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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday March 31 2020, @02:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the DIY dept.

Professional Ventilator Design Open Sourced Today By Medtronic

Medical device company Medtronic released designs for one of their ventilators to open source for use in the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a laudable action, and there is plenty to glean from the specs (notable is that the planned release is incomplete as of this writing, so more info is on the way). Some initial reactions: medical devices are complicated, requirements specifications are enormous, the bill of materials (BOM) is gigantic, and component sourcing, supply chain, assembly, and testing are just as vital as the design itself.

The pessimist in me says that this design was open sourced for two reasons; to capitalize on an opportunity to get some good press, and to flex in front of the DIY community and convince them that the big boys should be the ones solving the ventilator shortage. The likelihood of anyone actually taking these specs and building it as designed are essentially zero for a variety of reasons, but let's assume their intent is to give a good starting point for newer changes. The optimist in me says that after what happened to California over the weekend with 170 ventilators arriving broken, it might be nice to have open designs to aid in repair of existing non-functioning ventilators.

The design details released today are for their PB560 model, which was originally launched in 2010 by a company called Covidien, before it merged with Medtronic, so we're already starting with a device design that's a decade old. But it's also a design that has proven itself through widespread use, and this data dump gives us a great look at what actually goes into one of these machines.

As one might suspect with a medical device, there are documents. Lots of documents! Among those supplied are: "Requirements Documents", "Electrical Schematics", and "Manufacturing Documents" and far more still remain:

Despite it being a dump of 53MB, there's quite a bit missing if you were trying to build this machine. However, Medtronic did mention in their press release that "...software code and other information will follow shortly." so there are more details on the way.

[...] we suspect that the amount of work that would be required to spin up assembly of this particular product is more than could be accomplished in the amount of time available, and the resources that would have to be mobilized are probably the same resources already working on building medical devices for other designs. The documentation around the release says any products released based on this are only to be used for COVID-19, so if anyone does manage to take this and use it to start production in a timely manner it will be both incredibly helpful, and super impressive.


Original Submission

Related Stories

Raspberry Pi to Power Ventilators as Demand for Boards Surges 26 comments

Tom's Hardware is reporting that Raspberry Pi Foundation is increasing production of its $5 Raspberry Pi Zero to meet demand from ventilator manufacturers which are using the board in their designs. The higher end Raspberry Pi boards are also reasonable desktop units for many typical home office uses, so they are being distributed in place of laptops to many working at home for the NHS. The Raspberry Pi is a low wattage single-board computer with convenient input-output hardware suitable for embedded applications but running a full Debian-based GNU/Linux distro, Raspbian.

As the need for ventilators grows, manufacturers are looking for control boards to serve as the brains of their devices. Recently, Intel was reportedly asked to produce 20,000 Broadwell processors to meet demand from medical companies. Because of its production abilities, Raspberry Pi Foundation is able to provide those orders quickly.

"One of the main challenges with rapidly scaling manufacture of products like this is that you may be able to surge production of the air-handling elements, but you still need to provide the control element: often the components you need are on 20-week lead times and (hopefully) we'll be out of the other side of this pandemic by then," said Eben Upton, CEO and Founder of Raspberry Pi. "Raspberry Pi 'builds to stock' rather than 'building to order,' so we generally have products either on-hand or in the pipeline with short lead times."

Even though Raspberry Pi builds to stock, the organization has still experienced a shortage of Raspberry Pi Zero Units, due to demand from consumers as well as the foundation's desire to hold stock for ventilator manufacturers. Upton says that the organization produced 192,000 Zero-line (Pi Zero / Zero W) products in Q1 but plans to increase that number to 250,000 going forward.

The BBC is reporting that Raspberry Pi-based ventilators are currently being tested in several locations. No word yet on how the certification process is going.

Related:
Raspberry Pi will power ventilators for COVID-19 patients
Raspberry Pi's $5 model is powering ventilators to fight coronavirus

Previously:
(2020) Company Prioritizes $15k Ventilators Over Cheaper Model Specified in Contract
(2020) Professional Ventilator Design "Open Sourced" Today by Medtronic
(2019) Interview with Eben Upton on Studies, the Raspberry Pi and IoT
(2019) Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge
(2019) Raspberry Pi Foundation Releases Compute Module 3+, the Last 40nm-Based RasPi
(2019) Raspberry Pi Foundation Announces RISC-V Foundation Membership
(2015) Raspberry Pi's Latest Computer Costs Just $5


Original Submission

Why Repair Techs are Hacking Ventilators with DIY Dongles from Poland 84 comments

Hacking Ventilators With DIY Dongles From Poland:

As COVID-19 surges, hospitals and independent biomedical technicians have turned to a global grey-market for hardware and software to circumvent manufacturer repair locks and keep life-saving ventilators running.

