Lutetium-
Hack Chat Transcript, Part 3
01/29/2020 at 21:06 • 0 comments![]()
It took me almost a year just to ship in dummies for training. And we had to claim they were non-medical tools for displaying clothes or some oddity![]()
@Tammo Heeren : This was already happening. BUT, we got derailed by having to make tourniquets over the past two years.![]()
https://hackaday.com/2018/06/28/3d-printed-tourniquets-are-not-a-cinch/
3D Printed Tourniquets Are Not A Cinch
Saying that something is a cinch is a way of saying that it is easy. Modeling a thin handle with a hole through the middle seems like it would be a simple task accomplishable in a single afternoon and that includes the time to print a copy or two.
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can the egypt-side smuggling be leveraged? (disclaimer: my knowledge is based mostly on smuggling german computers through the iron curtain.)![]()
@Tarek Loubani do u have an inventory of what you've got there? We print consumables for the low and high fidelty dummies![]()
That has a link in there to an article that I wrote explaining some of the challenges of a tourniquet in that scenario![]()
You can get 3D printer in Gaza but not Stethoscope?![]()
The great thing about 3D printing is that it localizes production and distribution. It seems like this would improve the adoption of these devices. Have you seen investment it this technology and can business be made from this in LMICs![]()
Or are these funded through a different mechanism![]()
@Thomas Shaddack : I've already been in jail in Egypt once, and not keen to make that happen again. The Egyptians are an essential part of the blockade, and they are not neglected. They shut down all the tunnel routes, and so right now the cost of tunnel smuggling is much, much higher than local production.![]()
@Atom Atom : We make Prusa i3 clones there.![]()
@Tarek Loubani In places such as Gaza is there a need for telemedicine consultations?![]()
@Tarek Loubani Why not ship parts and assemble in Gaza?![]()
It's hard to get extruders and stepper drivers. otherwise, things are available there from other parts.![]()
@Tammo Heeren : What parts?![]()
How are you getting supplies like filament in? Seems like that would be banned too.![]()
@Jim: That's a great question. I think Glia is proving that a business can revolve around local production for a poor market.![]()
@Tarek Loubani Parts of the Stethoskope.![]()
the printing resins are basically just acrylate oligomers with reactive diluents and photoinitiators. i saw some (reportedly pretty lousy) material based on acrylated epoxidized vegetable oil. also saw mention of use of curcumin as a photoinitiator.![]()
methyl methacrylate can be obtained by dry distillation of plexiglas.![]()
@Dan Maloney : Virgin plastic is banned. Gaza has a nearly 100% recycle rate of plastic. We get ABS and pull our own filament. We add as much virgin plastic as we can get through the local market, usually smuggled by somebody along the line.![]()
http://www.soliforum.com/topic/16711/thank-you-to-the-filastruder-team/
Thank you to the Filastruder team
Hello friends, I want to sincerely thank the Filastruder team for their help and kindness in getting our lonely filastruder up and working in Gaza. In short, it is impossible to get pre-made filament here, though ground / recycled ABS is relatively plentiful and the occasional virgin bag of plastic can be had when the southern border with Egypt permits it.
