The Elmore County Emergency Management Agency is using 3D printers to manufacture reusable respirator masks to donate to first responders and other employees considered critical to the county’s infrastructure.
Elmore County EMA director Keith Barnett said his department spent less than $3,000 on five printers and related materials to produce the reusable masks.
“We hope to start making 30 to 35 masks per week,” he said. “These should be more effective against COVID-19 than a cloth mask, but they are not the N95 mask for a doctor in the hospital actually in contact with patients. We are filling a middle gap.”
He said bringing mask production in house saves time and money as no outside shipping is involved and these masks are less expensive than N95 masks.
“You’re lucky if you can get one N95 mask for $5 per mask,” he said. “Those are disposable and do not last very long. These masks, we can clean, replace the filters and reuse. We are making the masks for around $3 per mask.
“I placed an order for N95 masks and the delivery date is 30 days out. Every one of these masks we are making and we get out to someone is a mask we now do not have to wait 30 days to get in.”
Barnett said there is no set timeline for how long the department plans on making the respirators, but he expects the project will continue for at least a month.
“Fact of the matter is, I want to keep making the masks so we can put them in storage,” he said. “If COVID-19 makes another comeback in the fall, we will have some we can give out ... We’re going to continue to use the printers and get our money’s worth.”
Barnett said over the last few weeks he and his IT department discussed how the EMA could use 3D printing to aid in protecting against COVID-19.
“(IT department employees) Samuel (Williamson) and Nathan (Mayberry) had already been talking about doing 3D printing, either a mask or the straps to help the nurses with their masks,” Barnett said. “We’d already been bouncing ideas off each other.”
Barnett said he received an email from a group under the Homeland Security umbrella that had the plans for the mask.
“I read the email and saw the mask,” Barnett said. “I sent it to Sam and Nathan. They watched a webinar about the mask and downloaded the specs and looked at what they could do.”
Williamson and Barnett shared the idea with the Elmore County Commission.
“Sam and I went to (Elmore County chief engineer and operations officer) Richie Beyer and the Elmore County Commission,” Barnett said. “They thought it was a great humanitarian opportunity to get this out to people who need it.”
Barnett said there are many other groups using the same design created by Maker Mask which has the plans available online.
“There are groups doing this all over the country,” he said. “It’s not that it came from us; we had the idea and the stuff hit us at the right time and we were able to act on it.”
Williamson, a 10-year IT veteran, said he never thought he could turn a hobby of 3D printing into something to benefit the greater good of the community.
“Between Nathan and I, we have a few years of experience with 3D printing,” Williamson said. “It was more as a hobby like creating models. I was asked (Thursday) if I ever thought could take my hobby and turn it into a service for the public. If you’d asked me a year ago I’d have thought you were crazy, but here we are.”
According to information posted to the Maker Mask website, its mask design is approved by
the National Institutes of Health for community uses including first responders and essential service employees such as delivery, transportation and other supporting services.
