How To Make a 3D Printed Concrete Stamp

A section of concrete stamped with the phrase "Macklin Manor. Est 1989"

Pressed into the concrete outside the newly remodeled Holy Trinity Missionary Baptist Church in Youngstown, Ohio is a distinctive embossment, “Macklin Manor, Est: 1989.” The notation was added to honor the church’s long-serving pastor, Reverend Lewis Macklin II, a much-beloved community leader in Youngstown. What isn’t obvious about that marker however, is that the concrete stamp that made it was 3D printed.

Concrete stamping has been around since the 1950s, and the earliest stamps were made of sheet metal or even wood. Modern concrete stamps are made from molded polyurethane and have patterns that can make concrete look like brick, tile, or stone. Custom stamps are traditionally used to add company logos, building numbers, etc., but the lead time to create one is upwards of one to two months. What do you do if you need a concrete stamp and only have a few days before the cement trucks arrive? You call someone with a really big 3D printer, and in Youngstown, for Holy Trinity Church, that person was Pam Szmara.

We recently spoke to Pam Szmara with Pamton 3D Printing about the Macklin Manor project, and she shared this how-to, modified from Formlabs instructions, for how you can make your own custom concrete stamp.

Here's Pamton 3D's advice:

We recently completed a project that required us to design and 3D print a stamp capable of personalizing a concrete stone at Macklin Manor in Youngstown, Ohio. We enjoyed the project and are excited to have the capability to make small or large personalized concrete stamps for our clients’ residential and commercial projects.

So, how do you do it? How can you use additive manufacturing technology to help you personalize or preserve the history of your buildings, projects, or events?

Here’s a quick rundown of the process.

1. Draw your stamp digitally using a vector file format. You can use a software program like Adobe Illustrator or a free program like Inkscape to do this. When you have the design complete, save it as a Scalable Vector Graphic (.SVG) file, which can be imported into a CAD software to make the 3D model. Alternatively, sketch the drawing directly in the CAD software.

– The final design must be mirrored so that the stamp itself is the reverse of what will appear on a stamped surface.
– Use large, widely-spaced lettering and thick details so that the features read well in concrete.

2. Convert the vector design into a 3D model. Using 3D modeling software like Fusion 360, Onshape or Tinkercad, convert your two-dimensional .SVG file from a curve to a mesh. Then, extrude the mesh to make a 3d shape.

3. Add a backing plate. Add a rectangular backing plate to the shape. This will give you a flat, sturdy surface to stand on as you press the design into the concrete. We recommend the design fill up 80% of the rectangle.

"...it will take half a day or more to print your stamp, so crack open a beer and relax."
Pam Szmara

4. Optional: Add a stamp handle. A handle will help you easier position and remove the concrete stamp, however it will make your stamp require support material when you print it, so this is why it’s optional. The handle should be a C-shape attached to the opposite side of the backing plate from your design. Make the handle thick and robust, so it won’t snap when it has to resist the suction of the concrete.

5. Export the file as an .STL file and slice your print. For the Macklin Manor project, we used a good quality PETG to print the stamp. You can also use a TPU filament like Ninjaflex Cheetah, to make the stamp flexible, but that does have a higher material cost. Whatever you go with, position the STL to print with the handles down, and the design facing up. Slicing at a standard resolution (0.3mm layer height or similar) is perfect for a concrete stamp.

A Simplify 3D slice of the Macklin Manor concrete stamp 3D model.

6. Start the presses. It’s go time. Print your stamp on a large format 3D printer, like the re:3D Gigabot 3+ we use at Pamton 3D. Depending on the size of your stamp, it will take half a day or more to print your stamp, so crack open a beer and relax.

The 3D printed stamp on a Gigabot 3D printer

7. Start stamping. Now’s the time you’ve been waiting for. When pressing it into concrete, stand on the stamp if necessary, and if you mess up, pull it out, hose it off, and try again! You can use your new concrete stamp for whatever you want. You’ll be able to make your mark on all kinds of business or personal projects. 

Not wanting to make it yourself? Next time you need a custom stamp for your concrete project, we’re ready to help. Get in touch with Pamton 3D for a free quote or to talk about your 3D printing needs (but maybe give us a bit more than a couple days’ notice!)

Not in Ohio like Pamton 3D? re:3D Design and Contract printing services ship worldwide, and we’re always available to provide you 3D printers, 3D prints or 3D models to meet your needs.

"Macklin Manor. Est 1989"

Charlotte craff

Blog Post Author

Introducing a New Kind of Paddle Board

A man sitting on a paddle board back to the camera. He is rowing with paddles attached to a track.

In 2014, Guy Chaifetz of West Palm Beach, FL had an idea: what if you combined the versatility of a rowing machine, with the full body workout from cross-country skiing, all while being able to enjoy ocean breezes outdoors on your paddle board. He’d been exploring this product idea for the last seven years, forging through multiple design iterations, overcoming investment hurdles and production stalls until recently, when he successfully launched the Supski Paddle System.

The Supski System attaches to a standard or inflatable paddle board and uses a sliding rail mounted with a modular pole and paddle. The versatile design allows the user to row their paddle board in a variety of positions, modifying their stance as needed to isolate muscle groups and achieve a full body workout. While producing his final prototype, Guy reached out to the re:3D Contract Printing team to 3D print a part he was finding too difficult and expensive to manufacture elsewhere: the Quad Rail Track.

Using the extra large bed of our Terabot 3D printer, re:3D manufactured the 64” rails in a series of 23 hour prints with white ABS filament.

A paddle board with a supski paddle system on it.
Supski Paddle System by Guy Chaifetz

It’s been a long journey for Guy Chaifetz, whose professional background is in video editing and production. He debuted an earlier prototype at Surf Expo in 2015, but despite the positive response from attendees and beta testers, manufacturing hurdles held him back from releasing his product until now.
Guy believes that with the success of the Supski launch, he’ll be able to share it in paraplegic communities to increase accessibility to paddle boarding. Additionally, a future add on includes a sliding chair for regular rowers. Guy hopes to host annual Supski paddle board races, and his ultimate goal would be to have the Supski be part of the Paralympic and Olympic Games.

Want a Supski of your own? Click here to find out how to order.

re:3D salutes Guy Chaifetz for his persistence and tenacity in bringing his dreams to market. If you have an idea you want to transform into reality, our Design and Contract Printing team are here to help you.

Happy Printing!

Charlotte craff

Blog Post Author

ISS Mimic: a Link to the International Space Station here on Earth

When computer programmer Dallas Kidd was growing up, she wanted to be an astronomer.

“But I realized as a kid,” she said, “that I didn’t know what that meant, because I didn’t know any astronomers. So I decided I couldn’t do that.”

In high school computer programming classes, when other students were creating financial programs for banks, she again felt discouraged. She thought, “I didn’t know how to do that, so I guess I can’t have a career in this.” It took a long, circuitous journey to get where she is now. “I spent years figuring out what I wanted to do, and if someone had just been there to say, ‘Hey! I’m an astronomer,’ or ‘Hey, I’m a computer programmer. You can do this and here’s how!’ to make it real. I would have done this forever ago.”

Now an engineer at Skylark Wireless, LLC, Kidd is committed to offering those opportunities to students. Recently, she joined a special project that offers eager young learners hands-on experience in applied computer science, electrical engineering, 3d printing and mechatronics and encourages them to focus on space innovation: the ISS Mimic.

Five years ago, on the 15th anniversary of continuous human presence on the International Space Station (ISS), Boeing engineer Bryan Murphy proposed a STEM outreach project to his colleagues who work on the real space station. The idea: to create a 1% scale model of the ISS, complete with moving parts, that mimics in real-time the telemetry data of the space station that circles the earth every 90 minutes.

A poster with the title "ISS Mimic Physical Model Replicating ISS Real Time." A flowchart is labeled "Actual ISS," arrow "Live ISS data pulled from web," arrow "Cheap embedded processing & I/O," arrow "Interactive display," arrow "articulating model of ISS," arrow "Elements illustrate when crew wakes, sleep, perform tasks," arrow "Projection of earth behind model," arrow "Motors rotate 12 joints to match real-time ISS."
A poster created by Bryan Murphy explaining the ISS Mimic project.

