Tesla Shows How It's Building Ventilators With Car Parts (techcrunch.com) 41
Tesla has provided a behind-the-scenes look at its ventilator design process, which involves using parts from its vehicles. TechCrunch reports: Like Ford and General Motors, Tesla engineers are building its vent with parts for its vehicles. The reason is simple: car parts are available. Automotive companies obsessively stage parts for final assemble. Without doing so, having a shortage on, say, door handles can shut down a production line. In this thought, Tesla engineers say in this video they are trying to use as many car parts as possible. For instance, Tesla's ventilator uses the Model 3 infotainment system to power a Model 3 vehicle computer, which in turn, controls an air flow manifold. A suspension air tank is used as a oxygen mixing chamber. Among other parts, the team is also employing a Model 3 touchscreen as a controller. You can watch the behind-the-scenes video here.
Much better (Score:2)
The previous article and now again this one, twice as much ventilators.
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In a parallel development (Score:2)
Slashdot shows how it's building a website with dupes [slashdot.org].
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In fact, I don't think they even know each other or how to communicate with each other.
It's a side effect of extreme social distancing.
Would it be the end of the world if there was a script for the "editors" to check to see if a URL has been posted before?
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but it's got tesla so you can triple post it.
also somehow make it a good thing that it uses a part that there's inventory of one per one car.
they can't get hold of a zillion atmels? somehow I don't think the microcontroller is the one that is short supply and needs to be a very specific tablet that would have power to run 80 ventilators logic.
Blown Over (Score:1)
Can they also build clinical experts that way? (Score:1)
Because if they cannot, these machines may not very useful. Ventilating somebody without doing a lot of damage is hard and requires years of experience and training.
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These exist. But are even rarer than ventilators. Called extracorporeal machine oxygenation ECMO.
Re:Can they also build clinical experts that way? (Score:4, Informative)
+1. Once somebody is put on a ventilator, the survival rate is 50% or less. It really is a last resort, not a reliable treatment.
I remember seeing a statistic recently on the history of mechanically assisted ventilation when used to treat polio. Without ventilation polio sufferers had a 20% survival rate. After ventilation became common practice the survival rate became 60%.
I have no doubt that people put on ventilators are high risk of death. The reason they are put on ventilators is because they have a high risk of death, the ventilator is there to reduce the risk. If the chances of survival are 50/50 after ventilation then what are the chances without it?
History tells us how valuable ventilators are in improving the chances of recovery. Also, there are many levels of mechanically assisting breathing. There's giving people oxygen, by nose or a face mask. There's CPAP and BiPAP machines. There's intubation with a ventilator. And indeed the use of intubation is the most extreme version of this and nothing beyond that really excepting an artificial lung.
I'm seeing people working on a lower cost, and minimally invasive, artificial lung. This is in trials now and may offer a treatment that can raise that survival rate. If this makes good on only half their promises on cost, comfort, and most importantly recovery rates, then this is a game changer.
The survival rate means nothing without some means of comparison. If the survival rate without a ventilator is zero then 50/50 is very good. If the rate is 50/50 with or without then it's worthless. If the rate without ventilation is 75% then it's worse than worthless.
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+1. Once somebody is put on a ventilator, the survival rate is 50% or less. It really is a last resort, not a reliable treatment.
Indeed. And that is _with_ experienced experts running the equipment. I am constantly surprised the personnel problem is overlooked all the time. It is _not_ a case of simply hooking somebody up to a machine. It is not possible to qualify people to run this equipment competently in a few weeks. Every ICU doctor and nurse that was asked about the problems they see coming was very concerned about this question.
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+1. Once somebody is put on a ventilator, the survival rate is 50% or less. It really is a last resort, not a reliable treatment.
What's the survival rate of needing to be on a ventilator and not being put on one?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Tesla ventilators 'might' work, but there is no guarantee. Designing something from scratch takes multiple product iterations to make work effectively and reliably. Best to use an existing design. I'd use one if no other choice, but would avoid big time if given a choice.
Engineering can include getting it right the first time but that is not needed here. Given the proper hardware including transducers, and they know what is required, and a state table, iterations in the control system can occur in a short time.
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My point is that this is only solving half of the problem and nobody seems to be working on the other half.
