Additive America producing 3D-printed personal protective equipment
Additive America co-founder Brent Wright demonstrates the use of the 3D printed face shield frame. Photo by Catherine Hardee / Neuse News
A recent local start-up is helping fill the need for personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic and partnering with Lenoir Community College in the process.
Additive America, a Kinston business that uses 3D printing to manufacture parts for numerous different industries, has been producing frames for protective face shields for nearly a week.
Zac Holcomb, CEO and co-founder of Additive America, said his company is devoting all their downtime between existing orders to the production of the frames.
Freshly-printed frames for protective face shields wait to be shipped to a distributor. Photo by Catherine Hardee / Neuse News
“We’re working around the clock. We’re running above the official capacity. It’s pretty much a 7-day-a-week, 24 hour thing now,” Holcomb said.
The frames will be combined with transparent shields manufactured by a different company to provide an extra layer of protection for EMS technicians and hospital workers.
All the supplies his company manufactures, Holcomb said, will remain in North Carolina.
While many other companies and individuals got a jump on using 3D printing to manufacture equipment to assist with the pandemic, Holcomb said he waited to ensure something could be produced efficiently, rather than rushing to produce something at a materials cost many times higher than was warranted.
“We waited until we received a design file that we could economically produce,” Holcomb said.
That design, created by Colorado company Avid Product Development, was provided free of charge, said Paul Sugg, another co-founder of Additive America.
“The beauty of this is the collaborative effort,” Sugg said.
Another collaboration is happening in Additive America’s backyard through Lenoir Community College.
“We are happy to partner with Paul Sugg and Zac Holcomb of Additive America to help produce face shields for use by health professionals,” said Lenoir Community College President Dr. Rusty Hunt. “Matthew Berg, program chair of Mechanical Engineering at LCC, has been working with our partners at Additive America to help develop shields on a larger scale. This is a true partnership between education and industry to meet a global need.”
Sugg is a graduate of Lenoir Community College and proud to work with LCC to help humanity.
"We are happy to partner with Lenoir Community College to pool our resources to make this needed item for our communities,” said Sugg. “Currently, we are running approximately 300 of these every 18 hours and Additive America is working around the clock to produce these items. Our manpower is limited but with the help of local community college students we can reach our goals and help our hospitals along the way.”
The 3D printed frames will be shipped to Charlotte, where a distributor will get the shields to where they are needed. Each frame is able to be sterilized and reused with a new shield, making them an efficient method of protection, Sugg said.
Currently, Additive America is producing the frames while still completing orders for customers.
“We use this 3D printer for artificial limbs every day, but that we can use it for this as well, it’s a big deal,” Sugg said.