Murphy wasn’t the only one in the group who had discovered that NASA was constantly broadcasting live, publicly available data from ISS back to earth via ISS Live. The vast collection of data, including details on battery levels, solar array rotations, air lock pressure, and much more was available for anyone to use. Murphy and his teammates figured: why not bring the station down to earth in a desk-sized model that anyone could interact with? They decided to go for it.

Boeing is the prime contractor for the ISS. For over two decades, Boeing’s ISS team has provided round-the-clock operational support, ensuring that the full value of the world’s most unique and capable research laboratory is available to NASA, its international partners, other U.S. government agencies and private companies. So, for three and a half years following the conception of the ISS Mimic, the off-hours project progressed slowly alongside the engineers’ work supporting the space station and the mind-blowing scientific achievements emerging onboard. The primary project goals were keeping cost and complexity down to be educator friendly while maintaining the essence of ISS.

"...that was the major obstacle that inspired us to either give up the project or fight with everything, with all of our arsenal, to get it refunded."
Sam Treadgold

ISS Mimic steadily took shape, but it wasn’t until February of 2019 before they felt it was ready for public demonstration. They took ISS Mimic to a local high school to show students the moving model. But something was wrong. The live data stream – that important information ISS Mimic relied on to represent its big sister in the sky – had disappeared. “Everything worked until we got there[to the school], and we were like, ‘what’s going on?,’” recalled Craig Stanton, Murphy’s fellow Boeing engineer and ISS Mimic teammate. Without the data, they couldn’t demonstrate the live syncing, but could still show off the mechanics, control screen, LEDs, and 3D printed parts, so in true fail-forward fashion, they pressed on.

The interest from teachers and students was palpable. Though they’d done some small in-house show-and-tells, “it was the first time for us to take it anywhere,” shared Murphy. “For me, it was very motivational to finally be out there.” The team knew they wanted to move forward and get ISS Mimic in the hands of more teachers and students, but what had happened to the data from ISS Live?

ISS Mimic, a 100th scale model of ISS, sits on a table. You can see 3d printed tubes, wires connecting to motors and large, foil covered solar arrays.
The ISS Mimic model includes 3D printed modules and motorized solar arrays. Not pictured is the Raspberry Pi interactive display screen. Photo curtesy of Bryan Murphy.

The team went searching for answers, and the news was not good. Sam Treadgold of Boeing’s ISS team phrased it succinctly, “ISS Live got defunded – the public NASA telemetry suddenly shut down, and that was the major obstacle that inspired us to either give up the project or fight with everything, with all of our arsenal, to get it refunded.”

They thought the project was toast. It would have taken a major decision from NASA leadership to reverse the funding decision, but the tenacious team wasn’t ready to give up. They contacted everyone they knew who had vested interest in the STEM engagement and outreach benefits of the now defunct program. After a string of touches with decision makers, a fateful meeting with William Harris, the CEO of Space Center Houston, the public visitor center next to NASA-Johnson Space Center, brought forth Harris’ support, and the collective efforts were enough to get the funding restored. The data stream turned back on.

ISS Mimic uses real-time data from the International Space Station to control its movements. Photo by Estefannie https://www.youtube.com/user/estefanniegg

“Once we passed that hurdle, it was like the floodgates opened. Let’s go. Let’s do it!” shared Susan Freeman, who also supports Boeing’s space station program. ISS’s 20th anniversary was approaching, and NASA was interested in promoting the project to encourage public interest in ISS. The ISS Mimic itself was in a development state that it could visualize interesting changes on ISS in real time. “One of the data values is the pressure in the U.S. airlock. We monitor that data so our program can recognize when a spacewalk is happening,” said Treadgold, “ Last year, when a hole formed in one of the Russian vehicles, the pressure in the whole ISS started dropping, and our lights started flashing [on ISS Mimic]. There wasn’t a spacewalk going on, and we were aware of the leak.”

“That’s not usually publicly known when that’s happening. It’s usually announced a few days later when NASA makes the public report,” shared Stanton, “but this way, you’re looking at the live data stream, and all of a sudden, you’re just as in the know as the people in the operations room. How cool is that for people and kids at home!”

re:3D donated highly detailed 3D prints of the ISS Mimic solar arrays for the project. The solar arrays are printed with PLA on Gigabot using a 0.25mm nozzle.

And it was becoming more than just an outreach project, they were discovering that this scale model was helping them understand the work they were doing on the real space station with more insight and more collaborative understanding of the challenges and quirks of the flying football-field sized spacecraft. “ISS is massive,” said Freeman, “I know only these tiny little pieces. That in itself is a humbling thing, to realize and accept that I’m not expected to know all of this vehicle. There is so much work done on ISS, and a lot of time you’re so focused on your little, tiny detail, that you don’t necessarily know what else is going on around you.”

Boeing’s Chen Deng, whose day job focuses on supporting the experiments on ISS, explained looking at ISS Mimic helped cut through misunderstanding about thermal needs of payloads. “By looking at [ISS Mimic], we realized it was at an angle where the payload was not getting any of the sunlight needed to keep its warmth or input from the station itself, and that really helped.”

Six people, four men and two women stand in front of a display of the earth with the ISS floating above their heads. All of them are wearing tshirts that read "ISS20"
Some of the ISS Mimic team posing inside of Space Center Houston. From left: Doug Kimble, Craig Stanton, Bryan Murphy, Sam Treadgold, Susan Freeman, Chen Deng. Photo by Estefannie https://www.youtube.com/user/estefanniegg

The ISS Mimic team is in the process of building a second model for Boeing’s internal team in charge of “pointing” the solar arrays. The ISS Mimic can rotate its solar arrays 60 time faster than the actual space station, allowing the engineers to test and visualize their code before using it on the real thing. ISS Mimic can also “replay” previously collected data engineers use to assess and understand anomalies. “This is better than numbers on a screen or even CAD animations,” reflected Treadgold. “You see this and know exactly what’s happening.”

But beyond the functional model, of which they’ve replicated 80-90% of ISS, the team wants to use ISS Mimic to make the interface intuitive, easy to understand and exciting to build for students. To make it so easy to pick up that it’s like a LEGO build, and so inviting that it draws people in to an interest in science or space. “The hardest part to get right is STEM outreach,“ shared Doug Kimble of Boeing’s ISS team. “We need to get more students involved and excited about ISS. We need future astronauts; we need future female astronauts. We need more kids excited about STEM, and science and math, and this is one of the ways we can do it.” Showing students that the robots they’re crashing into each other in competitions use the same encoders, the same programming, the same motor drivers that are on the ISS Mimic makes it accessible and reinforces for students their own capabilities.

“We want these ISS Mimic models everywhere, in every airport, in every museum, in every school. Big dream,” declares Freeman.

“So people can see that they’re capable of this,” explains Murphy, “and have a real chance to play in this domain. It’s a means to let every disadvantaged kid know they can do this stuff, tinker in this field and see if they may want to turn this into more than a hobby one day.” It circles back to Kidd’s experience with a lack of role models. If the team can introduce the ISS Mimic to a student who hadn’t been exposed to the space program before, they might spark an interest the student didn’t even know was there. It might just set them on a path to a career which, for the members of the ISS Mimic team, is challenging, thrilling, and celebrates humanity’s greatest collaboration.

The ISS Mimic team includes:
Chen Deng
Susan Freeman
Dallas Kidd
Doug Kimble
Bryan Murphy
Craig Stanton
Sam Treadgold

Want to volunteer? ISS Mimic is looking for programmers, 3D modelers & educators to join the team! Reach out to them at:
email: iss.mimic@gmail.com
fb: https://www.facebook.com/ISS.mimic/
ig: https://www.instagram.com/iss_mimic/
twitter: https://twitter.com/ISS_Mimic
discord: https://discord.gg/34ftfJe

re:3D offers 3D printed ISS Mimic parts available at shop.re3d.org

Charlotte craff

Blog Post Author

A Look at the Largest Makerspace in Puerto Rico

Our interview with Luis has been translated from Spanish into English for the purpose of this article.