The dongle is handmade, little more than a circuit board encased in plastic with two connectors. One side goes to a ventilator’s patient monitor, another goes to the breath delivery unit. A third cable connects to a computer.

This little dongle—shipped to him by a hacker in Poland—has helped William repair at least 70 broken Puritan Bennett 840 ventilators that he’s bought on eBay and from other secondhand websites. He has sold these refurbished ventilators to hospitals and governments throughout the United States, to help them handle an influx of COVID-19 patients. Motherboard agreed to speak to William anonymously because he was not authorized by his company to talk to the media, but Motherboard verified the specifics of his story with photos and other biomedical technicians.

William is essentially Frankensteining together two broken machines to make one functioning machine. Some of the most common repairs he does on the PB840, made by a company called Medtronic, is replacing broken monitors with new ones. The issue is that, like so many other electronics, medical equipment, including ventilators, increasingly has software that prevents “unauthorized” people from repairing or refurbishing broken devices, and Medtronic will not help him fix them.

[...] Delays in getting equipment running put patients at risk. In the meantime, biomedical technicians will continue to try to make-do with what they can. “If someone has a ventilator and the technology to [update the software], more power to them,” Mackeil said. “Some might say you’re violating copyright, but if you own the machine, who’s to say they couldn’t or they shouldn’t?”

I understand that there is an ongoing debate on the "right to repair". However, many manufacturers increasingly find ways to ensure that "unauthorised" people cannot repair their devices. Where do you stand on this issue? During the ongoing pandemic, do medical device manufacturers have the right to prevent repair by third parties?

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31 2020, @02:45AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31 2020, @02:45AM (#977484)

    In order for anyone to get a patent on anything this is the type of information that the USPTO should absolutely require before approving a patent. Something that's actually useful.

    Instead we get nonsense broad patents that are worse than useless and tell us absolutely nothing about how to do anything. Companies keep the good stuff a secret and get patents on junk. Until that changes patents should be abolished.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by istartedi on Tuesday March 31 2020, @11:52PM

      by istartedi (123) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @11:52PM (#977836) Journal

      Applicants used to have to send in a working model to get the patent. At some point that became impractical. With today's technology, it could now be practical to do the digital equivalent of that--requiring complete CAD/CAM files, schematics, etc. These could be reasonably stored in servers somewhere. It might not be practical to build all of them, but the Patent Office could maintain a machine shop, various other types of tools and supplies, and a staff sufficient to spot-check patents that document reviewers think are insufficient. Of course, the government is in the pockets of lobbyists so this will never happen.

      --
      Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 31 2020, @03:13AM (2 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @03:13AM (#977491)

    As I understand it, supply chain is one of the major bottlenecks in spinning up ventilator production rates. Some of the critical components can be alternately sourced from high profile sources like NASA and Tesla (one would assume these are solenoid valves & similar things), and they're already doing this.

    The Medtronic Covidien acquisition/merger was about 5 years ago. There is some initiative within the company to build simpler / less costly devices for "emerging markets" - but, all such things move more slowly than you might believe is possible, I doubt that there's an "emerging markets" ventilator ready for production yet - otherwise that would be the logical choice for rapid high volume production.

    Meanwhile, other sources think they know what it takes to make a ventilator: https://www.news4jax.com/health/2020/03/30/uf-researchers-develop-low-cost-open-source-ventilator/ [news4jax.com] but, I seriously doubt that staff accustomed to Covidien vents will be too thrilled trying to make a hackivator work as not only short term life support, but also effective therapy for COVID19 alveolar collapse.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @02:24PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @02:24PM (#978033)

      It's got nothing to do with the supply chain, it's because Covidien bought the company that had already developed a less expensive ventilator and then killed it. What's worse is that the Federal government paid for the design to be made and then let them off the hook for not delivering on the finished product and allowed for them to be bought by a company with no interest in ever selling them.

      The supply chain is why we can't have even the more expensive versions in a timely fashion though.

