Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dyson has announced it will develop a new type of medical ventilator for NHS

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 119 posts

Re: Dyson has announced it will develop a new type of medical ventilator for NHS

#101

Post by robomartin »

MikeAmelung wrote: post #98
robomartin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had someone call me to ask if we could use our 3D print farm, industrial (not hobby) CNC equipment and surface mount line to make "a low cost ventilator they designed over the weekend". I pretty much read the guy the riot act and told him to stop fucking around with shit he isn't even remotely equipped to understand and go find some other way to help. Yeah, I've lost a lot of tolerance for this kind of stuff during…

Oh they knew, they just didn't want to mention that he straight up drank the aquarium cleaner and instead said "the chemical he ingested is also used in aquarium cleaners." I usually have little patience for people who have no idea what the hell they're talking about, but I've been trying to give the benefit of the doubt since a lot of these people are probably extremely panicked and genuinely trying to help. Some pe…

I agree, panic can bring out irrational thinking. Maybe I am over-reacting because there seems to be so much of it going around.

I did the math on COVID-19 back in early February and quickly recognized this was not going to be "just the flu". I made it a point to warn lots of people to get ready, buy supplies, etc. The number of people who laughed at me with the now familiar "just the flu" was alarming.

A good deal of my family members and friends who understand I am not an alarmist and don't say that kind of stuff lightly took my advice. I can't tell you how many calls I got over the last couple of weeks from them thanking me for the advance notice. None of them had to join the desperation and frenzy at our supermarkets. Everyone got ready for it back in February.

In the meantime I am trying to put hardware on the moon. It seems like such a distant idea given what's going on. My guess is Artemis is likely to suffer delays due to this pandemic and the funds we'll need to burn to keep afloat.

Re: Dyson has announced it will develop a new type of medical ventilator for NHS

#102

Post by arcticbull »

freepor wrote: post #100
arcticbull wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So take the design from one existing company and ramp the manufacture. The alternative isn't sit down with a blank sheet of paper and some pencils and see what you can knock out in a couple of weeks and shove into people without going through the appropriate testing and certification procedures. The problem isn't a lack of ventilator designs.

How can Dyson ramp up ventilator production? Their factories are not set up to manufacture ventilators with completely different materials or tooling. Dyson not only has production capacity for hundreds of thousands of vacuum cleaners, but probably has tens of thousands already in stock in warehouses and at retailers. If they can find a way to use them to help patients, those patients can get that help TOMORROW. They…

My lord, you can't use a vacuum cleaner to help patients that need ventilators except by removing dirt from their floors.

Re: Dyson has announced it will develop a new type of medical ventilator for NHS

#103

Post by darkerside »

bawolff wrote: post #80
darkerside wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if they can't make enough, waiting for a ventilator that never comes will 100% kill someone

That doesn't necessarily follow. I assume the term "need a ventilator" does not mean they have 100% chance of dying without a ventilator. Very few things in life are 100% certain. I imagine its more like, you have a 90% chance of dying without this, and a 10% chance of living (Numbers totally made up). Its also not the case that a faulty ventilator might be worth 80% of a real ventilator. It may very well be 0%, it m…

If you need a ventilator, it's because your body cannot breathe without assistance. Many ventilators require intubation, which is an extremely invasive procedure. Ventilators don't boost chances, they are used to save you from dying, like a defibrillator and other forms of life support. Your assumption is essentially wrong.

Re: Dyson has announced it will develop a new type of medical ventilator for NHS

#104

Post by andromeduck »

arcticbull wrote: post #69
55555 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the problem with treating everyone like a child. If I am dying of corona, and there are no more ventilators, I would like to be offered one that Dyson made out of cardboard, sticky tape, string, and wood glue so I can decide for myself if I want it. The potential risks of a medical device need to be weighed against the risks of not having it. Safety testing is less important when treating dying patients who h…

That may be the least coherent plan I've ever heard. If I offered you a leaf blower taped to a sack, that would absolutely make the situation worse. If you need a ventilator you're not in a position to make decisions because you need a ventilator . Come on, this is a fantasy and I think you know that. If you're lying there, gasping for air, that's not the time for the nurse to wander by and ask if you liked the Dyson…

That's a strawman if I ever saw one.

Re: Dyson has announced it will develop a new type of medical ventilator for NHS

#105

Post by wbl »

arcticbull wrote: post #99
wbl wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original ventilator was very janky. It did work!

For polio. That's a very different problem.

The positive pressure ones anesticists developed were also really janky. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Re: Dyson has announced it will develop a new type of medical ventilator for NHS

#106

Post by freepor »

arcticbull wrote: post #102
freepor wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can Dyson ramp up ventilator production? Their factories are not set up to manufacture ventilators with completely different materials or tooling. Dyson not only has production capacity for hundreds of thousands of vacuum cleaners, but probably has tens of thousands already in stock in warehouses and at retailers. If they can find a way to use them to help patients, those patients can get that help TOMORROW. They…

My lord, you can't use a vacuum cleaner to help patients that need ventilators except by removing dirt from their floors.

Well then Dyson can't help, that's fine. But it doesn't harm anyone but them to try, so they seem to be doing the right thing in trying.

Re: Dyson has announced it will develop a new type of medical ventilator for NHS

#107

Post by freepor »

arcticbull wrote: post #88
7thaccount wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you expect that if they're at max capacity? I guess the government could throw major bucks at it.

The problem isn't that there is a lack of ventilator designs it's that there's a lack of physical ventilators which means it's a manufacturing/supply chain/logistics problem not an R&D problem. That won't be solved with yet another design.

Ramping up a vacuum cleaner factory to produce ventilators will take much longer than trying to find a design that can turn a vacuum cleaner into a ventilator. What is solved with a novel design is the repurposing of a product that a factory already has the ability to produce.

Re: Dyson has announced it will develop a new type of medical ventilator for NHS

#110

Post by tim333 »

dguaraglia wrote: post #77
DrNuke wrote: post #45

Lol... just copycat the fastest and cheapest approved model for the high numbers you need? Dyson doing a Dyson is soooo smug or exceptionalist again. Sigh

To be fair, a lot of these companies trying to switch manufacturing to help with the COVID-19 epidemic are hamstrung by the same intellectual and copyright laws they normally would. The only two sane approaches would be that copyright owners provide temporary, free licenses to other manufacturers (heck, even make the government pay a royalty for each unit) or the government to force the companies to provide the desig…

Boris could just say they are not going to enforce copyright etc during the crisis.
Post reply on HN