Live data from Hacker News

Open Source Ventilator Project

opensourceventilator.ie

1–10 of 145 posts

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#2
Welcome to Open Source Ventilator (OSV) Ireland. This project was initiated by the COVID-19 global pandemic as a result of a community discussion within a Facebook group called Open Source COVID-19 Medical Supplies (OSCMS). This group rapidly grew and currently is targeting the development of a number of different COVID-19 related medical supplies.

OSV Ireland was formed by Colin Keogh, Conall Laverty & David Pollard, with the goal of building a focused team in Ireland to begin development of a Field Emergency Ventilator (FEV) in partnership with the Irish Health Service. To date we have formed a team of engineers, designers and medical practitioners to develop new, low resource interventions, all working collaboratively online. Bag Valve Masks (BVM), 3D printed and traditionally manufactured components are being considered to maximise potential manufacturing capabilities. We will also include other challenges and problems as they arise from frontline healthcare workers, which we will encourage our volunteers to tackle.

We have a core developer team publishing open source designs with ongoing communication with medical professionals regarding needs requirements, testing and validation processes. The developer team is led by OpenLung in Canada in collaboration with an Irish based engineering and operations team. The developer team is led by Trevor Smale, Dr. Andrew Finkle, and David O’Reilly from OpenLung as well as Conall Laverty and Dr. Keith Kennedy from Ireland. Work is well underway with hundreds of worldwide contributors.

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#3
> 15-20% of infected people require hospitalization for respiratory problems

This is wrong - it's 15-20% of identified, diagnosed and subsequently monitored infected people, isn't it?

I thought there was a mass of unidentified infected people, and even basically diagnosed but told to just deal with it at home with no further contact as they're low risk and minimal symptoms, and (obviously) 0% of these groups are going into hospital? This is what Wikipedia says at the moment.

Or am I wrong?

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#4

> 15-20% of infected people require hospitalization for respiratory problems This is wrong - it's 15-20% of identified , diagnosed and subsequently monitored infected people, isn't it? I thought there was a mass of unidentified infected people, and even basically diagnosed but told to just deal with it at home with no further contact as they're low risk and minimal symptoms, and (obviously) 0% of these groups are goi…

I believe you are correct.

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#5
The page isn’t loading so I’m not sure what they’ve got, but I’m still trying to get answers to a question I have. I did research Tuesday and it seems like ventilators are positive pressure only, and they cycle between a low pressure and a high pressure. If this is the case, could an air compressor with a regulator be used as the pressure source? If so, a small device with just two pressure regulators and an electronic valve could be used to cycle between high and low pressures for each patient. I keep seeing open source ventilators that use a fan and a motor, but those seem likely to fail. Air compressors are abundant and could literally be taken from construction sites to be used. You put a pressure regulator to go down to the (very low) pressures one might want as a maximum for any patient, then you can gang that up to a whole bunch of hoses. Finally a little box with a couple of regulators can adjust the per patient high and low levels.

This to me seems much simpler and more reliable than ventilators with their own fan. But I don’t have a good way of reaching anyone. I’ve created a thread on my website with my sources, thinking, and some questions. If anyone knows about this please reply here or there and let me know. Thanks.

https://reboot.love/t/coronavirus-towards-a-cheap-and-easy-t...

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#7
Anyone pitching in seems like they're doing a good thing, but isn't the problem one more of political organization and scaling production?

In other words, the US president (he is the only one authorized to do it) needs to activate the Defense Production Act, and get existing companies to mass produce existing designs. Something similar needs to happen elsewhere. This is a matter of days or weeks, not months.

Please gently correct me if I have this wrong.

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#8
Please, stop with these. As experts have shared many times on here, once you need a ventilator, the ventilator is the least of your problems. Trying to apply a ventilator to a COVID-19 patient who needs one when you have no idea what you're doing can create the same lung injuries as COVID-19 itself.

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#9
What is the point of all these? Large scale manufacturers have already been sent blueprints of ventilators and have the engineering ability and production lines to make them. Then you need trained nurses and staff to operate them.

Re: Open Source Ventilator Project

#10
post #7

Anyone pitching in seems like they're doing a good thing, but isn't the problem one more of political organization and scaling production? In other words, the US president (he is the only one authorized to do it) needs to activate the Defense Production Act, and get existing companies to mass produce existing designs. Something similar needs to happen elsewhere. This is a matter of days or weeks, not months. Please g…

My understanding is that the various open source ventilator projects are attempting to use readily-available COTS parts (by, for example, using a constant-speed blower and valves operated by RC hobby servos instead of a variable-speed blower). So that should, at least partially, solve the scaling problem.

As for political organization, I would think that almost takes care of itself if someone presents a turn-key, scalable solution.

Post reply on HN