The Parametric Covid Mask Design

I’ve been printing masks as fast as my little Flashforge Adventurer 3D has been able.  Which is not all *that* fast due to each mask taking around 7 hours to print and assemble.  The mask I had been making is a wonderful design that appears to have been built in blender or some other “Surface Modeling” tool.  It is featured here:

Quick Covid Mask – MERV 13 Filters

I’ve been training myself in CAD tools since my days at Google, and I’ve recently fallen in love with OnShape – an entirely online CAD tool that is extremely capable and has modern features for rollback, branching and sharing.  Its wonderful.

Anyway – due to the pandemic, and my interest in designing a mask – they provided me a temporary “pro” subscription which included training on all sorts of “Solid Modeling” techniques. An lo – I figured out “Lofting” – this powerful technique unlocked my mask-making dreams. 😉

Features

While building all the masks from the past – I learned a few things that needed adjustment.

• The filter hole on the front needed a bit of a size upgrade to increase the surface area.  A small increase in size, greatly increases the breath-ability.
• The secondary Filter holder is easy to insert.
• Updated strap location.  Other masks were difficult to align for easy wearing.  This placement places one strap around the neck, and the other over the head.
• Optimal application of the weather stripping.  This mask has a surface to apply it that’s accessible.
• The 3D printer I use only prints in rigid plastics.  So I’ve added user-tunable variables for:
  • Nose width
  • Cheek width
  • Jaw width
• Logo to notify Covid of its status.

Print your own…

The GCode: FullParametric

The STL Files: MaskFiles

Assembly

So, you’ve decided to print a mask.  This is the list of parts you need for finishing it off:

• The Filter Material: Aerostar Home Max
• Weather Stripping
• Elastic.  This is getting harder to come by – I found some on Walmart.

Cut the filter material to fit (err on the too big side).  See this post for the best way to get it out of the cardboard.

The weather stripping is placed on the outer edge, like so:

That’s it – the parametric Covid mask for Rigid 3D printing – with the CAD so you can tune, tweak or modify to your hearts content.