Roughly a 20 minute drive from the bustle of Old San Juan is an old civil defense base which houses the largest makerspace in Puerto Rico. Engine-4 has been there for nearly four years, operating as a mecca for hardware and IoT startups on the island. 

Cofounder Luis Torres has a background in hardware development and wanted to create a space in his own backyard to encourage these types of startups, which tend to have less places to go for support in Puerto Rico. “We created a space where university students, professors, and tech companies are all working together under the same roof developing their ideas flexibly and inexpensively so that they can become future startups in the community.”

The building houses a lineup of tools well-suited for hardware fanatics: soldering stations, printed circuit board milling machines, laser cutters, oscilloscopes, and an array of 3D printers.

“Spaces like this encourage community relationships, creation, and innovation,” Torres says. “They send a message that – with the few tools we’ve been able to acquire – we’re able to create ideas that are making it out of Puerto Rico.”

The Meeting in a Storm

Engine-4’s Gigabot story starts, as many stories in Puerto Rico do these days, with Maria. 

As the hurricane battered the island, nearby Parallel18 moved their Gigabot to Engine-4’s more secure facility for safekeeping. Torres quickly sized up the machine, and the wheels began turning. “I saw the capacity of the printer and realized that, without a printer like Gigabot, there are a lot of prototypes we wouldn’t be able to make.”

As the resident companies at Engine-4 include a fair number of IoT developers, 3D printed housing for components is a common need. But they also house other companies with larger requirements, Torres says, like architectural firms working in urban development and startups building custom drones. These sorts of prototypes often dwarf the average desktop printer. He explains, “A printer like [Gigabot] gives us the capacity to print really large things that other, smaller printers just can’t.”

IMG-20200714-WA0002

Hardware development necessitates quick, agile development. As one local startup put it, “Prototyping is a daily activity.” Third party contract machining often means hefty price tags and long turnaround times, which simply aren’t an option for these companies as they move quickly from iteration to iteration. This is where the in-house fabrication equipment of a makerspace can play such a crucial role. 

Torres understands that there aren’t many machines out there that rival 3D printing in the world of rapid prototyping. “This is a part of our growth, and I understand that it’s an essential tool for the team,” he says. “To create prototypes, there really isn’t another device that you can use that’s not a 3D printer, and Gigabot’s capacity is more than any other machine.”

He’s been very satisfied with their decision to invest in such a large printer. “[The goal] was achieved since the first day we opened it,” he said.

IMG-20200714-WA0001

Favorite Projects

A common thread for many Puerto Rican entrepreneurs is the influence that Hurricane Maria has had on their business ventures, often spurring the creation of a company aimed at solving a problem laid bare by the storm.

True to form, some of Torres’s favorite projects that have come out of Engine-4 happen to be those associated with disaster response.

One such example is WATRIC Energy Resources, a company featured in a recent Gigabot story, who used the Engine-4 Gigabot to prototype a product which condenses drinkable water from moisture in the air. Their goal is to create units for homes and public spaces to reduce the reliance on the water grid in the event of another catastrophic disruption to the system similar to the aftermath of Maria.

Another favorite of Torres’s is a project involving mini weather stations in which Gigabot was used to 3D print the housing for a bundle of internal electronics. This was a part of Engine-4’s work on IBM’s Call for Code challenge, a competition to develop hardware prototypes for natural disaster aid. The units have been installed in different locations along the coast of Puerto Rico as well as atop Engine-4’s roof.

The Engine-4 Gigabot has also been put to work 3D printing custom components for drones to be used in a disaster-response format. In one example, drones carry and drop custom units from the air via remote control, transmitting an SOS signal to emergency responders. The idea is to use the drones to summon for aid in areas that may be impassable due to storm damage. 

Youth Program

One topic that Torres is particularly passionate about is his mentorship of the local youth.

In 2019 he started a free program called IoTeen ECO Bootcamp wherein he works with students from age 10-17 on tech skills, using cases involving sustainability and the environment. Over the course of the program, the group works with electronics like Raspberry Pi and Arduino, learns how to program in Python, and gets experience using 3D printers on projects like solar panels and smart farming. The whole program culminates in a hackathon.

“They don’t teach this in the schools here,” explains Torres.

He gives his students all the equipment they need to learn real-world technology skills and create functional products, guiding them along a path that may hopefully spark an idea of what they want to study in university. “They don’t have to wait until they’re in their final year of school to decide what it is they’re going to do,” he says.

The Importance of Community and Unity

When we spoke in late 2019, Torres had clear visions of growth for the future. His youth tech program was slated to double in size in 2020, Engine-4 was in the process of expanding into a new wing of the building, and he hoped to get more Gigabots for the space.

And then, as it has for countless others around the globe, COVID-19 entered the picture and made everything a little murkier. In many ways the island is still reeling from Hurricane Maria, and its healthcare system is in a vulnerable position due to persistent underfunding.

But in another sense, the crisis brought Engine-4’s sense of purpose as a hub for creation and innovation into sharp focus.

Torres and his team jumped immediately into action, putting their tools to use creating PPE for healthcare workers across the island. They began printing components to assemble face shields, and were able to fit up to 12 face shield prints on their Gigabot bed at one time. In the first wave of the pandemic in the spring, they were using nine printers to crank out 475 face shields a day. They have since donated 14,000.

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The words that he ended our November conversation with now seem to take on new meaning. 

“For the community, we need more unity between us. We need to take off our protagonist hats and focus ourselves on the same North Star, so that those who come after us can replicate [these spaces] and the community can grow like it’s grown in other parts of the world. This is my advice and my words for the community.”

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Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author

Puerto Rican Accelerator Encouraging Local Entrepreneurship

It’s a formula followed in different hotspots around the world: Silicon Valley’s Y Combinator, Santiago’s Start-Up Chile, San Juan’s Parallel18. Invite local and international startups to a centralized headquarters for a several month-long period, offer them capital and mentorship, and allow the creative energy and innovation to spill over into the local economy.

We ourselves have been a part of two of these programs, the first being our 2013 inception within Start-Up Chile, and most recently a member of the fifth generation of Parallel18 in 2017. The Parallel18 accelerator – commonly called by its nickname, “P18” – got its start in 2015 as a government-supported economic development initiative from the Puerto Rico, Science, Technology, and Research Trust.

“This program has a mission to promote innovative entrepreneurship in Puerto Rico,” explains Wanda Fraguada, P18’s marketing manager, “and we do that through now two programs: Parallel18, which focuses on startups that have traction and are looking to scale from Puerto Rico to international markets, and pre18, which focuses on local startups that are trying to get to market.”

Where the pre18 program focuses on only local, pre-launch startups, the Parallel18 track hosts a mix of Puerto Rican as well as international companies, and requires that participants relocate some of their team to the island for the five month duration. “In both programs,” says Fraguada, “we’re looking for innovative companies that can scale easily, that attend to global needs…and [are] easy to scale and reproduce in other markets.”

Puerto Rico’s Past

“During most of its industrial history, Puerto Rico’s economy has been leaning into manufacturing or pharmaceuticals,” Fraguada explains. “And maybe that’s why so [many] of our students and our young people think about physical products when they think about ideas for companies.”

Contrary to the oft-typical software-heavy cohorts of Silicon Valley accelerators, many P18 companies are working on physical products, like Parknet, which had to design physical scanning ports for their electronic controlled access systems, or WATRIC Energy Resources which is focusing on systems that condense water from the air.

“But,” Fraguada continues, “physical products come with a risk – well, they come with a lot of risks – but one of the biggest is, ‘How do I prototype it, how do I prove that this actually works without spending a bunch of money?’”

