Hi,
All we know is our World suffers from CoronaVirus now. It caused a really serious problem as hospitals around the world lack of mechanical ventilator units for providing enough service to their patients.
Lets discuss the possibility of design and produce the mechanical ventilator with the help of 3d printing and developer cards such as arduino, raspbery etc...
Hi Bekir,
We will have a challenge similar to this launching soon on the GC Community Challenges section. Stay tuned...
Hello Abe,
Good to hear but that kind of challenge shouldn't be an individual effort. You should put it as a team challenge or that challenge should be an effort of the whole mass.
Hi Bekir,
Yes so it will be in the GrabCAD Challenges section and I think the challenge will be open for any individuals in the Community to participate or for people to form groups to solve the problem.
More info and details will be provided at the launch of the challenge.
I am loving the response by the Community as it sounds like many of you are eager to respond!
hey guys how can i get post processor mach3 in camworks
While you guys are thinking to lauch a challange to make a respirator, many of my non grab-cad friends already print their own versions.
While it is possible to print most pars of a mechanical ventilator (be it with remote waist attached filter/ventilator and a hose to convey the air, or with fans before the filters right on the mask) there are some parts that obviously cannot be printed, like the electric motors, a long elastic hose is a mayhem to print, and the most delicate part to print is the seal that touches the face.
However it is pretty easy to combine 3D printing with molding, especially for the seal and the eventual hose, where you can print multiple pieces molds, than fit them together, inject the rubber and than sink in heat treatment to cure it.
Needless to say we cannot yet print the batteries, but if we can source cheap enough reliable lithium cells or similar, and we have a spot welding machine for jewelry or batteries, we can print the housing and the belt attachments, and make our own battery pack as needed.
I informally posted a proposal quickly as there seemed to be many coming. But subsequently I have found there are actual manufacturers with existing designs quickly stepping up to fill the gap. Starfish medical and Thornhill medical are ramping up with the real deal, these are two of many.
Arduino or Raspberry could easily run a ventilator for sure. I've programmed both and would favor Arduino for a simpler unit, Raspberry in you intend to attach a monitor and have a more complex GUI. The later is also more software intensive.