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but it needs a polyfunctional network former. MAY be possible to transesterify on the methacrylate.![]()
We used a filastruder for a while.![]()
otherwise the polymer formed will just dissolve in the monomer.![]()
@Tarek Loubani In general I think that printing things will be more expensive over the long run. It would be cheaper to mold pieces, send them to Gaza, and have them assembled there. In this would you could also have some resemblance of quality control.![]()
@Thomas Shaddack : Sounds complex, even for a guy who studied lots of chem in university :D![]()
i saw in forensic literature clandestine labs that were more complex than what's needed here.![]()
@Tammo Heeren : I would also like a pony : D : D. Seriously, though, if we could get parts in, we'd get stethoscopes in and just standardize production like everybody else.![]()
There are two reasons not to do this.. one of them is that we're not just trying to create parts. We're trying to create culture.![]()
This means that people can manufacture, modify, and benefit from their own work.![]()
same problematics there, getting products with desired properties from precursors that can be obtained in given time/place.![]()
We don't want an economy of scale. In medicine, part counts aren't high enough to necessitate that. 10K stethoscopes would be more than enough in Gaza.![]()
I was curious about the 100% fill on the chest piece, It seems like and internal structure could be created to reduce the transmission of either external or rubbing sound![]()
@Tarek Loubani "people can manufacture, modify, and benefit from their own work"...sending .stl files over is easy enough...how can the community help you in this regard?![]()
The second part of this is that these supply chains are easy to interrupt for any modern political or military organ. Which is what we're suffering from in Gaza, and what they suffer from in places like eastern Ukraine (russia), Bhutan (Nepal), Iran (US+others), Venezuela, Taiwan (China), etc.![]()
help you in building the culture, not the parts- I mean![]()
sending .scad files is even better. parts then can be parametrically generated, and dimensions added/subtracted to calibrate against the "personality" of the given printer/material combo.![]()
@Jim: When we ran the initial testing, we found that anything but 100% infill had TERRIBLE acoustics.![]()
Note: There have been some fairly new public databases released [https://www.kaggle.com/vbookshelf/respiratory-sound-database] for res![]()
that could be used for respiratory sound analysis , classification![]()
thinking about this a lot because as a child of the eastern bloc i have certain antipathy against goons attempting to impose their geopolitical will upon others, regardless who it is.![]()
@Dr. Clint LeClair : The first thing I would ask is that our supporters work in the open. Both releasing their own work and adopting open solutions first. Publish open.![]()
@Thomas Shaddack I'm huge supporter of using OpenSCAD for open hardware like this. The barrier for editing/distributing the actual source for 3D models should be as low as possible.![]()
Openness is not enough. We also have to develop an economic framework that supports this kind of work. I don't have an answer here, but for example at Glia we look at the licensing fees for proprietary software and try to support FLOSS projects by donating equivalent amounts.![]()
@Tarek Loubani Ok. I get it. Quality control will become challenging under those circumstances.![]()
@Tom Nardi : YES! We also use FreeCAD![]()
quality control could be achieved by adding testing methods to the documentation/design. so we get a printout (or other product) and have a howto for making sure it works as needed.![]()
@Tom Nardi : P.s., largely thanks to Hackaday's callout, we were able to almost completely remake the otoscope in FreeCAD: https://hackaday.com/2019/08/25/glia-is-making-open-medical-devices-and-you-can-help/![]()
@Thomas Shaddack Can you get the necessary testing tools?![]()
for stethoscopes for example i'd go for a healthy heart and specify what must be heard and what artefacts must not be present. a signal analysis app may be handy here.![]()
@Thomas Shaddack : this is a coming problem for the otoscope... For the stethoscope, we ask people to have a well-calibrated printer and go from there.![]()
thanks @Jim ...I was looking for something like this database for training purposes![]()
@Thomas Shaddack : Just an acoustic analysis of a broad band of frequencies is enough![]()
@Thomas Shaddack That is pretty subjective way.![]()
...for even fairly complex axisymmetric objects, openscad has rotate_extrude() function. VERY useful. another very useful thing is hull().![]()
@Tarek Loubani That's great to hear about being able to move the project to FreeCAD where you don't need an Internet connection or subscription just to edit the files. Very important for a project like this.![]()
@Thomas Shaddack : Hullelujah for that function : D![]()
What platforms are typically used to distribute the designs? Original CAD files + .Stls as well. Im familiar with Thingiverse and GradCAD but Im not sure of how proprietary those platforms are. I use OpenSCAD for some parts Ive worked on.![]()