As many entrepreneurs are acutely familiar, prototyping a new product is no easy feat. It typically involves outsourcing the process to a third party, exchanging CAD files for machined mockups, oftentimes in a loop that can span many months as small tweaks are made to the form with each new model.

“In terms of entrepreneurship, that’s where I see 3D printing being super valuable,” says Fraguada.

When the technology became accessible to the masses with the popularization of desktop 3D printers, the prototyping door was kicked wide open. Rather than wait for a contracted machine shop to produce expensive, machine-milled pieces with weeks-long lead times, companies could buy their own 3D printers – sometimes for the price of a single machined model – and go through the iteration process themselves. Large format 3D printers like Gigabot further scale up that creation power to full-sized objects that may otherwise max out the typical desktop build platform.

For the resident P18 startups, this benefit became available through the Parallel18 giveback program, which encourages veteran startups of the accelerator to aid the new cohorts in the form of workshops. “re:3D was pretty active in our giveback program, and they started spreading the word about 3D printing and how to prototype,” recounts Fraguada. Long after our graduation from the program, local re:3D teammate and graphic design Alessandra Montaño continues to help other founders with CAD designs and tutorials on Gigabot.

The Maria Factor

As often happens with stories told by Puerto Ricans, at some point a familiar character enters the story: Maria. In this case, she came into the picture during our time on the island.

“Suddenly, September 20th came, and the hurricane hit.” Fraguada recounts Hurricane Maria’s toll on the island, and the subsequent pause on P18’s fifth generation in the aftermath.

“re:3D got into action really fast because they had been through previous experiences with hurricanes that same year,” Fraguada explains, referring to our Houston run-in with Harvey. “They started looking for ways in which they could impact the community and which they could help.”

We began working with Engine-4, a huge coworking and maker space near San Juan which focuses on hardware and Internet of Things devices. We continue to work with founder Luis Torres to host meetups and workshops in their space, acting as a 3D printing guide for the local hardware community as well as directly assisting with 3D printing items for relief efforts.

Plugging up the Brain Drain

Once the island was back on its feet and P18 had picked operations back up, they ended up launching their pre18 pre-accelerator program, which is where Fraguada believes re:3D has has been the most influential.

“I think [that] is where re:3D has had the biggest impact…helping our young Puerto Rican companies to prototype their products in a fast and cost-efficient way,” she says. “To help them see that idea that they had, that they had no clue how they were gonna do that prototype, re:3D has helped them to do that prototyping fast and in ways that will not break their banks.”

The motivation of having a physical prototype in-hand also does wonders for founders’ morale, she explains. “They’ve seen that their technology actually works, and someone’s giving them that hope that, ‘Hey, keep working at it because your idea is actually a thing in your hand now.’”

For the Puerto Rican team which manages P18 operations, seeing entrepreneurs succeed and grow into operating companies in the local community is the ultimate reward of the job.

“One of the things that made me decide to work in Parallel18 was knowing that in some way I was affecting positively the economy in the island,” explains Fraguada. “Knowing that this program would help a lot of people who were thinking of leaving the island or felt hopeless because they were starting their business and there was no help…and suddenly they found out that they could start a business and they would get support.”

Puerto Rico suffers from a lot of brain drain, she explains, when entrepreneurs and engineers leave to the mainland to pursue business ideas. P18 is incentivizing these innovators to stay local – or to at least start there before expanding to the broader US market – and showing them that there is a support system for them in Puerto Rico. “We’re affecting future generations in seeing entrepreneurship as a goal, not as an alternative – even if entrepreneurship is a crazy roller coaster. It still is your journey and you know that you are affecting your island in a positive way.”

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author

GBX Case Study: Coffee Picking Baskets in Puerto Rico

With the development of our Gigabot X pellet printer came our engineers’ need to trial it in different applications and settings. We settled on Sandra Farms – the coffee farm at the center of our latest story about chocolate cigar molds – as a case study to determine the practicality of using recycled plastic to create real-world, functional objects.

“Good coffee is picked by hand.” Israel Gonzalez is a second-generation coffee farmer who started Sandra Farms in the early 90’s. He explains that coffee pickers around the world are historically underpaid, typically placed at the bottom of the coffee farming ladder.

Sandra Farms is trying to break this mold.

“The main focus here is trying to use Sandra Farms as a model. We want to support an agricultural, agrarian way of life in Puerto Rico.” Domenico Celli came to the farm as part of a graduate school project with a focus on implementing sustainability practices, and several years later finds himself still working with them and more attached to their mission of specialty agriculture. “The people that we have in mind are the farm workers and families and communities here in some of the most rural and remote areas of Puerto Rico that have traditionally been dependent on agriculture as their main source of income, and culturally, their way of life.”

Sandra Farms is trying to set an example for other farms, paying their pickers two to three times the average in Puerto Rico. Says Celli, “That is because above all, we are committed to making this a viable way of life for these people and their families.”

The basket opportunity

In working with Gonzalez and Celli on their chocolate cigar mold concept, a potential case study opportunity for Gigabot X presented itself.

“Most agricultural workers in Puerto Rico traditionally are the forgotten people here, and that’s reinforced through what they use to pick coffee with,” explains Celli, “which is mostly just fertilizer bags, or really uncomfortable, five-gallon buckets that are not at all made for coffee picking.”

“The five-gallon plastic bucket…” Gonzalez shows one off that has been strung with a simple rope handle. “It’s functional, it works, cheap – but not ideal, not ergonomic.”

Our local team in Puerto Rico took the opportunity to investigate 3D printed solutions that could provide a superior substitute for the farm’s pickers, with the ultimate goal of using Gigabot X to print a design using recycled plastic.

The choice of an application in Puerto Rico was no accident. Gigabot X has the ability to print from pelletized plastic as well as recycled plastic regrind; our team saw immense potential for a machine that could create a closed-loop system on an island, using waste as input material to create functional objects that may be expensive to import.

“Unfortunately, our recycling systems here in Puerto Rico are very outdated, not very efficient, and in reality, not much – if anything at all – is recycled,” says Celli. “A much better alternative would be able to actually have a way to repurpose and use that waste, and know that it’s going to some sort of practical application.”

The design process

Our San Juan-based designer Alessandra Montaño began the process with a CAD sketch. “The design process was very interactive,” she recounts.

Over the course of the project, she visited the farm four times, working with Gonzalez in person and talking directly with workers trialing the design in the fields. “I did one prototype, sent it to them, they made some changes like widening the design, changing the height of the basket…”

re:3D Mechanical Engineer Helen Little describes the trial and error process of testing, and the balance of modifying the basket design for the specific application while understanding the unique nature of a pellet printer. “We wanted to focus on quick production and cheaper cost-per-unit, so we chose to use a larger nozzle,” Little explains. “But there are many issues that come with that: a lot of oozing, lower quality prints…So we had to do a lot of optimization of print settings to get a higher-quality print.”

Little decided to experiment with printing in vase mode, which involves extruding in a continuous stream rather than a lot of stopping points where the nozzle has the opportunity to ooze plastic. “For that, we had to actually redesign the part itself so that the perimeter was only one layer thick,” she says.

Together, Little and Montaño incorporated user feedback from Sandra Farms into incremental tweaks to the design and new prototypes. They increased the basket depth to allow for a larger haul to be carried at one time, refined the shape to better hug the wearer’s waist, and added a brim to which a picker could attach shoulder straps.

“The way that a part is designed and printed has a huge effect on how long it takes to print, how much material it is, and at the end of the day, the bottom line for the cost,” explains Little. “I think it’s really important to get these real-world case studies and get that user feedback so that we can assess how viable of a solution this is for them and how much we can help improve over the current solution they’re using, using Gigabot X, 3D printing, and recycled materials.”

By the culmination of the testing process there had been twelve iterations of the basket, with the final design clocking in at around three and a half hours of print time.

Putting it to the test in the field

The crescent moon design on which they settled curves around the front of the waist, with a wide profile so a picker’s hands don’t have to travel far to drop in coffee cherries. It’s manageable enough to strap over one’s shoulders and carry through the field, yet sturdy enough to haul over fifteen pounds of coffee.

