KILCOOLE COMPANY CALT DYNAMICS DEVELOP PROTECTIVE VISORS
A Kilcoole-based company has designed a protective visor which can by 3D printed for use by front-line staff treating patients who have Covid-19.
Ross Lawless and Irene Villafane are the founders of Calt Dynamics.
Ross is a native of Newtownmountkennedy while Irene is from Spain. They live in Bray and got engaged in recent months. They are now putting all of their time and energy into developing and providing visors and will think about planning a wedding once the current crisis has passed.‘We were seeing a trend online that worldwide there is a shortage of personal protection equipment,’ said Ross last week, from the company at Network Enterprise Park in Kilcoole. ‘We started to think about what 3D print designs we could do to help more.’ He said that a face shield seemed to meet requirements. ‘I saw that some doctors in town were looking for that exact thing and started to talk to them,’ said Ross.
‘ They explained that when a patient is intubated there is some spray, so a high risk of catching the virus. There are also only so many staff qualified to carry out that procedure so it’s critical that they are protected.’ He said that people in Ireland, the USA and Spain have been printing the visor and they have given some recommendations about how to make the design even safer and better.
‘We are trying to gear up production to get as many as possible made,’ said Ross.
They are making the design freely available on caltdynamics.com and have included the instructions and printed parts 3D file.
The file for the clear visor part is also freely available.
‘We were so happy when we saw a doctor at Connolly with it on his head,’ said Ross. The visor is light weight and doesn’t fog up.
‘I donated some last week and am aiming to give as many as I can,’ he said. ‘I’ve put a number on it of 300 and hopefully more if possible.’ After that, they will supply them at cost.
‘ This is an unprecedented thing going on and if we can help we should.’ Normally Calt Dynamics can be found designing and developing £D printers, and the 3D printing process, and making prototype parts for almost anything, from busts of printed figurines to glasses to packaging, whatever it may be.
‘Anything we can do to help in these times will be done,’ said Ross.