I try not to be too fundamentalist about this. Glia only releases in OpenSCAD / FreeCAD (and of course STLs). We release everywhere. But when people start with us, we encourage them to play with tinkercad or whatever catches their fancy. Once they get into it, then we migrate them over to OSCAD or FCAD![]()
we used your otoscope concept to attach an old laptop button cam and mirror to put what the learner sees onto a screen for teaching purposes![]()
WE publish on EVERYTHING. github, thingibverse, wherever.![]()
Nice![]()
old laptops are good source of little cameras. they are usually usb, powered from either 5v or 3.3v.![]()
other such salvageable usb peripherals are touchpads (newer) and fingerprint readers.![]()
@Dr. Clint LeClair : INcredible! check this out too.. and maybe poke Frankie Talarico: https://www.e4rdesigns.ca/project/video-otoscope/![]()
@Thomas Shaddack : Amazing. didn't know that.![]()
having a schematics for the given laptop, many are leaked to some service site, helps with finding out what wire is what.![]()
older touchpads are PS/2. arduino ps/2-to-usb converter can help here.![]()
...would a fingerprint reader help with reading finer structures on skin? not just fingerprint ridges but eg. mole profiles? (immediate idea, still green and unripe and likely sour.)![]()
@Tarek Loubani thanks for the lead!!! will dig into that! My current white whale is a mirrored/cam embedded into an opthalmoscope for teaching purposes![]()
hacked together one of course...couldn't afford the fancy one![]()
@Thomas Shaddack : Diagnostics like that isn't my area of expertise, but I can hunt it down more for you if you want to send an email along to me at tarek@tarek.org![]()
@Dr. Clint LeClair : I imagine that would be possible with a panoptic or such.![]()
So we're getting to the end of a really fast hour, and we have to give Dr. Loubani an opportunity to get back to work. Everyone should feel free to stay on and continue the discussion, though - the channel is yours, and the discussion seems to be going strong. I'll just say thanks to Tarek and Eli for coming on the Hack Chat today.![]()
@Dr. Clint LeClair There are a couple video-enabled panoptic-type devices out there you can check out![]()
I was just gonna say Eli is actually doing doctor work : )![]()
Thank you so much, Dan, for this opportunity.![]()
One example: https://www.d-eyecare.com/![]()
Have you worked at all with fieldready.org? They have a number of printable medical devices, cord clamps, sharps containers, etc.![]()
And yeah, sorry for not being as involved as I wanted to be. Currently on shift in the ED.![]()
Think of Glia and Field Ready as sisters.![]()
@Brian thanks for providing that link. I was curious if others have resources like that available![]()
super inspiring work, thanks for sharing![]()
But if anyone has questions for me, feel free to email elijaffa13@gmail.com![]()
@Tarek Loubani - You bet, great chat! And just a reminder that next week we'll shift gears and talk about ham radio and keeping it relevant in the age of smartphones:![]()
https://hackaday.io/event/169574-keeping-ham-radio-relevant-hack-chat
Keeping Ham Radio Relevant Hack Chat
Josh Nass (KI6NAZ) will host the Hack Chat on Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at noon Pacific Time. Time zones got you down? Here's a handy time converter! It may not seem like it, but amateur radio is fighting a two-front war for its continued existence.
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there are tiny cameras on ebay. 4 to 8 mm diameter "endoscopes". lightweight, 640x480 to HD. usb interface, generic video-class, no special drivers.![]()
have to get back to banging the rack, thank you for doing this chat...@tarek and @Elias Jaffa , I'll reach out to you later in the week...is this a good contact? tarek@tarek.org or is there one for glia.org?![]()
We call on FR when we want non-medical stuff. Their bucket, for example, or their ability to move supplies is incredible. We try to focus more on the medical side.![]()
thanks![]()
Thanks to all for the great questions and answers!![]()
clint@clintleclair.com, if call jams me up -
Hack Chat Transcript, Part 2
01/29/2020 at 21:05 • 0 comments@riley.august sorry, (enter to send was selected) anyways there are bluetooth stethoscopes, but as stated they are expensive, of course there must be a way to make them more accessible
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If you scroll up, I answered a similar question![]()
When I made the stethoscope I had to buy rubber things for the earpeices. Have you considered modeling some in flex filament? They were not cheap.![]()
3D printing is challenging, as it's not cheap in quantity and of quite variable quality![]()
ok guys, I went through your github...help me find the printable files...where are they?![]()
I did an article on "smart stethoscopes" a while back:![]()
https://hackaday.com/2019/02/25/stethoscopes-electronics-and-artificial-intelligence/
Stethoscopes, Electronics, And Artificial Intelligence
For all the advances in medical diagnostics made over the last two centuries of modern medicine, from the ability to peer deep inside the body with the help of superconducting magnets to harnessing the power of molecular biology, it seems strange that the enduring symbol of the medical profession is something as simple as the stethoscope.
