Being easy to manufacture is one of the most important features of ventilator designs during the COVID-19 crisis, as many popular ventilator designs are using materials which simply will not scale beyond a few thousand devices – often using Arduino, rare valves, or other electronics which will not be widely available during this time. In the best case, these devices may supplement First World countries stocks, but they certainly won’t deal with availability issues in much of the rest of the world.
This design does not have such scaling limitations – if it works, we can get it out in huge quantities at the maximum manufacturing speeds possible
Expectations: We are not expecting this design to be advanced, or highly-configurable, or what most doctors are used to. We are expecting (hoping) that it can provide a reliable standard of care for a certain set of expectations (e.g. a normal distribution around the average patient, with certain assumptions on levels of lung compliance and airway restriction) which will be sufficient for a majority of patients for a majority of time – allowing doctors to replace the ventilators or adjust as needed, or move the most unsuitable patients to professional ventilator systems
Multiple Models: This device is suited for a recommended range of lung sizes and compliances, and we are still confirming that data and working to expand it with more testing. We hope to attract professional testers who can help us build confidence in this device.
Media coverage: Local group of engineers making ventilators with 3-D printer