English version
The current pandemic of COVID-19 compels medical staff to rapidly adapt the equipment at their disposal to manage this threat. In this post I show how to extend the protection offered by disposable safety eyeware lenses. I also share the blueprint and cut files so that anyone can easily reproduce it.
Healthcare workers have many protective gears, which are usually dedicated to specific uses. In the emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic, some of this equipment is used to protect caregivers despite being not perfectly adapted, for lack of anything better.
In the framework of a direct collaboration with Christophe Travert, a medical resident mobilized in the COVID-19 patient care unit at the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris (IMM, Paris), we have developed, tested and validated a modification of eyewear protections similar to these: (reference)
These glasses, usually used in operating rooms or by dentists, are used in the COVID-19 unit of the IMM in addition to disposable masks and hoods. But the protection offered does not cover the temples or the top of the cheeks. So I worked on an enlarged version of the visor while keeping the same frame:
I then used the same technology as for the foldable head shields, namely the cutting of PET films of 110µm thickness with a vinyl cutting machine (Graphtec CE-6000-40) followed by decontamination, and here is the result:
We see that the forehead, as well as the cheeks and temples are completely protected by the new visor. This extended version has also been tested within the IMM and has been validated by the caregivers:
A batch of several hundred units is in preparation. If you are interested in this project and have a cutting machine (plot cutter or laser cutter), you can easily replicate these visors using the model available below.
Be creative, and take care!
Downloads
The latest version of the source file and the cutting file are accessible here:
This content is delivered under the terms of the free license Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0.
Acknowledgements
I thank Christophe Travert for the fast implementation of the project, and the IMM staff who carried out the tests.
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