Hello Hivers,

This is part 2 of my 3D printing adventure. In my first posting you can read how I rolled into 3D printing (https://rb.gy/ctoylf). Now I will take you to the next level ...

It all started early March this year. I was having so much fun with printing and i ordered more and more filament in different colors. I had so many plans. But then we had the Covid outbreak here in the Philippines as well. I thought about using my printer to make frames for face shields for the frontliners. I was following a couple of groups on Facebook about 3D printing and soon people started to ask help from the 3D printing community. At that time almost nowhere you could find personal protective equipment (PPE) and the need was huge. All the frontliners and also medical staff were working without proper protection.
I started to do research on what type of frames I could print. In the beginning it was time consuming to find out which model was good. So again, I spend hours and hours in different groups and websites to follow the result of the testings.
Finally I found a frame that had a good combination of various factors. It was tested by different people and this was the one they preferred the most. So I started printing.

But then I ran into another problem ... How to distribute it to the people who need it? Meanwhile there was a website and they collected all the requests from the different hospitals and frontliners through the whole Philippines. Everyone started to get organised and was working together. This gave me a good feeling. Although we're facing difficult and uncertain times, people connected together for the good cause. At a certain moment I was contacted by a guy who wanted to come down to Moalboal to collect the frames. And that how I met Fidel. He was in his last year of medical training and part of the Alpha Chi Sigma student-based non-profit service-oriented organization. Fidel and the student organization would take care of the distribution. So I could focus on printing.

Meanwhile I told my neighbor @diveratt about this project and he immediately joined me. Slowly we're setting up a team in Moalboal. Eiza and Lionel did the assembling of the face shields. We kept a record of our daily prints, just to have an idea of what we were doing.

It took 1H30 to make one frame and together we had 3 printers. We had short sleeps, because we also kept printing during the night. We realized that the demand was so high and Fidel arranged that we could borrow 2 printers for a couple of weeks. We now had a real printing farm! Having 5 printers we managed to make 50 frames a day. When we reached over 1.000 frames we switched to printing parts for the face masks. Most of the parts we printed were for the 3M masks. The advantage we had now was that we could print multiple parts in one batch and the printer could print through the night. Yes ... Finally we could have a good night rest again. The printers are all Creality Ender 3 and Ender 3 Pro, a basic model to start printing. Now they were running for more than 4 months, almost 24/7. We never thought this little printer could be such a workhorse.

Now things has come to an end. I'm really happy we could help. We used more than 60 rolls of filament. At this moment my printers are off duty. I have no filament left and since months it's very hard to find a place to buy. My hubby sended me some rolls, but i'm still waiting for that parcel. When that arrives, I can start printing again to make some stuff for myself. But it was a nice experience, seeing people connecting and helping.

Alone we can do little, but together we're strong!

Thanks @diveratt, Fidel, Eiza, Lionel and all the people who sponsored us to buy filament!