At Thuit Signol, Clara Thuillier, 18, has multiple disabilities. To wash her hair or perform other daily tasks, those around her encounter difficulties: the tightening of the removable headrest of the shell which keeps Clara in her wheelchair works only with difficulty and the young girl has to be frequently lifted. . To avoid having to make this effort, the family got into the habit of "tweaking" the fixing of the headrest with different screws and bolts to tighten everything; "But it never lasts very long," laments Richard, her father, who called on the hull manufacturer, without success.
In about forty minutes, with his 3D printer (in three dimensions therefore), Ludovic Mainié, president of the Z-Gen IT association and at the head in this Eurois village of a mini fab-lab (a manufacturing laboratory open to public), made him a screw head of the right diameter and with a good grip, thus putting an end to more than a year of puzzles.
A vulgar piece of PLA (biodegradable plastic) which will considerably improve the daily life of this family.
He repairs garage doors, a blender, a lampshade ...
Before arriving at the printing stage, this elected representative of the town and computer troubleshooter by profession, took the time to take a good look at the wheelchair and its shell, then spent an evening modeling.
Thanks to its spare parts manufacturing service, the inhabitants of Thuit Signol have a means of replacing broken or missing parts of their devices.
The 3D machine put at the service of the community has already made it possible to replace the faulty traction part of a garage door, the broken gear of a crushed ice mixer, or the damaged ring of a lampshade ... " Objects which, without the printer, would have been thrown away by their owners, ”says Ludovic Mainié, who has also created supports for computer headsets in the municipality's media library or attachments for a municipal table.
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In addition to keeping their devices long, residents get their money's worth.
They pay for the raw material: 10 cents per gram.
The part added to Clara Thuillier's armchair was thus invoiced at 1.50 euros.
Recipients often add a donation, in the form of a gift or a small token sum.
The man wants to stay in a non-commercial logic and continue to work in his free time.
If demand increases, his association will buy two new printers and train other residents in modeling and 3D printing.