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I'm also fellowship trained in emergency ultrasound, and have done some work with Glia related to an open-source solution for live-streaming ultrasound images: https://github.com/jaffamd/streambox![]()
@Dan Maloney Thanks for that . link, excited to take a look!![]()
@Tammo Heeren : I disagree that 'something is better than nothing'. Glia's goal is clinical equivalence. The third world is full of shitty handmedowns. We don't need to compromise the quality to reduce the cost on a 200 year old device!![]()
But doesn't realyy seem suitable for austere conditions![]()
Do you find that cost is the major problem or delivery of the equipment to the desired location? Looking at the areas you mentioned, it would seem that the technology is there (we use a lot of medical equipment from Israel here), but the method used to get it to the patients might be difficult. I am a nurse anesthetist and we use electronic stethoscopes, but I have found that analog versions are just as good.![]()
@Dan Maloney i'll be sure to check it out, thanks for the link![]()
resin 3d printing, from uv-cured materials, can be much more accurate/precise. my recent experiments achieved 0.5mm pitch M12 thread (camera lens thread) holding well without need to chase it with a tap.![]()
@brian dolge: We thought about modeling and injecting the ear pieces. In the end, we aren't looking to make it 100% 3d printed. just accessible. So we opted to use headphone ear tips![]()
makes sense they're easily findable![]()
nice creative reuse![]()
@Thomas Shaddack : We're looking at how to incorporate SLA / mSLA, but the reality is that a rocket is easier to get into Gaza than a tub of resin would be. It'll be a while before that's a use case for us there.. We've been trying to figure it out.![]()
what about silicone casting into 3d-printed moulds? this could be a low-cost way performing economical distributed manufacture down to one-off lot sizes.![]()
to be candid, I print medical devices for our med ed sessions...the sterility was always an issue...fixed by fdm printing first, then lightly-brushing on resin and curing with UV to get a smooth, cleanable surface![]()
@Tarek Loubani Agreed. I was not talking about shitty hand-me-downs. Usually to achieve the last 5% costs a lot of time and money. This might not be necessary.![]()
Just a note on electronic stethoscope, an ECM or MEMS device "hears" differently than the ear, so I believe some transform is required in order to have the electronic stethoscope sound like a conventional stethoscope![]()
. o O ( what about loading the liquid resin into the rocket instead of the usual filling? )![]()
@Don Randolph : Great question. We're using tech as one component of our plan to solve a humanitarian issue.. As Gibson said, the future is already here. Just not very evenly distributed![]()
just yesterday I stumbled over a self-sterilizing trick using crystal violet added to a latex paint. 1000 ppm of this and some light and the colony forming units fell down like post-election hopes.![]()
Huh![]()
Interesting...![]()
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1497078/1/Hwang_Final%20revised%20manuscript.pdf
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@Thomas Shaddack : We have a model. That was Jennifer Glauche's initial idea and we ran with it in the prototypes. Just wasn't as easy to find silicon a and b in Gaza. We tried with construction silicone and those experiments failed.![]()
@Tarek Loubani How true.![]()
Very cool @Thomas Shaddack![]()
what can be found easily?![]()
In addition to the three new projects that the Glia team is currently working to develop, what other projects or ideas do you still see a big need for?![]()
construction silicone does a lot of good job for me. if it failed, is it possible that there were factors that could be addressed?![]()
On the tourniquet, I had a failure when I printed it in ABS, but succeeded with annealed(baked) PLA given that PLA is easier to print have you considered that route?![]()
@Thomas Shaddack : Earplug mold https://github.com/GliaX/Stethoscope/blob/e855c117cb89579a6fecc31196cdc0a91cd9c292/source_files/earplug_mold.scad![]()
What is a bigger issue, the noise from the chest piece or external noise that enters around the ear plug?![]()
@Matteo Borri : Simple consumables and electronics.![]()
@Tarek Loubani, was it the shrinkage during drying in the construction silicone, or what...we have multiple in-house tricks to get it to behave![]()
@Tarek Loubani have you or your team ever think in something like a mesh of devices to solve the qualified people problem, like having a mesh of stethoscopes centralized and the a couple of trained people dedicated to id, does it sound like something that it could be useful![]()
So the idea is to have people print their own things?![]()
Anything that even resembles a construction supply or chemical supply is banned![]()
We don't have a whitelist or a black list, either. so you kind of have to guess and see![]()
@Tarek Loubani May I ask Tarek, you wrote your goal is clinical equivalence. How do you want to prove it? by studies like you posted few minutes ago, or by some approval from 3rd sides like FDA clearence or CE mark, or something like that. Is it even possible?:)![]()
@Israel Rosas : That's a great idea. We're not thinking of that for a stethoscope. Gaza actually has lots of doctors (4000 of them), and auscultation is so specific to the context that it wouldn't help much. But with ECG, this is our plan.![]()
