The peer-reviewed open access journal PLoS ONE describes the validation of a 3D-printed stethoscope which will soon have plans available under a free and open license. The cost to make an entire stethoscope using these plans is estimated to be between $2.5 to $5 USD. The resulting stethoscope apparently functions as well as the market gold standard, the Littmann Cardiology III.
The modern acoustic stethoscope is a useful clinical tool used to detect subtle, pathological changes in cardiac, pulmonary and vascular sounds. Currently, brand-name stethoscopes are expensive despite limited innovations in design or fabrication in recent decades. Consequently, the high cost of high quality, brand name models serves as a barrier to clinicians practicing in various settings, especially in low- and middle-income countries. In this publication, we describe the design and validation of a low-cost open-access (Free/Libre) 3D-printed stethoscope which is comparable to the Littmann Cardiology III for use in low-access clinics.
[...] and the dissemination of plans and bills of material through a Free and open source license.
All the raw data needed to reproduce the analysis, including graphs, figures, and conclusions, are found on Github at https://github.com/GliaX/Stethoscope/tree/master/Testing
From PLoS : Validation of an effective, low cost, Free/open access 3D-printed stethoscope
[Ed: as of posting there is no license on the Github documents. Thus as per the Berne Convention it is not yet freely available, until explicitly published under an open license such as CC or similar. ]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 16 2018, @07:24PM
Does it still hurt your ears to wear the thing? Thats what I don't get about these stethoscopes, why are they always so uncomfortable?