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They're donating a million face shields by the end of the week to hospitals and medical facilities with the greatest need, and 20m by the end of the month, desi

by futhey 7y ago

They're donating a million face shields by the end of the week to hospitals and medical facilities with the greatest need, and 20m by the end of the month, designed by Apple and sourced via their existing supply chain.

raverbashing 7y ago
A writeup of how that was accomplished (because it seems it was a new design, or maybe an adapted design) would be very interesting. Did they adapt an existing cutting tool? New tool? What were those factories making before the pandemic?
- mch82 7y ago
  Going only off of the video I saw of Tim Cook with the shield... The entire shield is a clear plastic film. It’s held against the forehead using a fabric strap. The shield appears to be either die cut or laser cut, which explains the production speed. A lot of the face shields shown online are 3D printed with hard plastic components, which is a very slow process. The material looks a lot like the clear plastic film that wraps an iPhone or even an iPad charger. The shield folds together in the same origami-like way. Based on comments about the supply chain being involved, it seems like they leveraged the existing manufacturing process for Apple product packaging and thickened the plastic.
  - dmurray 7y ago
    3D printing seems crazy for a single sheet of bendy plastic that needs to be mass produced. Cutting them out by hand with a knife or a scissors would be better than 3d printing, never mind laser or die cutting.
    - Teever 7y ago
      I'm not sure what the person above is talking about. I haven't seen a single face shield design involving a 3d printed piece that didn't also require a sheet of bendy plastic cut to fit with that 3d printed piece.
      - ejo4041 7y ago
        I was laser cutting the clear parts of the shields with a local makerspace. We ran out of the thicker material that was being used, now there is a worldwide shortage. We were making for doctors and nurses in hospitals, so we wanted something more substantial. These look pretty flimsy, but are probably better than nothing. We failed to realize the supply of our material was not infinite. We actually had a fair number of people 3D printing, but that was still a major bottleneck.
    - geon 7y ago
      The printed part was the forehead-piece that the bendy plastic is mounted to.
- janekm 7y ago
  The cutting tools (dies) for cutting flat sheets like this can be made in literally one day by the type of factories that Apple works with (less if you're in a real hurry). I visited a cardboard packaging factory near Shenzhen before; They use a combination of a CNC router to cut out slots in the die base plate and a CNC folding machine to pre-fold the cutting angles into the cutting blades. Smaller hole / lozenge shape cutters are sourced in as pre-fabricated components. The design is very smart from a manufacturability point of view, I expect we will see other factories making similar face shields in the 100s of millions shortly. Which is great... One of our local supermarkets is already using similar face shields for their customer-facing staff.

by futhey 7y ago

raverbashing 7y ago

A writeup of how that was accomplished (because it seems it was a new design, or maybe an adapted design) would be very interesting. Did they adapt an existing cutting tool? New tool? What were those factories making before the pandemic?

mch82 7y ago
Going only off of the video I saw of Tim Cook with the shield... The entire shield is a clear plastic film. It’s held against the forehead using a fabric strap. The shield appears to be either die cut or laser cut, which explains the production speed. A lot of the face shields shown online are 3D printed with hard plastic components, which is a very slow process. The material looks a lot like the clear plastic film that wraps an iPhone or even an iPad charger. The shield folds together in the same origami-like way. Based on comments about the supply chain being involved, it seems like they leveraged the existing manufacturing process for Apple product packaging and thickened the plastic.
- dmurray 7y ago
  3D printing seems crazy for a single sheet of bendy plastic that needs to be mass produced. Cutting them out by hand with a knife or a scissors would be better than 3d printing, never mind laser or die cutting.
  - Teever 7y ago
    I'm not sure what the person above is talking about. I haven't seen a single face shield design involving a 3d printed piece that didn't also require a sheet of bendy plastic cut to fit with that 3d printed piece.
    - ejo4041 7y ago
      I was laser cutting the clear parts of the shields with a local makerspace. We ran out of the thicker material that was being used, now there is a worldwide shortage. We were making for doctors and nurses in hospitals, so we wanted something more substantial. These look pretty flimsy, but are probably better than nothing. We failed to realize the supply of our material was not infinite. We actually had a fair number of people 3D printing, but that was still a major bottleneck.
  - geon 7y ago
    The printed part was the forehead-piece that the bendy plastic is mounted to.
janekm 7y ago
The cutting tools (dies) for cutting flat sheets like this can be made in literally one day by the type of factories that Apple works with (less if you're in a real hurry). I visited a cardboard packaging factory near Shenzhen before; They use a combination of a CNC router to cut out slots in the die base plate and a CNC folding machine to pre-fold the cutting angles into the cutting blades. Smaller hole / lozenge shape cutters are sourced in as pre-fabricated components. The design is very smart from a manufacturability point of view, I expect we will see other factories making similar face shields in the 100s of millions shortly. Which is great... One of our local supermarkets is already using similar face shields for their customer-facing staff.