      Really, those neoliberal scumbags are going to kill thousands of people, perhaps even tens of thousands in the US and still they're going to continue to rig the primaries in favor of Biden and refuse to acknowledge that Bernie is the only option that's actually up to the task of dealing with our broken healthcare system.

    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Friday April 03 2020, @02:45AM

      by driverless (4770) on Friday April 03 2020, @02:45AM (#978551)

      It also may not be as bad as the OP suggests in terms of getting it built. When you're willing to cut corners in order to get it right now rather than spending a bunch of time and money just to get it right, you can do things in a fraction of the time. And at the moment right now is far more important than right.

      You can see this with cheap products from China, they're the world experts in making things that only just work, but at a tenth or hundredth the cost because every single feature that isn't critical to functionality has been shaved off. So Medtronic open-sourcing their design probably isn't a huge risk for them, for now it'll produce a bunch of minimal, easy-to-build replacements that are OK during the emergency but wouldn't be approved otherwise (for just one trivial example, look at the difference between your generic power brick and an approved 2MOPP power supply in terms of powering the thing), and later it'll be back to Medtronic products. It's a win for both sides, they get to help out during the emergency but don't have to commit corporate suicide over it.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by exaeta on Tuesday March 31 2020, @04:10AM (3 children)

    by exaeta (6957) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @04:10AM (#977499) Homepage Journal
    If it says it can only be used for COVID-19, it is *not* open source. Please correct the title. COVID-19 is not a valid excuse to dilute the meaning of the phase "Open Source", this only qualifies as "Available Source"/"Auditable Source" not Open Source.
    --
    The Government is a Bird
    • (Score: 2) by canopic jug on Tuesday March 31 2020, @01:45PM (2 children)

      by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 31 2020, @01:45PM (#977598) Journal

      Indeed. It is not even slightly open source [opensource.org], the license is limited in time:

      Limited Term. This permissive license is effective from the time you download the Design Materials and Software until the earlier of (i) the final day the WHO’s PHEIC is in effect or (ii) October 1, 2024 (the “Term”).

      -- the Medtronic Permissive License – Open Ventilator Files [medtronic.com].

      It is also limited to use only in response to the SARS-CoV-2 or, as they call it, the COVID-19 pandemic. So even if someone very experienced got ahold of these plans, there's no way their modifications would be able to walk through the slow, careful, and bureaucratic certification process before the terms of service expire as per above.

      These guys are just out for free publicity and free labor.

      --
      Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday March 31 2020, @09:18PM (1 child)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @09:18PM (#977782)

        It's ok; they can't take back the information once it's out there. If nothing else, this data dump is still very useful for seeing how one of these things is designed, and serves as a good reference for anyone else who wants to make them, especially in other nations which don't worry so much about IP laws.

        In an ideal world, ALL technological devices would have their designs open-sourced after a period of time. Even if you aren't allowed to copy the design as-is and manufacture it, the information is still incredibly useful.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @12:43AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @12:43AM (#977859)

          Yep. I know a company that's reviewing this release right now, to see what trade secrets can be plumbed for related work (society-oriented, they're not just corp raiders).

          The SW will also be very intersting. The HW could've been ascertained from a teardown but the design files are useful because they explain the designers' perspectives too.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 31 2020, @04:18AM (7 children)

    by hemocyanin (186) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @04:18AM (#977503) Journal

    The usefulness of manual respiration devices (ambu bags): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1goz1l28kUQ [youtube.com]

    Automating a manual ambu bag: https://scitechdaily.com/mit-posts-free-plans-online-for-an-emergency-ventilator-that-can-be-built-for-100/ [scitechdaily.com]

    You can attach manometers to make sure you don't overpressurize the lungs as well as an oxygen supply to provide pure O2. There may be a middle ground of effectiveness between an automated manual ambu-bag and a full on respirator. The former can be built pretty quickly for next to nothing.

    For greater automation, there are manometers for arduino which could be used for alarms or setting the period, duration, and volume the ambug is pressed, though it appears the ones on breakout boards are a month away from having in hand: https://www.amazon.com/Breakout-MPXV7002DP-Transducer-Differential-Pressure/dp/B01MCVOZJO?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_2 [amazon.com]

    The bare chip is available though: https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/nxp-usa-inc/MPXV7002DPT1/MPXV7002DPT1CT-ND/3524215 [digikey.com]

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by anubi on Tuesday March 31 2020, @08:36AM (4 children)

      by anubi (2828) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @08:36AM (#977557) Journal

      Never underestimate the end of an air tube poked just so deep in a bucket of water as an overpressure relief.