“We had wondered whether they could take the beating on the job, at the farm. ‘Can the bottom hold?’” Gonzalez initially pondered. “Yeah, they do,” he smiles. “Very well.”

Explains Celli, “The way that we designed them with re:3D was so that the opening would be wide so that a picker going through the field on uneven terrain is able to quickly pick coffee and kind of dump it into the bucket without it falling.”

He recounts the difficulties that came with the old-school fertilizer sack picking method. “It’s hard to keep it open with one hand, put coffee into it in the other, and then be efficient in a day where you’re trying to optimize how quickly you can get through the fields.” Seasonal coffee pickers, Celli explains, are paid by the pound. A vessel that allows for faster picking and movement through a field – not to mention fewer coffee cherries dropped – equals more money in a picker’s pocket. 

The comfort of having the basket contour to the hip is an obvious added bonus, Celli continues, allowing workers to pick more comfortably and later into the day.

There were more unforeseen positives of the custom basket design which Gonzalez and Celli didn’t fully comprehend before embarking on the project with re:3D.

“The reaction of such joy and excitement from the coffee pickers seeing these baskets that were actually made for them and thoughtfully designed to be comfortable for them was amazing to see,” recounts Celli.

The impact on the pickers’ morale was an unexpected and uplifting side effect of the project for both Celli and Gonzalez. They seemed unaccustomed and touched to be the focus of a project with a specific goal of creating a product to make their job easier and more comfortable.

The joy in the fields was visibly apparent, with pickers jockeying to get a chance with the new baskets: a promising sign for both the basket project and Sandra Farms’ own internal case study of running a sustainable, ethical farm prioritizing workers’ livelihoods.

In the meantime, both Gigabot X research and Sandra Farms’ exploration into sustainability continues. 

This project was made possible thanks to the support of the Puerto Rico Science, Technology & Research Trust and the National Science Foundation, who helped fund our research into Gigabot X.

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author

Designing Chocolate Molds for a Puerto Rican Farm

Nestled in the green mountains of Adjuntas, Puerto Rico – about a two hour, winding drive from San Juan – is a boutique coffee grower by the name of Sandra Farms.

Owner Israel Gonzalez grew up on a coffee farm in Oriente, Cuba, a childhood that greatly influenced his ambition to carry on the tradition. At 15 years of age he moved to New York City. The next several decades in the States were spent completing undergrad and grad school, meeting his future wife and farm namesake, Sandra, and starting a family. Throughout, the dream of a farm remained, a plan that was ultimately put into action in Puerto Rico in the early ‘90s.

The setting is idyllic. “It is beautiful, I know,” Gonzalez muses. “But you know, some people don’t like living out here. They’d rather have Fifth Avenue – which is wonderful, I love Manhattan – but I’d rather be here, of course.”

It was nearly three years ago that re:3D cofounder Samantha Snabes met Gonzalez on a tour of the farm. The topic of 3D printing arose. Perhaps there was an opportunity to print some tools for use in their line of work?

Sandra Farms would later serve as a test kitchen for proof-of-concept work using recycled plastic to create functional tools on the new pellet printer, Gigabot X. There was also a second opportunity that Gonzalez saw for 3D printing on the farm.

In addition to acres of coffee, Sandra Farms boasts a collection of other crops, including citrus, turmeric, and cacao. With their chocolatier Bajari in Mayagüez, they created a line of chocolate products – among them, cigar-shaped chocolates. The path to create the lifelike, cylindrical cigars Gonzalez envisioned, however, proved to be more difficult than anticipated.

“We had searched – both myself and the chocolatier – all over online, everywhere, and we never had found a totally cylindrical mold,” says Gonzalez.

Sandra Farms employee Domenico Celli echoes this challenge. “There wasn’t really any solution that we could easily find out there, especially for a relatively small scale production like we have.” Their method in the interim was imperfect: a mold fashioned from a piece of ½” PVC pipe. Says Celli, “It wasn’t very practical, it was a pain to use, you could only do a few at a time.”

The band-aid solution worked in the beginning when they were only making a few pieces at a time for themselves or gifts. Celli continues, “But now that they’re trying to gradually increase their production they weren’t able to scale the way that they had wanted to with that product, because our chocolatier was not able to pump out what we needed with the molds that we had.”

When Gonzalez and Snabes met, a lightbulb went off for him. “I said, ‘Ah, 3D printing might save the day.’ Bingo.”

In conjunction with re:3D designer Alessandra Montaño, they worked on the design of a cylindrical mold into which molten chocolate could be poured, and then snapped apart to remove the chocolate pieces once hardened. Gigabot was used to 3D print prototypes as they refined the features.

“Designing cigar molds are not that complicated – cigars are just a cylinder shape,” explains Montaño. “So, instead of focusing on that aspect of the design, I was focusing on how to make this practical for them.”

As a small, boutique coffee farm, their needs weren’t dramatic – they were just starting out with this idea and interested in producing batch quantities in the dozens or low hundreds, not thousands.

“They aren’t making a million chocolate cigars,” says Montaño. “I wanted to design something that they could use to scale up, if they wanted to. So, the interesting part of the design is that it’s modular, and you can just keep adding more modules as you go.”

The design is simple to use: new rows of the mold simply snap in place next to the previous sections. This will allow the farm to start small and increase their capabilities as demand grows, keeping any initial investment small as they gauge interest.

“As we continue to expand, we can literally just add more units to that and increase production without having to build a whole new way of doing things,” says Celli. “We are very excited to work on this mold with re:3D, and so far we’ve been able to start increasing our production and getting it out there into the market.”

The out-of-the-ordinary setting for such 21st century technology is not lost on the Sandra Farms team. “I think obviously all over the world, 3D printing is really becoming more mainstream, and people are starting to fully realize the potential on all different types of industries,” says Celli. “Here in Puerto Rico, on a coffee and cacao farm, it’s amazing to see how many different applications that there are in such an unlikely place.”

* Disclaimer: The 3D prints used in this application were for prototyping and testing purposes. Experts recommend proper material use and post-processing when creating 3D prints for use in direct food-contact applications. Please see Formlabs’ Essential Guide to Food Safe 3D Printing for guidance: https://formlabs.com/blog/guide-to-food-safe-3d-printing/

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author

Creating Custom Architectural Features with māk studio

The māk studio building is a rather nondescript structure in an industrial area just east of downtown Houston. It may not look like much from the outside, but the innards are a different story. This, in a way, is what they have the power to do for their clients, transforming a space that otherwise might pass by unnoticed into one that demands attention.

māk studio’s tagline is simple and to the point: “Make design possible.” They design, build, and manufacture beautiful spaces, functional objects, furniture, and surfaces tailored to commercial brands. The design doesn’t just stop with the structural design, as mentioned more below, interior design is a factor too. The use of such designs as Fine Art America posters, wall art, paintings, eye-catching color, etc. is very important and can give a certain feel to an area.

The founders, Liz Cordill and José Aguilar, met while practicing architecture in 2013, and have spent nearly three decades between the two of them as practicing architects. They began hitting roadblocks, however, when it came to actually fabricating some of their more complex ideas.

“There was this disconnect between the design industry and the construction industry where the design industry was developing these really cool concepts and the construction industry was not quite keeping up,” explains Aguilar. “We found an opportunity there to really focus on that niche and just offer that as a design and fabrication service.”

māk was their answer to this hurdle.

“We started this business – José and I – because as practicing architects we were finding that some of the things that we were designing, the technology wasn’t there to fabricate it,” says Cordill.

Cordill and Aguilar started with one machine and grew into the 16,000 square foot facility they occupy today. A massive fin wall separates their production floor from the front portion of the office and showroom where the design and prototyping happens. They can take a concept directly from CAD file to physical form using the array of tools at their disposal – from CNC routers to thermoformers – without leaving the building.

Gigabot enters the building

māk studio is a team of architects, industrial designers, interior designers, carpenters, and fabricators; conceiving and creating custom concepts is their specialty. Sometimes, the toughest part of the process can actually be the sale.

