Is it possible to make a non-invasive ventilator?

[Frank Pratt]

Lighten up dude, I'm pretty sure no one here was actually planning on building a ventilator. You take yourself way too seriously.

Lighten up dude, he's just expressing a valid thought.

[Roger Feeley]

Lighten up dude, he's just expressing a valid thought.

Malcom makes a very valid point. I freely admit that I have no medical knowledge but I still think this is a reasonable inquiry. Even if I built something, I wouldn’t consider using it without professional help. I also wouldn’t consider it unless it was the only way to save a life. We are talking about a Hail Mary here.

I’ve done some more research and have made initial contact with a member of the White House pandemic team. For myself, it’s an interesting problem. I ordered a couple of parts to see if I can construct a device.

[Frank Pratt]

Malcom makes a very valid point. I freely admit that I have no medical knowledge but I still think this is a reasonable inquiry. Even if I built something, I wouldn’t consider using it without professional help. I also wouldn’t consider it unless it was the only way to save a life. We are talking about a Hail Mary here.

I’ve done some more research and have made initial contact with a member of the White House pandemic team. For myself, it’s an interesting problem. I ordered a couple of parts to see if I can construct a device.

Should you proceed with this, it would make a very interesting build thread.

[Roger Feeley]

Should you proceed with this, it would make a very interesting build thread.

my first step is to see if I can get a cheap Orbit sprinkler valve to operate on about 2lbs of pressure. I know that I can get a some electrically operated ball valves that will work but I’m interested in seeing if can be done using easily sourced parts. If the valve works, I move on to activating it with a microcontroller. Since I’m most familiar with Arduino and I have a few, that’s where I will start. From there, it’s just more valves and a few sensors.

lets see:
three valves
two Hall effect proximity sensors or Reed switches
one pressure sensor

[Mike Soaper]

You might want to take a look at these, hope it helps.

From a semiconductor mfgr
"Ventilator/Respirator Hardware and Software Design Specification"
https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/application-note/DRM127.pdf

"Googler publishes plans for Arduino-based equipment to help hospitals"
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/0...ator_shortage/

[Roger Feeley]

You might want to take a look at these, hope it helps.

From a semiconductor mfgr
"Ventilator/Respirator Hardware and Software Design Specification"
https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/application-note/DRM127.pdf

"Googler publishes plans for Arduino-based equipment to help hospitals"
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/0...ator_shortage/

Mike, if I do a build, it would ba ‘vinnie’. There are other designs out there but this one seems to be the most doable by many people.

https://panvent.blogspot.com/2007/12...ss-report.html

In my imagination, I see some central authority putting together kits of parts and distributing them to people willing to build. With the right parts, any cabinet shop, maker space, woodworker club/guild or school shop could retool and start turning the things out.

Heck, I could move furniture aside in my house and go into production. My situation is a bit unusual. I live in in-law quarters on my daughter and SIL’s land. We have a two story house that’s 960 on the 1st floor but 1300 in the basement which is all shop. The bride and I could move back into the main house and give up the first floor and loft to assembly/testing. Parts could be fabricated in the basement.

But only if it would help. That’s the nut im trying to crack right now. In my gut, I doubt that those in power are willing to consider a DIY solution. I suspect they are only looking at approved, expensive devices. The problem there is that it’s hard to radically expand production on devices that specialized and complex. The manufacturers are dependent on any number of specialized parts so all those manufacturers would have to ramp up as well.

As to efficacy, I freely admit that anything I would build in my basement would have the whistles and bells of a commercial unit. But maybe not every patient requires every feature in a commercial device. If I could provide some core functionality, maybe I can free up a fully functional device for a patient that really needs those features.

Years ago, in another life, I wrote software to translate stock exchange ticker feeds. The only device We had to record and play back the data was a $25,000 AR4500 protocol analyzer. I pointed out to my boss that if that thing ever broke, we would be dead in the water. So he gave $25K to get another one. Instead, I bought a pc based product called Serialtest that worked great for 95% of what we needed and only cost $300. True, it didn’t do everything the AR did but it relieved the AR from the routine stuff. We only pulled the AR out when we needed it’s capabilities. We wound up buying a lot more Serialtests and giving one to every programmer. Our lives got infinitely better because we accepted a bare bones solution.

epilog: I Did a lot of business with Frontline Test Equipment that makes Serialtest. When I retired from Thompson Reuters, I wound up working for Frontline for 7 years. When that ended, the former owner of Frontline recruited me for another venture. All from a 1” classified ad in the back of Byte magazine.

[Mark Hennebury]

https://globalnews.ca/video/rd/f33b6...5/?jwsource=cl[/video]

https://globalnews.ca/news/6695286/c...-print-valves/

Engineers 3D-print patented valves for free to save coronavirus patients in Italy

[Bruce Wrenn]

As a person who has spent more than one night in a hospital with pneumonia, I can say it's not fun. Last trip was for eleven days, with antibiotic resistant pneumonia. Finally would up having lung sack scraped. As always, my CPAP went with me to hospital. On fourth or fifth day, someone came around to check on my "non hospital medical device."

[Tom Bender]

Bobby,
They talk about three different classes of alveoli. There are the ones filled with gunk and can’t be helpful. There are the unaffected ones. The, in the middle, there are ones with some gunk and are kind of collapsed. I read about how they sort of give the lungs an extra hard jolt of air to inflate the iffy ones and get them going.

A good sneeze should inflate the alveoli. I've always enjoyed a good sneeze.

[Mark Hennebury]

https://coventors.com/?fbclid=IwAR3X...ZDeJ5F0j0jKd6g

[Kev Williams]

disclaimer: just thinking out loud...

Seems to me that SCUBA gear would actually work great- except for the fact that what SCUBA does isn't to simply supply air to breathe, it's main(?) function is pressurize the lungs to compensate for the water pressure around your body; the deeper you go the more water pressure-obviously. Now if you simply pressurize the lungs, that's likely (I assume) to cause wayyy more problems. Who wants their lungs exploding? ....

So then-- what about putting the patient in a pressurizeable body suit, that would mimic water pressure-
airsuit.jpg
so not exactly like this, a GOOD one (first thing I thought of )

Keep the suit at XXpsi positive pressure, then cycle air/oxygen flow into the lungs under pressure, when released the pressure suit would take care of exhaling... totally non-invasive-

[Art Mann]

I have sleep apnea and use a bipap machine that has already been mentioned. It provides positive pressure on the lungs during inhale but releases the pressure during exhale. It takes it a few cycles to adjust to your breathing rhythm, but then it is remarkably well synchronized with your natural breathing. When I had bacterial pneumonia several years ago, I used the machine to help me breathe easier during my waking hours and it was pretty effective. I would say it is better than nothing and might actually save someone's life, especially if you adjusted the inhale pressure upward as I did. I am not recommending it could be used as an alternative to hospitalization though.

[Frank Pratt]

AvE discusses making a ventilator here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1OFMZDNKvU

[Jared Sankovich]

Say this today. Made me think of this thread

[Kev Williams]

Watching the Nightly News tonight, in one segment a doc explained that- as a last resort- they can tee off a ventilator's tubing allowing them to connect to TWO patients...
https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news...ge-81210437640
^^^ link to the video, fast forward to 1:10 --