
Volkswagen explores using 3D printers to produce ventilators - reddotX
https://www.dw.com/en/volkswagen-explores-using-3d-printers-to-produce-ventilators/a-52867155
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lnsru
Whole world is waiting for blueprints. There are many many industrial 3D
printers out there. Even with fraction of them companies could print all the
needed ventilators worldwide. There is no worldwide authority, that can
provide these blueprints. And that’s imho the biggest problem today.

Edit: It might contain electronics, but there is pandemic, not global war, so
printed circuit manufacturing capacity is still there. Some modules with
microprocessor are widely available worldwide and the design can be
constrained using such module and 2 layer carrier printed circuit board.
Machines to build these are available at better maker spaces. Pick and place
machines are also there. So basically my timeline would as follows: order
parts on Digikey and mouser today, go to maker space, start engraving printed
circuit boards and launch 3D printers. On Monday or Tuesday digikey ships the
parts. Maybe it will arrive on Wednesday, shipping companies are busy right
now. On Wednesday I would launch pick and place machine and produce first
batch of boards and next day I would start assembling manually the devices. On
next weekend I would have probably 10 units to start tests. That’s working
alone. With other tech savvy individuals output would be orders of magnitude
higher. And this is not theory, in my previous workplace team of 8 blue collar
workers was shipping 2000 units of comparable machinery per year.

~~~
golemotron
> There is no worldwide authority, that can provide these blueprints.

Nor should there be. Centralization isn't beneficial for this sort of problem.

~~~
ben_w
_Certification_ is useful. I don’t want my life to rely on the bio equivalent
of a website with a self-signed SSL Certificate.

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jon-wood
The UK government recently published specifications for “minimally acceptable”
ventilators in an attempt to kickstart this development without overtly
compromising on safety:
[https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/specification-
for...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/specification-for-
ventilators-to-be-used-in-uk-hospitals-during-the-coronavirus-
covid-19-outbreak)

~~~
tibbydudeza
Thanks but looking at the various ISO connector specs and the fact that oxygen
at pressure is involved , don't think a hacker project using a raspberry pi
running Raspbian is going to cut it.

I hope I am wrong but it seems rather daunting.

~~~
justinclift
Just to point out, the members of _some_ hackspaces around the world are a bit
more "proper engineering" oriented + experienced with real world industrial
design than you're alluding to.

Not everyone is still into low grade crap / toys. Although they're a useful
starting point when first getting into making things. ;)

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tibbydudeza
I use a CPAP machine.

It is not a ventilator but the blower motor and various sensors are easily
available on Aliexpress but it is the software that decides the correct
airflow pressure at the right time when an apnea event occurs that is the
secret sauce that needs to be clinically approved.

I presume the same for a ventilator - the software that helps the respiratory
therapist to monitor the patient.

~~~
dmix
There was a conversation recently on HN that I can’t find just now, where an
expert claimed a DIY ventilator project will most likely only create a
‘glorified CPAP machine’ and that real hospital ventilators are much more
complicated and require specially trained people to use properly, as they can
be very dangerous.

Not to dissuade anyone from trying to make open source ones a reality in the
long run though...

~~~
Gravityloss
CPAP machines are probably still needed more in this pandemic, there will be a
lack of them as well, and having more available will save lives. (I'm not a
doctor.) AFAIK they've run out of even basic medical oxygen delivery capacity
in many places in Italy, which is even simpler than CPAP.