The architecture industry used to rely on line drawings to communicate building concepts – a format that Cordill said could be exceptionally difficult to wrap one’s head around. The industry was quick to jump on the 3D train, taking their work into the realm of CAD. But for as photorealistic as these architectural renderings can be, these too are subject to interpretation, says Cordill.

This was something the architecture industry had remedied with hand-built models. “We used to actually build physical models, with cardboard and chipboard and things like that,” recounts Cordill. And while māk wanted a medium that would allow their clients to accurately understand how a particular feature would look and feel in their space, the time sink of laboring over a cardboard model for hours or days didn’t make sense.

The same issues apply to the custom furniture that māk creates today. In order to solve this issue, they turned their sights to 3D printing and ended up getting a Gigabot.

“Having the 3D printer is much more valuable because it’s a faster tool,” says Cordill. “We can set it to work and we don’t have a person sitting there cutting cardboard – and themselves – with an Exacto.”

A custom wall for the re:3D factory

“The Gigabot is really core to how we do things here,” says Aguilar. “From our sales efforts, to our marketing efforts, to actually solving problems for our clients.”

One of Mak’s recent customers was none other than the re:3D Houston factory.

“Designing these walls is a lot of fun.” Polli Bush is Mak’s Project Manager. She walked the re:3D team through the māk design portal user interface, aiding us in the design of several iterations of a logo fin wall.

Once we created three versions, we were able to export STL files of each option and print them in-house on Gigabot. The final decision was put up to a company-wide vote, and with the winner chosen, māk got to fabricating.

The install took no more than an hour: the māk team put together the mounting system of the wall and showed our group how to slide the wooden fins into place. The rippling design took shape before our eyes as each unique slat was added.

Bush explains how the design process has evolved from the pre-3D printer days at Mak, highlighting their ability to rapidly prototype and create accurate scale models of designs. “The technology of 3D printing makes it a lot easier for people to believe in what they’re going to get,” says Bush. “It’s proof of concept in our industry.”

Using 3D printing to solve complex problems

“At the end of the day, we’re problem-solvers for our clients,” says Aguilar.

māk does everything in their power to make their clients visions into reality, using the arsenal of cutting-edge production tools at their disposal. Gigabot fits into this lineup of problem-solving machinery, but Aguilar explains that it can also serve as a check for them.

“We’ve got clients that come up with some really cool stuff, and sometimes it’s very complicated to build,” he says. “If we can’t 3D print something, most likely it’s gonna be really, really hard to actually make it in bigger components. So it actually keeps us in check. If we can 3D print it, that means that we have the logic to actually build it.”

On the other hand, he remarks, if they have major issues with 3D printing scale models, it can serve as an initial sign that perhaps the design needs to be reworked.

Gigabot can also bridge the gap where other production tools may falter. Aguilar tells the story of a custom light fixture they’re working on with a client, where 3D printing is serving a role in producing the final piece. “We’re studying the idea of doing this faceted light that would be really hard to do without printing,” he says. “It would be very, very time-consuming and it would make the project unattainable.”

Camilo Reinales is a Designer and Fabrication Assistant at māk working on the light project. “This custom light opened the idea of ‘maybe we don’t need to use the traditional fabrication methods, maybe we could start exploring additive manufacturing alternatives.’”

They’re experimenting with printing the pyramidal structure of the fixture in PLA and casting in metal. “For the geometry that it has, it would have taken a lot of time and skill for a craftsman to create,” explains Reinales. “But with 3D printing, the cool thing about it is that if you can model and print it, like 75% of the job is done.”

They printed a functional scale model at 75% infill – a 37 hour print – so they could actually hang items from the structure as they go through testing. The final light will be twelve by fight feet.

Bigger, faster

Aguilar muses about his journey from small, desktop printing in architecture school to where they are now at māk . “I always want to print a little bigger, a little faster. This was a really great aspect of Gigabot.”

The technology is now so enmeshed in their process Aguilar can hardly picture a time before 3D printing. “[Gigabot] is kind of core to our DNA how we do things here,” he reiterates. “It’s just part of the process. Every project is somewhat touched by [it] right now.”

Cordill reflects on how 3D printing has enabled them to offer products and services to a wider swath of clients. “You can see some of these sort of fancy designs and people think, ‘Oh, that’s really, really expensive. I can never have that in my space,’” she muses. “But our goal is to really make it more accessible to everyone, so that you’ve got access to creating something unique that’s your own, using these design tools.”

It’s clear that at the core of māk is a desire to continue pushing the boundaries of what is possible in their field – after all, that is how the company came to be in the first place. They accomplish this with a pioneering mentality and a pursuit of new tools and technologies that enable the creation of ideas that would otherwise remain unmakeable.

On the relatively recent addition of 3D printing to their production floor lineup, Aguilar muses, “It really has helped us keep up with where the industry is going, where the technology is going, and how do we invest in this technology in the future?”

Learn more about māk studio: https://www.makstudio.us/

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author

Creating Water from Air: WATRIC Energy Resources

Karlos Miranda was in his first year at University Of Puerto Rico Mayagüez Campus when Hurricane Maria hit.

Bringing with it 150 mile-an-hour winds and several feet of rainfall, the storm devastated Puerto Rico, destroying homes and wiping out power across the island. But it was the destruction of the water system that made the biggest impression on Miranda, spurring him to action.

“I remember the first time I went out looking for water and saw the lines of people waiting for an oasis truck. It was a never-ending line of people desperate to fill their containers with water,” he recounts. “All these people – me included – were lucky to live in a place where water trucks were able to come, because there were others in more isolated areas or places with blocked roads who did not have access to water for a longer time.”

It jolted him that even the people who were seemingly well-equipped for such a natural disaster – homes with solar panels and backup generators – were crippled by the loss of running water. “After Maria, many Puerto Ricans started buying electric generators or moving to renewable energy to decrease the impact of a blackout, but when it comes to water there is not much to do in order to be more resilient.”

The relief effort was also woefully botched: who can forget the image of thousands of water bottle pallets left to expire on a hot runway in Ceiba?

“We saw a need after the hurricane: a need in water transportation, a need of micro-grids, and a gap in home-sustainability products,” Miranda says. “The need for an alternative water source – it was very obvious in that moment.”

 

Finding Solutions to Problems Exposed by Maria

As a student in the mechanical engineering program with a penchant for tinkering, Miranda often attended on-campus workshops for startups. One such event was put on by a local organization, Parallel18, which hosts a five-month program in San Juan that provides grants and mentorship to young companies in an accelerator-like format. Under the Parallel18 umbrella is Pre18, a program for even earlier-stage startups that may still be in the prototype phase.

Miranda pitched his idea and was accepted into Pre18’s second cohort.

That idea is now WATRIC Energy Resources, Miranda’s answer to the lack of off-the-grid systems for use in the event of a natural disaster, or simply to improve one’s carbon footprint. WATRIC’s mission is to develop home solutions, accessible to the average Puerto Rican, to extract potable water from the surroundings so that water security is never a concern.

“[Maria] has been in my mind since, and is what motivated me to start looking for future solutions in water access because…I am aware that this same situation could happen again to Puerto Rico, and any place prone to natural disasters like hurricanes.”

Miranda is working towards this solution through the creation of WALT, a wall-mounted device that condenses naturally-occurring moisture in the air, turning it into liquid water. Using the surrounding air, the technology makes use of the Peltier effect – in conjunction with software to allow the system to adapt in a wide range of environments – to generate one to two gallons of drinkable water a day.

“A technology like WALT could mean relief in a natural disaster that causes a water blackout,” Miranda explains. “We also think about WALT as part of the effort for achieving independence from the grid. We want to bring the same relief that people have when they can generate their own energy at home, but with water, and a future in which total home independence from the grid is a possibility.”

