3D Printing
3D Printing For COVID-19
During the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, many hospitals in New Hampshire were seeing a large increase in admitted patients with COVID-like symptoms. Many of these patients needed to be put on a ventilator. The issue was supplies pipeline had been overstressed with spikes in coronavirus cases. My father, a medical physician in the ER, expressed his concerns that many would go without. He had mentioned hospitals getting supplies from local community organizations made by 3D printers. A quick Google search, and I discovered many communities in New Hampshire were banding together to get hospitals 3D printed supplies. The main supplies I contributed were 2-port and 6-port splitters. Using a CAD model, a LongerOrange30 SLA printer, a Sovol FDM 3D printer, & Ultimaker Cura 3D printing software, I created dozens of ventilator splitters that served as emergency supplies until the medical manufacturing industries were able to catch up to the pandemics demand.
3D Printing For Fun
3D Printing is a longtime hobby of mine. I bought my first 3D printer in 2014 as a DIY kit. Building a printer from its components and troubleshooting the startup issues gave me an appreciation of the complexity of 3D printing, with a friendly user interface. Most of what I 3D print are for home projects, figurines from TV shows & games, or just interesting things I find online. Currently, I have two 3D printers, one SLA & one FDM. My SLA printer is a Longer Orange30 that I received through a kickstarter campaign & my FDM 3D printer is a Sovol SV01 that serves as my general purpose 3D printer. I think 3D printing and rapid prototyping technology is going to change the abilities and response times of what companies and communities can do in short periods of time, and that is why I am a proponent of 3D printing.
