Parts go from a basement to front lines

August 09, 2020 07:00 PM

Denso employee Mike Mansfield used his personal and company equipment to 3D-print parts for face shields and ear savers for face masks.

With one 3D printer in his basement and one in his home office, Mike Mansfield has been using his resources throughout the COVID-19 crisis to make face shields and ear savers.

When a local company requested help with 3D printing parts required to build personal protective equipment, Mansfield, a section leader at Denso's production facility in Guelph, Ontario, took it upon himself to start printing the parts on his personal 3D printer from home.

Mansfield has created objects for his home on his 2-year-old printer, but quickly switched to making face shields. The design meets standards outlined by Health Canada.

Mansfield: 24-7 home operation

At first, he was able to produce 10 to 12 sets of parts every day.

But after he began printing at home, he asked the president of his facility if he could bring its workplace 3D printer to his house to boost output.

He put the printer in the back seat of his pickup, and using both machines, doubled his production to 25 sets of components per day.

Each print cycle takes three hours, Mansfield said.

"There were even times I was waking up in the middle of the night so that I could change stuff out," Mansfield said. He printed seven days a week and stopped the printers only for maintenance or a repair.

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Mansfield took the parts to a touchless drop-off site every two to three days. Once the components were received, they were assembled and donated to Canadian hospitals, and when need for PPE at the hospitals slowed, they were donated to homeless shelters and other organizations.

Mansfield made just shy of 1,000 sets of parts.

He also began printing ear savers, which are used to reduce the strain from wearing face masks. As of July 8, Mansfield had printed more than 2,000 ear savers for two local hospitals and three retirement centers, as well as 1,000 for Denso colleagues.

"I wasn't expecting [the printers] to basically run for 24 hours, 7 days a week for two and a half months, but I was more than happy to test their limitations," Mansfield said. "You do what you can."