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mhb
Everyone likes 3D printing, but other than giving them some more love, is
there a reason that they wouldn't use real CNC machines that could make parts
much, much faster? I'd guess that VW probably has a few.

~~~
avhon1
For many geometries (especially complex or thin-walled shapes), 3D printing is
faster than milling.

Many medical devices are made largely out of plastic, especially the
disposable parts that are currently in short supply. 3D printers (FDM and SLS)
commonly produce parts in many of these same plastics. Mills are generally
used on metal, and the programmers and operators may not be as comfortable
fabricating complex shapes from plastic. Mills are _especially_ slow making
thin plastic pieces, as they have to limit the feed- and pull-out-forces, and
the heat generated, by the tool.

3D printers have little difficulty in making flexible / compliant parts (like
close-fitting masks), because they exert nearly zero force on parts as they
make them. Mills are even slower at making flexible plastic parts, because
they have to operate at even higher RPMs, lower feed rates, and shallower
depth-of-cuts in order to not deform the flexible part, even as they rip
material off of it.

3D printers convert nearly all of the material you give them in to finished
parts. Mills produce a lot (sometimes an awful lot) of waste that has to be
shipped away and recycled back into usable material.

VW probably relies on CNC mills in their normal production pipeline, but may
not have hard dependencies on their 3D printers. It might be much less
disruptive for them to offer much or all of their 3D printing capacity to
humanitarian efforts.

\---

The highest-output way to utilize CNC mills for bridging the shortage of
ventilator / PPE parts would be to fabricate molds for injection-molded parts.
VW (and other automakers) can definitely do this. The big holdups would be in
acquiring designs for the parts (who knows how long that would take?), and in
designing the molds (on the order of a week or two). Milling a mold takes
hours or days depending on how complex it is. (The different pieces of a mold
can be made by different machines.) Once fabricated, assembled, and inspected,
a mold could produce hundreds of parts a day.

The necessary delay in designing, fabricating, and iterating molds (and other
assemblies for the mass-manufacture of plastic parts) means that 3D printing
will always beat it to the punch. For the next couple of weeks, expect most
unofficially-manufactured medical parts to be 3D printed.

The supply of traditionally-manufactured medical parts should significantly
increase later this year. The parts and assemblies to do that are/will-be made
on CNC mills in the intermediate time.

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vicpara
What would be interesting to understand is how do they bootstrap the
production process and what design methodology they use for the ventilator.

Do they just go to Siemens and ask for a basic schematics they are happy to
share that could potentially pass the certification process? How does the
factory organises itself to change the production lines. I'm fascinated about
this topic.

There is an open source effort to create a ventilator that can be produced in
high volume: [https://www.notion.so/1-Million-
Ventilators-1035c5cf946445a7...](https://www.notion.so/1-Million-
Ventilators-1035c5cf946445a7bec9cc3a33099fd2)

What is VW's approach to this and how do they plan for it. Grateful if anyone
has more insight into this topic.

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elcritch
The electronics and software would be a critical component as well. It really
wouldn't cost that much to develop the software/hardware or even the
electronics as microchips are now often cheaper than an equivalent set of
discrete analog components. The _real_ costs in any medical equipment is
passing FDA (or equivalent European) certifications.

The most plausible way to handle these situations would be to have "pre-
authorized" set of plans, bill of materials (or qualified components), and
manufacturing process. Critically there would need to some sort of checklist
and verification process to verify the equipment (preferably able to be
performed by a third-party with minimal training). A consortium of FDA, WHO,
etc worked with a established non-profit organization could design a set of
plans and procedures for "emergency medical equipment". Then the entire world
could be prepared for such emergencies, and possibly double as lower cost
equipment for developing nations.

Likely established manufacturers would lobby hard against such measures (why
would hospitals pay $50-60k for a ventilator when these "open plan" units only
cost $1k?). There would also be questions of reliability of such devices.
These issues could be mitigated by authorizing use of such equipment only
during state of emergencies. This would make sense as such equipment would
possibly be of lower (or just uncertain) quality compared to normal devices.
But the laws allowing for this would need to be passed, and again, that's the
difficult part. The technology/manufacturing/3d printing is almost
inconsequential _without_ appropriate legal infrastructure in place.

~~~
lnsru
I absolutely share your opinion. Business of the medical equipment companies
shouldn’t canibalized. But they can’t deliver equipment when needed, so
alternative solution must be found. There also probably countries, that cannot
afford $50-60k ventilators anyway. So for these countries or all countries
during pandemic easy manufacturable equipment should be designed.

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adammunich
I've been working on a model that uses off the shelf parts and pvc pipes, it
will be finished very soon and anyone will be able to make it.

~~~
Mvandenbergh
Did you manage to find a readily available solenoids with fast enough response
time? I guess for the non HP O2 parts pressure rated PVC might be ok.

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bsder
Is there a medical reason why we need the complicated ventilators that can
harm your lungs vs something like an old school "iron lung"?

An "iron lung" seems like something a lot easier to design in such a way that
it won't harm people.

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syntaxing
I'm a huge 3D printer advocate and hobbyist but...this doesn't really make
sense to me. VW (and arguably a lot German based companies) are super in-
sourced based. I wouldn't be surprised they have a dedicated plant just for
injection molding and they probably make their own tooling in-house. I don't
see how 3D printing would be the best choice for their infrastructure. They
probably could get usable test shots within a week with the right people
working around the clock.

