I signed up and offered support, but haven’t been contacted yet.
I’ve seen a lot of “hacker” type initiatives begun[1], many of which strike me as naive (i.e. they don’t have the expertise, any start on designs, plans for testing, or shown any of the other considerations needed to scale reliable parts). Medical safety standards are there for a reason. I signed up to the Formlabs list in hopes it would attract higher caliber projects that actually have a good chance of making an impact.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m all for improvisation and hacking together ingenious solutions out of whatever you’ve got lying around to solve a problem! In fact I’m a volunteer firefighter and designed a 3D printed bracket a while back to mate our headlamps to new helmets after the manufacturer of the latter tweaked their design just enough to prevent the visors from opening and closing properly with the factory originals installed. But even for a simple project like this, it wasn’t just a matter of hitting print and distributing them. It took several iterations to get right, including durability and fit testing, heat and flame tests (which led to mixing a flame-retardant additive to the resin), etc.
In any case, I’m ready and willing. If you know of a promising endeavour, get in touch!
[1] This topic is being discussed a lot on Hackernews, eg:
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22640205 (this is about the Copper3D one)
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22588367 (about the hospital in Italy that 3D printed valves)
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22573188 (pandemic ventillator project)
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22599415 (Arduino powered ventillator)
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22573926 (MIT class project)
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22581267 (open source ventillator project - seems fluffy)
There are more if you search. I’m no expert but some of the cautionary comments left by physicians are quite insightful (vents are particularly hard to get right - too much pressure and you burst the lungs, too little oxygen and you asphyxiate the patient, and it needs to be tuned over the course of the disease as viral buildup and damage in the lungs impairs absorption, etc). Reviving simple, old designs like the Manley Ventilator has even been suggested (used in Europe for decades, no electricity required) although I imagine there are good clinical reasons those designs were abandoned for more contemporary ones.