LEG PATCH
Personal Project (Summer 23)
This was a quick build. A friend of the family had a wound on their leg and needed something to cover it. The wound needed to breath but their pants touching the wound was very painful. I designed this cover with the black vented shell made of PLA and the purple cover made of TPU. The TPU was a soft enough material that it kept the patch from irritating or digging into the skin while wearing. On the side were holes to allow the elastic string from a face mask to pass through.
To expedite the speed of this project the 3D printer speeds were… aggressive. My machine is capable of printing TPU however solid shapes work best. As seen in the images below the TPU part required a significant amount of cleanup but was usable in the final design. The patch was designed to lay as flat as possible to make it more descrete while wearing.
With more time I would have liked to have tweaked the print settings for the TPU to get a cleaner final product as well as decreased the step size on the vented shell to increase the final surface finish. That being said this was a functional design that needed to be completed ASAP to help relieve pain while at work so taking another day to improve the aesthetics would be for my sake and not the users.