      Under the bed. You do not want to make a siphon.

      https://duckduckgo.com/?q=inches+of+water+to+PSI [duckduckgo.com]

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 31 2020, @01:25PM (3 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @01:25PM (#977594)

        That's a great overpressure relief system, however, who are you going to get to squeeze the bag 24-7 for 2 weeks? A rotating shift of 4 volunteers means 4 more people heavily exposed to the virus - it's probably easier/cheaper to build a mechanical vent than all the PPE required to do volunteer bag pumping safely.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday March 31 2020, @09:43PM (2 children)

          by anubi (2828) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @09:43PM (#977800) Journal

          I was thinking if one was going to build a mechanical motor-driven bellows, linkage adjustable for tidal volume variance, motor speed variable as well, I would probably have something like this beneath the bed to insure my apparatus did not overpressure the patient.

          You don't wanna pump the tummy up. It'll blow its contents back up, right into the lungs. Those digestive fluids work wonders there.

          --
          "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 01 2020, @12:52AM (1 child)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday April 01 2020, @12:52AM (#977863)

            OP is right, some of the Medtronic data dump is "flexing" on all the "ventilators are so simple, my grad student could design one" crowd. What's in that dump is a complete set of requirements - which is actually the hard part of designing any medical device, getting things like use cases and overpressure relief valves properly spec'ed, etc. All in all, I think it's honestly less a publicity stunt and more a genuine effort at educating those who are making ventilators - sharing IP the way Mercedes shared their energy absorbing crumple zone tech.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
            • (Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday April 02 2020, @12:32AM

              by anubi (2828) on Thursday April 02 2020, @12:32AM (#978195) Journal

              When I looked at the specs...I saw a problem of calibration using readily available known accurate references. Also such a critical valve has to be as reliable as possible...but cheap to make.

              I have worked around cal labs, and we were always looking for ways to verify calibrations of other equipment by using known good references, NIST, known physical constants, and the laws of physics.

              --
              "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by TheRaven on Tuesday March 31 2020, @01:56PM (1 child)

      by TheRaven (270) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @01:56PM (#977599) Journal
      The MIT design looks a lot like the one the University of Oxford organised a few weeks earlier. The interesting thing from reading about the UoO was that there are currently two kinds of ventilators in most hospitals. First, there are simple ones used for operations. These are cheap to produce, but are built on the assumption that the person doesn't have any respiratory problems (they likely wouldn't be in surgery if they did have). The others are intended for ICUs and make no assumptions at all about the patient other than something is dangerously wrong with them. These are incredibly expensive, because they have a huge number of functions to help with different problems. For COVID-19, what you want is something simple that can be mass produced and will handle the single set of common settings that most severe sufferers experience.
      --
      sudo mod me up
      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 31 2020, @04:38PM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @04:38PM (#977659)

        For COVID-19, what you want is something simple that can be mass produced and will handle the single set of common settings that most severe sufferers experience.

        Unfortunately, as has been explained to me, among those who need hospitalization COVID-19 causes alveolar collapse, and different patients need different vent settings to balance their particular state of compromise - enough to get them the gas exchange they need (CO2 removal being more problematic than O2 supply, when pure O2 is available), while not overly stressing their already damaged lungs.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday March 31 2020, @04:19AM (9 children)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @04:19AM (#977504) Journal

    In addition to scoring points with the public for releasing medical device specifications, they may also wish to fan anti-government flames against excessive regulation. There are a ton of rules and regulations which probably could be streamlined and simplified. Some restrictions and rules are political in nature, designed to harm competition, and keep entry barriers impossibly high, all in the name of public safety, or fairness, or some other tenuous connection to something good. An example of that is the tax preparation industry lobbying to keep the US federal income tax insanely complicated, to push more people into employing them. There's no doubt some industries wouldn't mind in the least if the baby was thrown out with the bathwater in an overly zealous rollback of regulations.

    When I was given this tramadol pain med, the medics muttered that if not for regulations, they could give me something better. They even suggested I could campaign a little on that matter, write letters to my representatives about it.