A Growing Startup Community in Puerto Rico

Over the course of about six months, Miranda was able to move rapidly from idea stage to workable prototype thanks to the help of a growing startup community in Puerto Rico, one which has blossomed from the rubble of Maria as local entrepreneurs sprang to action to create solutions to problems left exposed in the wake of the storm.

“Here in the island, this is – I would say – the first time that the startup community is really having growth,” Miranda muses. 

One such entrepreneurial hub fueling this renaissance is Engine-4, which, at 24,000 square feet, is the largest coworking space in Puerto Rico. Housed in an old civil defense base, its mixed-use facilities are home to an array of equipment like soldering tools, oscilloscopes, and 3D printers. Miranda found himself at the space by way of Parallel18, where he met a fellow member – also part of the Engine-4 world – who introduced him.

He was blown away by the facility. “I didn’t know that they had so much resources in there for hardware prototyping and for hardware start-ups,” Miranda recollects. He was more accustomed to seeing young, software-focused companies, both in Puerto Rico and in the news in general. “Hardware start-ups are more difficult and less common in the island…so I was impressed that [Engine-4] had all these resources, 3D printing, everything.”

Both Parallel18 and Engine-4 host Gigabots for their members to use as a prototyping and design resource. Miranda took advantage of the two locations during the creation of WALT, printing full-scale models that dwarved the build volume of his desktop 3D printer at home.

“With these kinds of programs, we not only have the funds, we have an alternative to use resources directly,” he explains. Pre18 provided them with monetary grants, and, equally as beneficial, Engine-4 offered them access to machinery that would have otherwise been prohibitively expensive.

Miranda doesn’t know how WATRIC would have gotten to a final design without 3D printing.

He describes the early design stages, modeling the unit using CAD. “We thought that it was functional in that moment,” he recounts, “but it wasn’t until we had the physical prototype actually printed that we were able to improve it and to see what needed to be changed.” The phenomenon is all too common for product designers. A 3D design that seems watertight on a screen immediately gives up its flaws once its form enters the physical realm.

“Prototyping is our daily activity,” Miranda says. “3D printing is helping us to iterate. When we make our prototype, we see where we need to improve.”

The model they printed at Engine-4 clocked in at around 26 hours, designed specifically to allow them to move seamlessly from 3D printing into injection molding.

While WATRIC Energy Resources finishes the development and scaling of their drinking water product, they have created a smaller, spinoff version to get people a taste of their technology’s capabilities: a smart indoor plant watering system called WALTY. They will be launching a Kickstarter for this product, using funds raised to move forward with their larger mission of potable water-producing systems.

Follow WATRIC’s progress and get notified when their Kickstarter launches, at https://watric.com/

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author

Global Gigabot Community Rises to the Challenge of COVID-19

As we all face our new normal and adjust to the realities of life during a pandemic, our 3D printing friends and colleagues around the world have stepped up to provide much needed personal protective equipment, filling the supply gap for everyone on the front lines. This isn’t just for doctors and nurses, it’s also for the police, EMTs, grocers, gas station attendants, and every other essential worker who suit up to keep our societies’ services going during this crisis.

More close to home, we couldn’t be more honored to count many of these selfless volunteers as our customers. re:3D’s social mission to democratize manufacturing and 3D print with purpose tends to attract like minded individuals and businesses whose first instincts are to be the problem solvers for their communities.  Featured below are our friends’ efforts in their own words.

Engine-4, Tredé, Parallel18 & Daniel Varela

Bayamón, Puerto Rico

Tell us about the design you are printing.

After learning about a need for PPE, we started printing a derivative of the 3DVerkstan visor design for face shields that could accept pre-cut shields that had been donated. We chose that design because it was the fastest to print. It was nice to see along the way that it got NIH endorsement. Our expanding print farm of Gigabots & Prusa printers is located at Engine-4, and includes local Gigabots that Parallel 18, Daniel Varela, and Atlantic University (once it clears customs!) loaned to help bolster production.
Design Inspiration: https://3dverkstan.se/protective-visor/

PR Variant: Link to .stl file direct download

What material are you printing with?

We are currently printing with PLA.

Who are you printing this design for?

We are donating face shields to health professionals across PR. So far we have donated 1400. We’re also helping a doctor with 3D printed splitters. Just today we got a tightly fitted design and are doing further testing.

This fabulous group of makers who combined forces can be found online:

@engine4cws @trede.pr @p18startups

https://engine-4.com/

http://tredeprinting.com/

https://parallel18.com/

Bill Albertini

New York City, New York, USA

Tell us about the design you are printing.

When I heard about a potential shortfall in PPE supplies at New York area hospitals, my first reaction was to research mask/respirator models but soon realized they were not an ideal candidate for FDM printing. Face shields are also in short supply and there were a couple of designs that looked promising. I downloaded and tested several candidates before I found a design on March 26th by Swedish 3DVerkstan which they had just released in the wild, I soon I discovered that Weill Cornell and several other institutions had adopted this model because of its simplicity and ease of assembly. It consists of two components, a 3D printed head strap and a clear plastic shield which can be easily fabricated using letter size acetate sheet .005 or thicker and a standard 3 hole punch.

Download Site: https://www.youmagine.com/designs/modified-protective-visor-by-3dverkstan
Design Site:https://3dverkstan.se/protective-visor/

What material are you printing with?

I am currently printing with PLA but I am going to switch over to PETG as soon as I can set up better ventilation. This is an old fashioned New York loft work/live situation.

Who are you printing this design for?

Most of this first batch was donated to DIY Shield Project through connections with nycmakesppe.com, and they have been pretty much distributing to (public) hospitals with severe shortages like Elmhurst and Lincoln. I am also giving 50 kits directly to someone I know at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. I have also been in contact with Jenny Sabin who is running a site for Weill Cornell https://www.sabinlab.com/operation-ppe

Bill Albertini can be found online:

@bill_albertini

billalbertini.com

Efes Bronze | Serdar Erol

Yalova City, Turkey

Tell us about the design you are printing.

It is a simple face shield design that can save lives. The design came from 3BOYUTLUDESTEK.ORG platform. There are thousands of volunteers in this platform with 3D printers. “Sizi seviyoruz” is located on the shield and means that we love and thank you to all struggling with COVID-19.

What material are you printing with?

PLA

Who are you printing this design for?

All sanitarians, policemen, and some other officials that have to contact each other everyday.

Where can people sign up to assist with this effort?

WWW.3BOYUTLUDESTEK.ORG

Efes Bronze can be found online:

@efesbronze

Metabolic Foundation | Christie Mettes & Tony Sevold

Aruba

Tell us about the design you are printing.

We started working with the design from Prusa, which looked like it was carefully researched and tested and approved and it worked well, so we printed about 400 of those in total. We’ve recently moved on to the 3DVerkstan design, which takes half the time to print so it helps us increase our production. In addition to these, we’ve also designed a copy of some safety glasses they use at the hospital, which print even quicker and use less material.

What material are you printing with?

We’re printing mainly with PLA because that’s what we have, and it’s easy to work with. We’ve also used a bit of PETG and some ABS because that’s what we had, and it should work fine according to the Prusa and 3DVerkstan websites.

Who are you printing this design for?

We’re printing for the two main hospitals on the island, Horacio Oduber Hospital, and ImSan (Instituto Medico San Nicolas), as well as the department of health who are doing the testing (DVG, Directie Volksgezondheid), the psychiatric hospital organization (Respaldo), the union of family doctors and dentists, as well as individual health workers including nurses and family doctors who ask us specifically.

Where can people sign up to assist with this effort?

If you’re in Aruba, and have a 3D printer or can sew, you should sign up. Best way is to email us at lab@brenchies.com, or WhatsApp us at +297 630 2475

Metabolic Foundation can be found online:

https://www.facebook.com/brenchieslab/

https://www.instagram.com/brenchies/

Plodes® Studio | John Paul Plauché & Roya Plauché  

Baytown, TX, USA

Tell us about the design you are printing.

