Manhattan-based Additive Manufacturing service, Print Parts Inc., collaborated with PostProcess Technologies to rapidly scale efforts used in the production of 3D printed nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs for New York City’s COVID-19 Test Kits. At the peak of the pandemic, Print Parts began working with NYC to scale up production of NP swabs for the emergency supply of COVID test kits.

Print Parts opened an ISO 13485 compliant production lab in Manhattan and put together a dedicated supply chain to produce over one million Nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs for COVID test kits. In order to rapidly scale production and meet the demand for NYC, Print Parts implemented the PostProcess DEMI Resin Removal system.

Print Parts expanded its in-house printing capabilities with the purchase of eight medical-grade Envision One cDLM 3D printers from EnvisionTEC. Using a more common rinse method with isopropyl alcohol (IPA) for resin removal, it would have taken over 20 minutes to clean each batch of swabs. The software-controlled DEMI solution allowed Print Parts to process multiple batches of swabs, hands-free, in a single 90-second submersion with a quick IPA rinse afterwards. This helped Print Parts reduce the entire resin removal process time by 5x and simplify their post-printing processing.

The DEMI uses PostProcess’ recently patented Submersed Vortex Cavitation (SVC) technology to rapidly remove excess resin while adjusting fluid flow in real-time, ensuring consistency, and preventing part damage. The DEMI operates together with proprietary chemical detergents, which can last 6 times longer than IPA before requiring a change-out and hold a higher flashpoint. Without the automated post-printing offered by the DEMI, Print Parts would not have been able to realize the 100,000 NP swabs per week production goal to help make testing widely available in New York City.

Print Parts founder Robert Haleluk said, “Pivoting our production business from low-to-mid volume parts for aerospace, defense and industrial manufacturing to a high volume medical device under extremely tight deadlines was a huge challenge, we couldn’t have done it without the PostProcess DEMI. Working with PostProcess allowed us to move faster and deliver over 1 million NP swabs to NYC, which helped our city fight COVID during these challenging times.

Print Parts Inc.
www.printparts.com

PostProcess Technologies
www.postprocess.com