Months ago, when the thought of a pandemic was just a whisper and inkling in our minds, a press release or blog post announcing a 3D printed glove remover might not have ever caught our attention. In fact, some might think among all the novel inventions a glove remover ranks pretty low on the invention scale. Not so anymore! COVID-19 and all the dangers it brings have changed up the game. Not only frontline workers but the masses are becoming health conscious and are constantly making sure they are protected. And what better place than to start with clean hands!
To help keep frontline workers like doctors, nurses, and cooks safe, Swiss company Atoll has designed and made available to the public its novel glove remover tool. How can you get one you ask? The tool is just a download and 3D print away. Here’s the glove remover download link.
The premise is simple: Snag your gloves on the hook starting at the palm and pull upward. The person’s hand comes free of the glove which then drops in a trash bin placed just below the glove removal tool. It’s just that easy! The user never needs to touch the contaminated glove and risk exposure to harmful elements.
The hook can be screwed onto a wall or clamped on a pipe. One key requirement is that the tip of the unit is mounted 60-80 cm above the ground which is the optimal height to use the tool and to clear a hungry trash-bin waiting below!
As a rule, the glove remover works best on general exam gloves made from nitrile rubber, have a low cuff, and that is not too tight. Atoll strongly advises not to use the device to remove tight-fitting gloves such as surgical or chemotherapy gloves, as they would be more likely to rip and spread their contaminants all over the area.
No matter the type of gloves you use, it goes without saying you should routinely disinfect the glove remover.
We downloaded the zip files to see what 3d printable goodies were contained within. Turns out both .STL and .STEP formats are included which is great. The .STL’s are ready to process in your slicer software of choice. We dropped the files into Simplify3d to view ours. The .STEP is a NURBS format and perfect for importing into a CAD app to create an assembly or to tweak the glove removal tool geometry to better fit-up to your pole or wall-mount configurations.
The video shows multiple uses cases for the glove remover tool in healthcare, the food industry, beauty, and tattoo artistry. So it is clear there is a tremendous need. While the primary focus of the device is to ease the burden of those fighting COVID-19 pandemic, it’s clean many others can and will benefit from this simple yet novel device. Kudos to Atoll for making it available to all!
So should the need arise, hop over to Atoll and download your free 3D printable copy of the glove removal tool. If you happen to have ideas that could improve upon its design, you can also contact them.