We are printing a head banding component of a protective face shield. It is based on a design by Prusa, and had been approved by the Czech Ministry of Health for use to help fill the void of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). The version we are printing is a redesign by TXRX Labs and part of a volunteer effort that they had organized to help with our own local need for PPE during this worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. We are excited to see local additive manufacturing step up to a shared worldwide call, where intellectual property and design ego take a back seat to provide real time evolving, useful, and needed objects for humanity.

What material are you printing with?

We are printing with PLA from re:3D, always our first choice for on hand reliable material. We are printing 24×7 on our original (but upgraded a little) Gigabot #21! Each part is around 1hr and we are doing at least 6 units at a time.

Who are you printing this design for?

These prints are for our Houston area doctors, nurses, and staff on the front lines of the COVD-19 pandemic in hospitals and stations that are in need of PPE or anticipate a need in the coming days/weeks. Our parts are delivered to TXRX labs in Houston and are assembled with laser cut shields and elastic bands to complete the product and are distributed from there.

Where are you located?

We are located in Baytown, TX in our home office. My wife (Roya Plauché) and I (John Plauché) make up plodes® studio. We are a Texas based multidisciplinary design firm that draws from a coalescence of art, product, and architectural design. Our products are varied, authentic, minimal, and distilled with rigorous process to a balanced purity. Currently our best sellers are fire pits, so check them out and make a backyard escape for yourself while we are in this ‘Great Stay’. Help flatten the curve and please stay home as much as possible! 

Where can people sign up to assist with this effort?

We could use local area volunteers to pickup parts from us and drop to TxRX labs when we get 50-100 units at a time. Please email info@plodes.com with subject “TXRX pickup”. And please everyone visit TXRx’s go fund me at https://www.gofundme.com/f/txrx-manufactures-protective-medical-equipment and give what you can!

plodes® studio can be found online:

http://www.plodes.com/shop

@plodesstudio

CM Welding & Machine | Corey Mays

Midland, TX, USA

Tell us about the design you are printing.

We were printing a prototype ventilator splitter designed by Texas Tech and UT Permian Basin to allow up to 4 patients to use one ventilator. The first run has been sent for testing and we are waiting to hear back on that part. In the meantime we started reaching out to local medical personnel and some of the rural areas to see what needs they might have. We found the biggest need was for face shields. We chose a simple open source design and have been printing these 24/7 to fill these needs.

What material are you printing with?

For the ventilator splitter I chose PETG material and we are printing the face shield headgear out of PLA.

Who are you printing this design for?

Any medical personnel in need of face shields. 

Where can people sign up to assist with this effort?

I encourage anyone with a 3D printer to contact your local medical personnel or local universities of schools to help fill immediate needs there. Also, go to www.matterhackers.com and sign up for the COVID-19 response team. They will send out requests and files.

What has it been like for you working on this project?

It’s been exciting to be able to work on this project. As a manufacturer and mechanical designer I’m a problem solver by nature so being able to have the capability to help has been really fun and exciting! The Gigabot has been absolutely rock solid through this project. The larger print bed allows us more freedom to run different part arrangements so that we do not have to have someone here 24/7 to watch the machine. With the face shield head gear, we start a run of 6 in the morning and that run is ready to be pulled off by 5 pm. We then start a run of 8 that is ready when we come back in the following morning. I don’t think it has been off in almost 2 weeks and still going strong!

CM Welding & Machine can be found online:

Facebook: CM Welding & Machine

Pamton 3D | Pamela Szmara

Youngstown, OH, USA

Tell us about the design you are printing.

The headband design is PRUSA stl file. It is an existing design.

What material are you printing with?

We are using PETG from Village Plastics in Barberton, Ohio.

Who are you printing this design for?

We have supplied masks to Hospice of NY, the Ravenna Fire Dept in Ohio, and doctors at the Cleveland Clinic. 

Pamton 3D can be found online:

http://www.pamton3d.com/

The Kinkaid School | Jeff Diedrich

Houston, TX, USA

Tell us about the design you are printing.

The design is from TX/RX, a non-profit makerspace here in Houston. My first prints were based on a single design where I could fit 9 on the bed. Then Patrick Ferrell @PBFerrell told me about a stacked design with 9 high which meant I could do 81 at a time. This was a 110 hour print.

What material are you printing with?

PLA

Who are you printing this design for?

These are being printed for TX/RX

What has working on this project been like for you?

I am fortunate to work at a school with a Gigabot, and our head of school, Dr. Ed Trusty, was more than happy to allow me to use the school’s equipment and material to give back to the community.

Jeff Diedrich can be found online:

@misterdiedrich

Qrint Studio | Qumar Mirza

Toronto, Canada

Tell us about the design you are printing.

The designs we printed are our own design for non-medical grade face shields for local business and restaurants. Due to this reason, we made it so it could have a minimal cost.

What material are you printing with?

We printed with PETG.

Who are you printing this design for?

A local community non-profit.

What has working on this project been like for you?

We started just to help the community, but we end up applying for a health certificate so we could produce medical grade face shields.

Qrint Studio can be found online:

https://www.facebook.com/qrinting/

@qrintstudio

Doug Mockett & Co | Paul de Leon

Manhattan Beach, CA, USA

Tell us about the design you are printing.

We started printing designs a friend of mine sent to me – all from Thingiverse. After printing for a few days, I realized our two Gigabots weren’t going to be able to catch up with the demand, so Carlos and I played with the settings and got the print time down to 28 mins per visor for open visors, 35 mins for closed top visors (some hospitals preferred closed visors) which still wasn’t enough. I saw a post by a company from another country which did in house casting. That was clever so I thought we should do the same. I contacted our local silicon and plastic supplier for molding instructions and to buy materials to make silicon molds. I designed a closed visor that could work with molding and casting. I printed a few versions using our Gigabot 3+  and used that print to create a silicon mold.

We are also printing ear savers (mask extenders). These seem to be quite popular.

What material are you printing with?

PLA

Who are you printing this design for?

Local hospitals and nursing homes:

  • Torrance Memorial Hospital, CEDARS SINAI & Providence Little Company of Mary (earsavers), Long Beach Memorial Rehab, and other local clinics.
  • Delano Hospital, VA Palo Alto and other smaller clinics in other states

What has working on this project been like for you?

It has been a privilege and an amazing team experience to be able to create something to help in this time of need. It means a lot to our team to be a part of this project and donate to healthcare providers.

Doug Mockett & Co can be found online:

@dougmockett

https://www.facebook.com/dougmockett/

https://www.youtube.com/user/dougmockett

https://twitter.com/dougmockett

https://www.pinterest.cl/dougmockett/

Compendium Federal Technology LLC | Stuart Langford

Lexington Park, MD, USA

Tell us about the design you are printing.

Originally, we were going to make frames and donate them to Makers Unite in Baltimore, MD. At the time, they were asking us to use the Prusa v.RC2 face shield design.  In the meantime our CEO was communicating with local first responders, and Medstar Saint Mary’s communicated that they were running low on face shields. We used the Prusa v.RC2 face shield, but we made some minor changes so they would print faster. The straps are our design. We tried several designs including the strapless, but we received the best feedback from the modified Prusa v.RC2.

What material are you printing with?

PLA for the frame. NinjaFlex TPU 85 for the straps. The clear screens are made from clear acetate or PVC sheets.

Who are you printing this design for?

Medstar Saint Mary’s Hospital, Charlotte Hall VA Clinic, several nursing homes and private practices.

What has working on this project been like for you?

It has been busy, but rewarding. I wasn’t the only person contributing. My CEO John OConnell did the leg work, and my coworker Cedrick La Marca assisted with the CAD designs and resin printing. In addition to the face shields, we also printed spare ventilator parts for Saint Mary’s Hospital. Everything was donated free of charge.

Our story was featured on WJLA-TV Washington DC ABC affiliate.

Compendium Federal Technology LLC can be found online:

https://www.facebook.com/compendiumfederaltechnology.llc/

Are you a re:3D Gigabot customer working on COVID-19 efforts? We’d be happy to add your work to this blog. Email us: info@re3d.org 

Charlotte craff

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