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Comment by throwaway81523 | Hacker News Reader

> This is one (of many) reasons I always buy NIOSH N95’s.

I doubt that a NIOSH marking is harder to counterfeit than the rest of the mask.

Also, I'm very surprised at that claim that the straps are expensive. They are just elastic strips as far as I can tell. I've never had any issues with hair snags. Main issue I've had is that they break off of the mask at the weld point. I end up glueing them back on with hot glue.

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3M has a neat solution to that. On the bottom of each box is a randomly generated code. You can type that code into a 3M web site to see if it's valid. Once. If that number has been queried before, it tells you that. So you initial and date each box after checking.

If your straps are welded, are you sure you’re using a NIOSH N95? N95 straps are, as far as I know, always stapled instead of welded. I don’t believe welds are strong enough to hold the force required by a NIOSH N95.

The straps on higher-quality respirators are not just elastic, they’re some kind of finely braided textile that doesn’t snag hair. The sole difference between the 3M 8210 and the 3M 8210+ is whether it has these more expensive straps.

I have 8210 N95s and yes, they’re welded (as confirmed on the 3M website):

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/v000585997/

Wow, I’m surprised that’s possible — 3M staples their textile straps at least, and Moldex staples both textile and rubber. I’ve never bothered with the cheaper 8210 model with rubber straps, just the 8210+ and the 1860, which both use textile straps and staples.

I thought straps were welded to avoid making potentially leaking punctures by stapling or sewing. I don't understand this issue of hair snags. I have hair, and either my elastic straps don't snag on it, or they snag and I don't notice it as a problem. I'll try to get some 3m masks and check out this special fabric but if it's like the fabric on headlamp straps, it doesn't seem that expensive and it doesn't seem like that big an improvement over fabric.

As for the serial numbers: hmm, maybe that could help, but if each number is unique and 1/10th of them actually get checked, then the counterfeiter can just copy a bunch of unique ones and go undetected 99% of the time. (1/10th of the good masks and 1/10th of the counterfeits would be checked, and a detected duplicate would have to be in the intersection of those two sets). In fact if good masks come from known and trusted suppliers, they're even less likely to be checked, so more of the counterfeits can get through.

What we really need is an affordable way to test masks at home. It doesn't have to be super precise. A green-yellow-red led for good-marginal-bad would be fine.

> I doubt that a NIOSH marking is harder to counterfeit than the rest of the mask.

Unless you're some kind of hacker who can add their product to this list: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/topics/respirators/disp_part...

It seems pretty hard to counterfeit.

Just print the relevant markings on the fake mask?

That’s my point — you can never trust a KN95 because it’s trivial to manufacture something that looks and feels like a KN95 but isn’t real. A NIOSH N95 isn’t like that — the straps require an unusual amount of stretch and tension, and they’re expensive to make. You’d notice immediately if you purchased a counterfeit mask, because the braided material on more expensive N95’s is unique in a way you can feel — it stretches farther than any rubber band you’ve ever used, and it doesn’t snap or lose tension from overstretching.

> and it doesn’t snap or lose tension from overstretching.

Not quite.

The big-name brands (Moldex, 3M, Kimtech) have good elastic. But I've been shopping at the $1 (and below) price point, and there's some pretty crap N95 masks out there. There's a lot of smaller brands trying to make a name for themselves right now, and are just barely qualifying for N95 ratings.

Still, the crappiest N95 is leagues better than the best KN95 I've ever used.

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I'm mostly willing to give the smaller manufacturers a try. Though with Omicron numbers falling in my area (about damn time), maybe this will all be behind us soon...

The advisory suggests that there are knock-offs fraudulently marked with approved brand names, so you'd need to order direct from the manufacturer to be sure.

We got some of these, and my question is if they are any worse than the double layer knit cotton masks (with no nose wire) that my workplace was issuing. If these were marketed without the false claims, and only had the actual filtration specs, would people just think they are an acceptable step down from the real thing? The tests from a post a few days ago seemed to say most were at least in the high 85% but what is a cloth mask?

Aaron Collins on YouTube tests a lot of the masks widely available in the market for filtration and pressure tests. He compiles a Google docs sheet of his findings.

https://www.youtube.com/user/coll0412/videos

Do you have a link to the google doc? I didn't immediately see one on the video page. I wasn't up to watching any videos right now but will try to watch at least one sometime.

I will also try to order some masks from the guy who tested the Amazon masks (I'll have to find the link again).

This video description has the link to the sheet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf90U79vR8Q

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M0mdNLpTWEGcluK6hh5L...

That is the advantage of Moldex. It isn't worth counterfeiting them when 3M and other name brands have simpler construction.

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