 Holy crap guys, we just had 33 3D printers from Prusa arrive. They're the i3 Mark 3S. And well, we were going to do a really big and really fun project with them, but the world has changed a lot since then. So let's get started. There's a lot of work to do. There's a lot of work to do. There's a lot of work to do. Normally our videos start with an insanely big idea and then we trim away the fat until we end up with a reasonable one. This was the exact opposite. Our original goal was to build about a hundred face shields, donate them, and then hand the reins over to our community. But at every step in this project, people have stepped up to donate time, money, or materials, and we are now able to produce around 300 masks per day. We've got this massive local effort and by the time this video is over, we're going to let you guys know how to help. That is obviously too big of a task for Alex and Colin to complete alone. Luckily, they don't have to. Thanks to our sponsor, Ting. Why pay for things that you don't need or even use? Ting wants to help you with that with their phone plan since you only pay for what you use. Check it out at the link below to find out how much you can save. This right here is what we plan on making. 3D printed face shields. So there's two parts that need to be printed. The headband, got a bunch of headbands here, as well as the chin piece. Together, these hold a laser cut piece of PETG that acts as the face shield and then an elastic holds the whole thing in place on your face. So, let's get started. So, we're going to start with the face shield. So, the purpose of this is pretty clear. Somebody coughs or whatever, and the face shield keeps the incoming particles out of your eyes and nose. So, the obvious question at this point is why are we not making masks or respirators? Oh, what do you think about my mustache? That is Joseph Prusa, the guy that sent us 30 3D printers for a totally unrelated project. There is a high probability it will not sit and seal on your face. And unless it seals perfectly, it is maybe worse than simple cloth masks. Prusa really kicked off the whole 3D printed face shield initiative, starting with a community design and then working with the Czech Ministry of Health on making sure that the masks were validated. I wanted to do it the proper way. So, I contacted our government, the Ministry of Health, and we started iterating with them. And everybody was quite amazed that we had a meeting in the morning and a couple of hours later, we bring a new version over. That was pretty cool to see them for the first time experience the 3D printing. Now, as far as approval in the States goes, It depends on what approval means. That's Alan Puccinelli, the founder of Operation Shields Up, a nonprofit in California that is coordinating the intake and production of 3D printed face shields. Long story short, you know, you can get approval for anything when a situation is dire enough. I hate to say it like that, but like this is battlefield medicine right now. Like literally, they're like showing me these pictures of like some guy like made one out of a cafeteria tray. And it's crazy where we are. It's so severe that all of the regulations, like even in the state of California for like the hospital being able to require that they have protective equipment has been lifted because they can't guarantee that it will be there. All right, so now we've got a design and certainly a need. Now we just have to build the 3D printers. Well, I guess first thing, let's get these unpacked. This is going to be one hell of a journey to get all of these done. I think that they said it's what four hours to make each one. That's pretty aggressive. But if you're skilled, I think you could pull it off. All right, well, let's get to it. Assembly instructions. Good God. I do really appreciate that. It's all colored instructions. So I don't have much concerns of this not going together well. There's gummy bears. Building this printer took me six hours. That's way too long for us to be able to get these printers up and running. So what we're going to do is we're going to distribute these to makers in our local community. They're going to build them. We'll bring them back, sanitize them, and we can get them running. Off to the makers. From here on out, everything we do is sterile. Coming up on our first delivery of the day. Hey, bud. Should I come over there, I guess? Pull on. Awesome. Hey, hey. I bring you gifts. We're building a print farm to produce face shields. I heard rumblings about it. Yes, this is the rumblings. Hey, Matt. I have a gift. Amazing. I will appreciate you for a car. Thank you. I'll take care of this and put it together and get it back to you. Give you a call when it's done. Yeah, give me a call. Come pick it up. Sounds good. Sweet. Enjoy. Here we go. So it's pretty straightforward, I guess? Yeah, the instructions are fantastic. All right, cool. Yeah, I'll probably get it done by Monday. Yeah, that's the deal. Sweet. I'm looking forward to it. There we are. It's going to be a lot of fun, actually. Yeah, actually it'll be. Yeah. Thank you very kindly. From a distance? Yes, from a distance. Cool. I'm on my way. All right. So printers getting built is fine and good, but there's literally no point in doing all of this if we can't find a way to deliver them to the people that need them. It's turned into... It's not really a making problem. It's a logistics problem. I keep saying that to people. It was during our conversation with Alan that it became clear that this wasn't going to be just, you know, a fun time building 3D printers and making stuff. At this point, we're pretty much project managers that somehow need to coordinate a bunch of makers and get these things to someone. Now, the original plan was to send them all to Operation Shields up in California so that we could let them handle the sanitization and logistics. But since starting this project, various local groups have popped up, like BC COVID-19 3D Printing Group and Vancouver Makers for Emergency Response and Support. We'll be sending our first batch of face shields to Inksmith in Ontario, though, as they seem to be about a week ahead in terms of sanitization and approval. Uh... Awesome. So let's get printing. Look at that. It's a completed printer. That's the first... That's number two of 31. I did the first one. Of course you did. Yeah. Everything's all there, all that stuff. Fantastic. Sweet. I'm gonna go pick up, uh... 13 more? Take care. Thank you. Look at that. Four printers. Oh, look at this operation you got going on here. I've just unloaded all of the printers that we've got back today. Uh, let's do a little count. So one, two, three, four, five. This one needs a little adjustment. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Won't count it because it needs a little love. Thirteen. Uh, these three need the extruders. Completed in the wiring. That'll bring us up to 18 printers. But it's happening. We're printing. The most popular 3D printing material is PLA. This stuff. It's great due to its low melting temperature and really good print quality, but unfortunately this also means it cannot stand up to the temperatures required for sterilization and is generally less chemical resistant. Instead, we're using PETG. Actually the same stuff used for most plastic bottles, as not only can it hold up to the temperatures of sterilization, but it's also much stronger, so less likelihood of it failing on the job. As a material, it does have some quirks. Like our first test, we tried to print with the same method as PLA and it actually welded itself to the build plate, destroying it on removal. We tried a couple different methods to address this, but ultimately stuck with using a thick layer of regular glue stick to act as a boundary layer. Since then, there's been minimal damage and removing the prints has been super easy. Our next logistical challenge ended up being material. With a little bit of napkin math, we figured out that we would be using around 800 grams of filament per day, per printer. Which, if you didn't know, is a freaking lot of filament. That's about $400 worth of the stuff per day. Now to get us started, Prusa sent us 30 spools and Micro Center donated another 30, which was amazing and netted us about 600 face shields. But we were able to burn through all of that in a little over two days. What the long-term future holds for our print farm is hard to say. But for now, the proceeds from the folding shirt over on LTTstore.com is going towards someone to maintain it, as well as more filament as needed. So maybe consider grabbing one. Now then, let's address what loads of you have probably been yelling into the screen this whole time. Why are we not just using injection molding? Well, that process has already been started by Operation Shields Up and by other companies like Bower. But until production has been ramped up, 3D printing is a great way to lessen the supply shortage and do it basically immediately. I am amazed how quickly the desktop 3D printing community picked it up. And I mean, in just a couple of days, you could see it being printed everywhere. With almost everything in place, the final hurdle then is sanitization, which, it turns out, isn't all that hard. So it's actually a really easy process. Like the CDC, we're using like a sodium hypochlorite, which is pull shock. It's pull chlorine. For us, though, we're just letting InkSmith handle sanitization since we don't have any approved facilities for it currently. In the end, we didn't get all 30 printing simultaneously, but this 22 right here is nothing to scoff at. This right here is our main bank of printers that are farming masks. And on the right over here, we have some that, you know, they didn't get fully assembled, but they've been really useful for parts. And then this guy on the end right here has been running test prints. Well, this one right here actually just failed. We're now producing about 300 face shields a day, which isn't quite as many as we hoped for during the middle of the project, but way more than we ever could have imagined at the start. Like, look at this right here. There's so many of them. And in each one of these boxes, there's a hundred. So sick. This here is our bin of fail prints, which might look like a lot, but we have about a thousand successful prints now. And the smart features like film and run out detection and crash detection and a whole host of other things these Prusas do make them ideal for print farm use. Well, there are some minor hiccups commissioning each of these printers. Some had loose belts or other missed assembly steps. For the most part, it was pretty easy. Plug them in, let them calibrate, and they're off to the races. Obviously, we can't do all of this alone, though. So if you guys want to help out, Prusa has a page of 3D printing groups, so you can try and find a local group there. There are a lot of facial designs out there, so make sure that the one that you're creating from is one that is approved for use near you. And then, guys, if there aren't any groups locally, maybe it's time to make one. With so many people wanting to help out, about the worst that can happen is too many people step up. On that note, huge shout out to the people that helped us out. So Tinkerine, MG Chemicals, MakerCube and MakerLabs, Lamann Designs, Murray Woodco, Prusa, Jordan Cook, Micro Center, Shop.ca, Operation Shields Up, and the dozen or so volunteers that all helped us to assemble these printers on literally zero notice. Massive shout out to you guys. Thank you so much. And thank you to our sponsor for today's video, Ting. If you use Wi-Fi a lot on your smartphone, why are you paying for a fixed monthly data plan? Stop paying for what you don't use with Ting. You can find out how much you'll save with Ting through their calculator, which you can reach at linus.ting.com. Ting has nationwide LTE coverage using T-Mobile, Sprint and now Verizon. They will never block, throttle or interfere with your online access, and they've got no contracts. You can try Ting out for a month with no strings attached. Their customer support is award-winning because you'll talk to people, not robots. I don't know why you can get an award for that. It seems like kind of a common sense thing, but hey, nobody does it anymore except Ting. And you can reach out to them on the phone, through chat, through email or even through their Discord. Their server is ting.com slash Discord. So what are you waiting for? Get a SIM card from their Ting shop at linus.ting.com and get $25. Now, if you're looking for another video to watch, why not check out our video on the cheapest 3D printer? It's less than $100. It's crazy stuff. I mean, it's not great, but hey, it's something.