    • (Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 31 2020, @04:33AM (6 children)

      by hemocyanin (186) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @04:33AM (#977508) Journal

      I had tramadol once. It worked for me but it was definitely a strange experience. It didn't take the pain away - I could totally feel that it was the same level of pain, I just didn't care about the pain and it didn't bother me to have it.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Hartree on Tuesday March 31 2020, @05:47AM (2 children)

        by Hartree (195) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @05:47AM (#977525)

        "Wow. That's a lot of pain. I'm glad it's not really happening to "me" "

        A friend of mine describing how a certain anesthetic he was given felt.

        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 31 2020, @04:46PM (1 child)

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @04:46PM (#977665)

          That's kind of how I felt on sodium pentathol when I had wisdom teeth out, I regained consciousness in the middle, felt the drill bashing away in my jaw and thought "man, that should hurt... doesn't." Then I tried to lift my arm to read my watch - get an idea of how long we had to go - the nurse noticed me moving my arm and bam, lights out again.

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
          • (Score: 2) by Hartree on Tuesday March 31 2020, @06:28PM

            by Hartree (195) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @06:28PM (#977711)

            I was awake when I got my wisdom teeth out. I was novacained to the gills so there wasn't any pain. But the cracking, crunching and vibrations of teeth and socket bone breaking was pretty disconcerting. My conscious mind knew that it was a needed thing, but my subconscious mind was strongly saying "That isn't something you should be feeling."

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 31 2020, @04:43PM (2 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @04:43PM (#977662)

        I forget the name of whatever they gave me, I think it may have been oxycontin or a relative, anyway... I had some "dissolvable" stitches in my thumbtip that didn't dissolve after 3 weeks and needed to be pulled out, in their semi-attached state, before they became an(other) pathway for infection. I had been getting by without pain meds, but during "therapy" when they removed the first stitch - that hurt plenty good, so I figured I'd be smart and take the pills to peak in effectiveness at the next therapy session. That time, they pulled three stitches - I didn't feel the pain on a conscious level, but the slower responses to the pain were all still there - so as stitch #3 came out, I had flop-sweat, grey complexion and maybe was on the verge of passing out, but I wasn't "feeling" the pain.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday March 31 2020, @09:21PM (1 child)

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @09:21PM (#977790)

          That seems weird; why would you give someone pill-based pain medication for an in-office surgical procedure? Something on your thumbtip should be numbed with injections using a local anesthetic, not a pill.

          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 01 2020, @12:45AM

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday April 01 2020, @12:45AM (#977860)

            This was an OT office owned/operated by the surgeon. The whole setup was semi-corrupt, they weren't supposed to be doing therepeutic stuff like removing stitches or administering pain relief - I had the pain pills as a general use thing for post operative pain, but didn't use them for that- until it came to this removal of stitches that didn't dissolve. All in all, I was happier to have the stitches removed in therapy, rather than scheduling another office visit and padding this schmuck's pockets even more. I'm still pissed off that he left a bone chip in after surgery with a "well, let's wait and see if we get away with it" attitude. Of course it came out in a green puss ball 6 weeks later, and would have generated another surgical reimbursement for him if I hadn't expressed a preference to "just take care of it now" rather than going under general anesthesia, again, for something that doesn't really require it.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 2) by crafoo on Tuesday March 31 2020, @03:28PM (1 child)

      by crafoo (6639) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @03:28PM (#977625)

      I understand that over-regulation has caused you real pain and suffering. But have you thought of the petty, stupid bureaucrats you would be putting out of work? Surely keeping fat stupid commies paid as they vote for more and more regulations and more and more of your monkey to pay their salary, SURELY your pain is such a small sacrifice to make.

      • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday March 31 2020, @07:34PM

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @07:34PM (#977733) Journal

        Over-regulation is not the prob. It's wrongful regulation. It's selective enforcement. Regulatory capture. Corruption.

        When you say "over" you are priming yourself for the very thing I am warning about, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You don't dismiss all the referees and umpires, burn the rule book, and try to hold a sporting event without any, just because a few took bribes to throw a game to one of the teams. If you tried anyway, it'd be chaos. There are always unscrupulous players, and they will take advantage of such a situation.

  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday March 31 2020, @07:43AM

    by looorg (578) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @07:43AM (#977548)

    https://e-vent.mit.edu/ [mit.edu]

    I guess they are more of a DIY solution. Not sure if all was included, didn't fancy register just to find out the specs and such since I don't plan on building my own.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Spamalope on Tuesday March 31 2020, @07:51AM (6 children)

    by Spamalope (5233) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @07:51AM (#977551) Homepage

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wrin8FYtEo [youtube.com]

    Dave's breakdown indicates the license expires after the Covid crisis, which'd stop a manufacturer from recouping the costs of a crash setup to make them.

