Face mask clips for one-time material and fabric (magnetic quick release)

April 2020, the world is in the middle of a pandemic that has put most of us under lock-down for weeks, to get the number of new infections per day down. The good new is that this strategy has worked already in a number of countries, including Germany where I happen to be.

Now our government is very carefully lifting the restrictions, but at the same time has defined that mouth and nose covering masks are to be worn in public. This measure is mainly to protect others, but if we all protect each other we are all protected, so this makes a lot of sense for me.

People are allowed and welcome to produce their own masks, as there is still some kind of a shortage of commercially produced masks. Now the big risk that I see is that many of us will not follow the recommendations to wash their masks very frequently and at high temperatures, so that these masks themselves start to become an issue.

To provide an option, I have designed these magnetic quick-release clips that can accommodate any kind of material from cotton (e.g. cut-outs of an old T-shirt) to one-time-use kitchen paper towels. I hope that the simple usability of this design will help to avoid people wearing used and potentially contaminated masks over and over again, just to follow the regulations.

Assembly instruction:
Print the parts, use 8 pieces of round neodym magnets with 8mm diameter and 3mm thickness and glue them into the holes (aligned with the saw-tooth peaks), attach two strings of rubber band or any other kind of strings that fit around your head, add the filter material as shown in the pictures (inwards folded edges need to go towards your face for best fit)

Disclaimer:
This is not an approved medical product (do I really need to mention this?). Use it entirely at your own risk and make sure to follow all the other preventive measures, including keeping a sensible distance from others.

Print instructions

Very simple to print on a Pursa i3 Mk3S, but also tested on a Ender 3 Pro to make sure people with budget printers can use this too.