proving to be too much for the adhesive tags. “Because the fire service is a tough place to be a little tag, the adhesive strips on the back don’t hold up as well as they would in another application,” he explained. Heat from fires, water from hoses, and the general physical battery that the firefighting tools endure took their toll, and the department found themselves returning from events sans many of their RFID tags.

A solution, they realized, lay in 3D printing.

Using Gigabot, Chuck has been printing small compartments for the RFID tags to fit into which they can then mechanically fasten to their tools. 3D printing the tag holders provides a uniform material to which the adhesive can adhere, while also tucking the tags away where they can’t get bumped off. And they can do this all without altering the form and function of their well-designed equipment.

“All of our items have been well-designed, they’re well-engineered, and so for us to just take something and stick it on the side of it isn’t really a great option,” Chuck explains. What they’re doing is replicating a certain component of an object and building a pocket into it where they can hide a tag. The clip of a flashlight, for example, is replaced with its 3D printed clone, plus one RFID tag that you wouldn’t know is there. This becomes infinitely important when when you’re in a smokey room with thick gloves on, where a foreign part on a familiar tool can lead to dangerous confusion.

If the sign project was what led Magnolia Fire Department to Gigabot in the first place, creating custom RFID tag holders for their equipment is what kept them coming back. It’s proven to be the long-term justification they wanted in order to get their own 3D printer on-site.

“We certainly had this sign project that’s important…it’s going to be the thing that people notice the most because it’s going to be out in front of the building,” Chuck says. “But long-term, to get the most out of our investment, we need that secondary…task for the Gigabot to do.” The ongoing RFID project checks that box.

Gigabot has also proven itself as a problem-solver for issues that weren’t necessarily originally on Magnolia’s 3D printing radar, as the department now has the ability to produce any sort of custom-made pieces they desire. “Instead of going into the marketplace and kind of having to mold to what is available, we can meet our own needs by drawing our own parts and printing them,” Chuck explains.

An example of one such piece is an ingenious yet simple part to hang the firefighters’ masks inside the trucks, keeping them off the seats and floor where they’re more likely to get damaged, and hanging them in a way that doesn’t put stress on the facepieces. The clever design fits into the masks where the firefighters’ air tanks connect; with one twist they lock onto the piece so they can’t fly off en route.