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Because if they cannot, these machines may not very useful. Ventilating somebody without doing a lot of damage is hard and requires years of experience and training.
From what representatives from Getinge (one of the two largest ventilator producers have said in interviews) most ventilators where used in the patients home, opereted by the patients themselves. This was before covid, not some diy project and the average patient today is probably in a comparably worse condition, but I don't think the ability to operate the existing equipment should be over stated.
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This is not what is needed for the serious Covid-19 cases. There the patient is intubated and likely under sedation. Nobody operates a ventilator themselves under those conditions and no regular patient would even begin to know how to do it anyways. What you are talking about is mostly much simpler breathing-assist equipment for cases like people with permanently reduced lung capacity, i.e. oxygen masks and the like. These can be operated by the patient themselves, but they are not the equipment that is bei
Re:Can they also build clinical experts that way? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because if they cannot, these machines may not very useful. Ventilating somebody without doing a lot of damage is hard and requires years of experience and training.
I heard on one of the many podcasts I've been listening to lately that training someone with basic medical training to operate a ventilator takes about a week.
The caveat is the person must have had some medical training, which was not made clear what that meant. I assume this means someone that is a nurse, medic, dentist, veterinarian, and likely a number of other fields.
Let's assume that there is a shortage of people that are trained in operating ventilators. My guess is that dentist offices aren't doing a lot of routine teeth checkups right now. Call them all up and recruit the staff there to take training for operating a ventilator. My guess is not only the dentists have sufficient medical background to take the training but so do many of the dentists assistants. Put them in a large lecture hall, so each can practice sufficient social distancing, and train them. After a week, maybe two assuming the estimate I heard was optimistic, then all of them will be trained to at least manage the basics. If later there's more demand, and more ventilators, then find more nurses and such to take the training.
This is obviously not ideal but since this is a situation that is already out of the norm we may have to take some shortcuts. I would rather have a dentist or veterinarian taking care of some basic needs of COVID-19 patients after a week or two of additional training than these people not receiving any care at all.
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Because if they cannot, these machines may not very useful. Ventilating somebody without doing a lot of damage is hard and requires years of experience and training.
I heard on one of the many podcasts I've been listening to lately that training someone with basic medical training to operate a ventilator takes about a week.
That is probably nonsense. At least that seems to be what every ICU nurse and doctor that I saw interviewed so far is saying. Sure, for short-term ventilation, like done in connection with surgery, that probably works. That is for a few hours usually and the lungs of the people affected are generally fine or at least not at the core of the problem. This is really not that difficult to do.
For Covid-19 we are talking long-term ventilation in the range of up to several weeks and of people that are sick with a
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You should not believe everything you hear somewhere.
I must assume that includes what you just claimed.
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You should not believe everything you hear somewhere.
I must assume that includes what you just claimed.
Sure, if you want to continue not understanding the situation, be my guest.
Re: Can they also build clinical experts that way? (Score:2)
Not a bad idea, but not everyone can deal with 25% of the people in their care dying. Did you say dentist? Well put, they'll just be happy these patients won't even try to speak...
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Ventilating somebody without doing a lot of damage is hard and requires years of experience and training.
You think that's bad. Try not ventilating someone who needs ventilation.
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Those thousands of "ventilators" Musk bought from China and distributed in the US? Those aren't the ventilators we're looking for. They were BiPAPs.
Each will have 3 settings (Score:2)
Definitely great work by Tesla staff. (Score:2)
Over-engineered (Score:2, Troll)
It seems that you gotta throw computers at every problem when the fastest solution is to just clone a bunch of Bird Mark 7 ventilators
https://www.woodlibrarymuseum.... [woodlibrarymuseum.org]
you could probably 3d print them if you need to act cool.
This is a great read: http://rc.rcjournal.com/conten... [rcjournal.com]
Not "spare" (Score:3)
So it's about cost, and the speed to transition from ventilators back to cars, that are the driving forces behind forcing the round peg in the square hole, not some sense of speed or cost savings per ventilator.
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It's very strange that you only consider cost (no mention of effort?) of retooling back to cars, but not retooling in the direction of ventillators.
Retooling takes time and money regardless of which direction you go.