Barcelona (AFP)

The constant roar of the printers did not stop. Like dozens of European industrial companies, the Spanish BCN3D has abandoned its usual production to supply hospitals with the equipment necessary for the fight against the new coronavirus.

Until recently, BCN3D was printing components for printers in three dimensions. But now, the company produces hundreds of black supports which, once assembled with a transparent and curved plastic sheet, will serve as protective visors for the nursing staff.

From its headquarters in Castelldefels, 10 km south of Barcelona along the coast, the Catalan company has already produced more than 1,500 visors for around sixty hospitals. She hopes to exceed 3,500 units by the end of the week.

"We want to tell the health sector that they can count on us (...). We are putting all our technology at the service of the fight against a very serious pandemic," explains the company's communications director, David Martinez. .

Initiatives of this kind are multiplying all over Europe where, faced with the lack of masks, gloves or breathing apparatus, industries of all types have come forward to put themselves at the service of this health war.

In Barcelona's Puig perfumery, cosmetics have given way to disinfectant gel. Brands like Seat, Skoda or Renault have adapted their assembly lines to create respirators, while the Italian manufacturer Fiat produces masks.

The fashion world is also collaborating: the Italian firm Calzedonia has stopped producing lingerie and the Spanish Pronovias has suspended the making of wedding dresses to make masks.

"The industry of this country, in this period, is essential. It is a war industry, in a war economy", commented recently the Spanish Minister of Industry, Reyes Maroto.

- "On weekends, we come on a voluntary basis" -

While most Spaniards are teleworking or have their work contracts suspended by this crisis, BCN3D employees go on working long days.

"We work a lot more hours than before, and on weekends we come on a voluntary basis," explains Nacho Lopez, student engineer and manager of a printing workshop.

Wearing gloves and a mask, this 23-year-old young man puts the final touches on the design of the pieces on a computer, before sending them to printing. It adjusts the parameters to be able to output up to eight pieces per machine.

Topped with large spools of plastic wire, the printers heat a head to 85 ° C which will melt this material so that mechanical, quick and precise articulated arms, then place it on a glass plate where, little by little, the visors take shape.

The plastic of these visors has been designed to resist heat and disinfectant. "The idea is that the visor is reusable, that everyone has his own, disinfects it and that they can reuse it the next day," explains Nacho Lopez, who also created a prototype protective mask still in progress of confirmation.

- Respirators with wiper motor -

But this necessary step of sanitary approval slows down the ardor of certain companies.

Spanish automaker Seat created 13 prototypes before it managed to make a wiper-motor-powered respirator, which it began mass-producing on the assembly line for its flagship model, the Seat Leon.

"We tried to help save a life, and just for that, we say that all this work was worth it," said Francesc Sabaté, member of the research and development section of the firm, in a statement.

The machines started to rumble again in the workshops of the Czech brand Skoda, after a two-week paralysis due to the pandemic. Today, 60 respiratory devices and nearly 500 FFP3 masks leave its factories every day, thanks to its 3D printers.

"They are made from polyamide powder hardened by the printer, which shapes it into a mask," said director of prototypes, David Vanek, to AFP.

"The advantage of this model is its homogeneity: there are no layers, no holes or imperfections. It can be disinfected, there are no corners where the virus or the disinfectant can get stuck ", he continues.

A workshop in Prague installs silicone elastics and the filter made by another Czech brand, and the masks can then be used by doctors on the front lines of the pandemic.

Skoda, a member like Seat of the German group Volkswagen, finances the production itself, which costs five euros each.

© 2020 AFP