    • (Score: 2) by corey on Tuesday March 31 2020, @10:44AM

      by corey (2202) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @10:44AM (#977575)

      Dave's analysis is good. He goes through the files and provides commentary. Saved me from signing up and downloading the files out of curiosity.

      The Youtube comments were interesting and funny too.

    • (Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Tuesday March 31 2020, @04:25PM (1 child)

      by Fnord666 (652) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @04:25PM (#977653) Homepage
      Dave does some great stuff and he calls 'em like he sees 'em.
      • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @12:25PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @12:25PM (#978004)

        Like Trump.
        Dave for POTUS, right?

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 31 2020, @05:18PM (2 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @05:18PM (#977677)

      So, thinking logically through the criticism, there aren't BOMs or specific part numbers released which could (likely would) cause an even harder run on the very parts which are already in too short supply for the Medtronic / Tesla production lines to build the vents to spec. Just like the people overbuying food and toilet paper (depending on your particular local insecurities), possibly well intentioned actors would make an already short supply of critical components even shorter by buying more than they can effectively use to get safe/effective ventilators out there when and where they are needed.

      I agree, the specs shown in the video aren't a cookbook of how to make the things, but for somebody with an attention span slightly longer than a fruit fly, they do provide tremendously valuable information, collected and refined over decades of work with medical professionals, which can guide others who are just getting into the ventilator design business to avoid costly and dangerous mistakes which have been made in the past, and also help them to produce ventilators which will have a better chance to meet the expectations of medical staff and the needs of patients.

      If the world wants simple, easy to understand, open source designs for things like this, that needs to be incentivized so it will happen. The present economic system is just the opposite, concentrating knowledge and wealth in the hands of a few who become the gatekeepers to the "sacred life saving knowledge." I think Medtronic has taken an important symbolic first step to breaking down those barriers - as the critics point out, it's not going to help much - but if they erased all the barriers and published the CAD files, BOMs, supplier lists, etc., it would make the present situation worse.

      Maybe (likely not, but maybe) this crisis will spur the design and development of a truly useful "open source" ventilator which uses readily available low cost components, easily serviced, easily maintained, easily operated. Nellcor-Puritan-Bennett (who designed the vent in the article long before being acquired by Medtronic) was incentivized in the opposite direction by the economic systems we all live under, so their parts are pretty hard to source - not too hard for normal sales volumes, but far too hard for once-in-a-century crisis response. By putting their requirements matrices, test procedures, and other IP out there, Medtronic has at least made it possible for such an open source design to succeed on the first try - without that knowledge any teams trying to make a state of the art ventilator would be going through the same decades long learning curve that Puritan-Bennett traveled to get to where they are. Maybe (likely not, but maybe) small, nimble (and highly capable) design teams can take this information and turn it from concept to production in 6 months or less, where the bigger established (risk averse) corporations take 2-4 years to turn a similar product development cycle.

      Regardless of what the license says, the IP is out there and it will be copied. Expiry of the license at the end of the crisis just means that competitors won't be allowed to advertise "built to meet and exceed the specs of the Medtronic ventilator..." not that they won't be able to do just that.

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      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday March 31 2020, @10:10PM (1 child)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday March 31 2020, @10:10PM (#977809)

        Regardless of what the license says, the IP is out there and it will be copied. Expiry of the license at the end of the crisis just means that competitors won't be allowed to advertise "built to meet and exceed the specs of the Medtronic ventilator..." not that they won't be able to do just that.

        I don't see how this license would prevent, for instance, Chinese manufacturers from building it and selling it in African countries.

        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 01 2020, @12:58AM

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday April 01 2020, @12:58AM (#977865)

          Yes, it's not preventing anything like that - though: Medtronic already has active design and production facilities in China, so Chinese startups would be competing against domestic engineers and factories with superior experience...

          Anyone who wants to copy a 10 year old ventilator design now has more than enough info to do it, they'd need to establish their own choices of modern long-life parts into the design - as the guy said in the video, those microprocessors are mostly EOL now, as are many other parts, I'm sure. This isn't anything unusual - one major part of why new models of medical devices come out every 10 years or so is that the parts to build the old design get increasingly difficult/expensive to source.

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