I'm just wondering why world has not enough lung ventilation systems to fight of COVID 19. I suppose it should be not very difficult to create DIY lung ventilation project. I suppose there should be plenty of such open source projects on internet. Would you recommend some clever projects you have seen?
What are main difficulties while creating simple lung ventilation system?
I suppose it should be not very difficult to create DIY lung ventilation project
Um, and what experience in the field of human ventilation engineering gives you that supposition?
Seriously, this is a hard task: You need to find the right pressure to actually get oxygen into the patient's lungs; too little, they die of asphyxiation; too much, you rip their lungs and they die of internal bleeding (and asphyxiation).
You need to adapt the rhythm to the patient's demand for oxygen.
You need to do this 99.99% reliable. That 0.0001 outage still dangerous 4.3 s that your device malfunctions every day. Please don't rip your patient's lung in that time.
You need that device to be internally sterile enough, although you're ventilating someone with a lung disease, you can't have water / condensate inside your machinery. The patient's immune system is fighting a disease that would have actively killed them if it weren't for ventilating machinery taking over essential body functions, so if you build a strep petri dish, they will not survive that infection.
You need that device to be very clear and vocal about malfunctions.
You need that device to be operable with gloves, by a nurse only trained on ventilators in general, not this specific device, that has had a 20 hr shift already with minimal chance for misuse. How many of the DIYers have ever worked on a ventilator, so that they can make theirs so that the medical staff can use it in a time-pressure situation? How many DIYers have a reference ventilator at home that they can use to make sure theirs does the same malfunction signals, so that nobody makes a very dangerous mistake when the DIY ventilator makes an alarm signal?
Heck, how many DIYers have ever built an electromechanical device that can guarantee operation at 99.99% reliability without reset, for more than week?
I'm an electrical engineer by education. I'm not a medical engineer; I don't have a team that encompasses one, and a lung expert. I'd very clearly say this task is over my head.
Sure, I can sit down with my 3D printer and print a replacement part for a ventilator that someone else designed, built, got tested and certified. That's reasonably safe.
Sure, if you give me good, and comprehensive behavioural specs, and enough time to test, I might build a replacement control unit for a ventilator. Would I want that control to be built by someone using their Arduino? Hell no. Nothing in that, not the hardware, not the programming, nor the person doing the work has any provision for 99.99%.
I'll be very clear: I would never take on a project as complex as that without a team of at least one engineer with domain-specific education and experience.
The fact that "hackers and DIY all over the world" are flocking to build DIY ventilators is Dunning-Kruger at its finest.
There's so many other technological problems revolving around people that can at least still say when something hurts that it boggles my brain.
People, build disinfecting stations; build machinery that helps take off medical gloves in a hygienic manner; build a good cash register that allows touch-free payment for every bakery. Do something that doesn't kill people if you don't get it right straight away.
