
Show HN: My dad designed and built a ventilator prototype with a bicycle pump - commonanatomy
https://www.dropbox.com/s/d3sq2oq2u4rnxen/77503df8-c6dd-4d44-9fb7-bfa9e4c2255a.mp4?dl=0
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pupdogg
I've been seeing a lot of ventilator engineers popping up everywhere! It's
great seeing such brilliant ideas come to life! However, building a mechanical
ventilator is just 1 part of the overall system. The hard part comes in when
you have to account for things like injecting precise doses of Oxygen (which
vary by the patient) all while controlling humidity (which also varies by the
patient). Another challenge to ventilator systems is adding
Monitoring/Alarms/Dynamic-Adjustments so you don't have to babysit such a
complex feedback loop between it and the patient. Nurses generally have to
monitor more than 1 patient at any given point in time. This is where these
additional necessities come into play so that they can allocate their care
time appropriately. Feel free to add your thoughts.

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derekp7
The big thing I can think of is assisting the patient with breathing when
needed, yet allowing the patient to still breathe naturally when they can.
Things like not forcing air in when the patient is trying to exhale, or
removing air when the patient is manually drawing in a breath..

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gregoriol
Please please, read this before trying to make a ventilator:
[https://hackaday.com/2020/03/25/ventilators-101-what-they-
do...](https://hackaday.com/2020/03/25/ventilators-101-what-they-do-and-how-
they-work/)

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avmich
Great article for non-professionals. Starts with how lungs work and what in
lungs needs to be taken into account for a ventilator design. Adds such things
as maintaining temperature and humidity - while fighting bacteria which like
such an environment. You either spend quite some time working around
ventilators (the name is rather misleading - it's a complex device) or you'll
learn a few important things when reading this.

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commonanatomy
I'll see if I can list the specs.

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realYitzi
Yes. Please do.