re crystal violet (and my more favorite for disinfectant use, brilliant green, its sister triarylmethane with less annoying dye intensity), these are said to work even against MRSA bugs. i am trying to add it to printing resin and initial tests show it is soluble enough.![]()
Do you have plans to tackle more complex equipment and its software? Would you hire professional reverse engineers for that or you reckon that the potential liability risk would be too high?![]()
we've got a printable tongue blade we're nearly done with, if you want![]()
@Dr. Clint LeClair : I'd love to chat more about what you guys are doing. It was a combination of not being able to find the 2-part silicone, having irregular supplies fo construction silicone and just having a hard time controlling the conditions since electricity is VERY scarce![]()
@Marek Cermak : Yes, we certify our stuff via health canada, but we are currently working on CE. FDA is a distant goal because it's so expensive.![]()
@brainstorm: We want more complex gear, but we're years away from needing to do much serious reverse engineering. In the pipeline is a pulse oximeter, which is in the clinical calibration stage (then validation, then release). the ECG is awaiting ethics review for validation. the tourniquet is already in wide clinical use. And next up, my moby dick... Dialysis.![]()
a trick i stumbled over is using superglue for glass (butyl cyanoacrylate) as a tissue glue. Loctite Super Attak Glass Bond has promising datasheet. check glass glue datasheets if they are real butyl CA or if they are methyl/ethyl with plasticizer as it is much less suitable. i read some study by some american docs that compared med-grade tissue glues with tech-grade CA ones and the result was that the latter can be used when in resource-limited settings.![]()
Sorry if this has already been answered you say 'having a hard time controlling the conditions since electricity is VERY scarce' do you take the 3D printer to Gaza/... , if electricity is a problem, do you use some kind of UPS for the printer?![]()
Dialysis is not an engineering problem. It's going to cost probably a hundred or two thousand dollars to engineer it. But the clinical testing will be hard and expensive.![]()
I'd love to take a swing at Dialysis![]()
@anfractuosity : Solar and batteries. But climate controlling things is much harder than just printing.![]()
@Dr. Cl![]()
@Dr. Clint LeClair : Me too. Our goal is to make a generic one that can accept disposables from all suppliers.![]()
as a potential patient i'd take my shot at a noncertified gear in comparison to having none.![]()
essentially breaking vendor lock in![]()
@Thomas Shaddack : That's seldom a real decision that's needed.![]()
How accessible are 3d printers and the needed materials for printing?![]()
thought re climate control. phase-change materials, or leveraging nighttime when the solar energy influx is not there. basements also tend to be more stable in temperature than aboveground places.![]()
We had to do that for the stethoscope, and it weighed very heavily on me. It's tremendous responsibility. And our patients deserve better than for us to give them substandard care.![]()
Willem Kolff did it with a washtub and a punch of cellophane sausage casing:![]()
https://hackaday.com/2019/10/09/willem-kolffs-artificial-organs/
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@Thomas Shaddack : Great thoughts![]()
"essentially breaking vendor lock in"...definitely game...gotten a few cease and desist's for doing this in Medical Simulation conferences on "hacks"! lol![]()
i've tried to use mirrors to run a resin printer instead of the UV light![]()
not worth doing power consumption wise![]()
most 3d printing stuff can run off a car battery if it has to![]()
@Matteo Borri - Mirrors as in reflecting sunlight to cure the resin?![]()
WE use OPzS batteries. Lithium+ batteries are essentially impossible to get there in the sizes required![]()
It seems like there are already inexpensive pulse ox devices, is it a similar situation as the stethoscope, they just do not work?![]()
@Dr. Clint LeClair : Our legal strategy is pretty simple: We take expired patents and use them to create the device. The closer we can stay within the patent, the easier we can defend against some stupid lawsuit![]()
"most 3d printing stuff can run off a car battery if it has to"...this is why I was always so interested in converting 3d printers to dc motor with encoder to reduce the load...making it easier to use in electricity-challenged areas, more sustainably...but alas, not my area of expertise![]()
@Jim: Correct. None of them are usable in regulated contexts. I bought a bunch and searched for the health canada / fda markings. Nope.![]()
Another thing, Jim, is that our pulse ox isn't just oxy / deoxy hemoglobin. We added carboxy (carbon monoxide poisoning mainly) and methemoglobin (various poisons and metabolic diseases), since the two extra LEDs cost just a few bucks.![]()
@Tarek Loubani -totally get it and do the same for publicly presented material...its just presenting material vaguely usually gets the reps excitable![]()
what are their wavelengths?![]()
Okay makes sense small incremental cost![]()
Right now, the monopoly is held by Nellcor for the finger probes. Even GE uses nellcor probes in lots of their pulse ox's![]()
@Tarek Loubani that sounds really interesting, have you got a project page somewhere on the pulse oximeter, curious how it works![]()
So by calibrating and releasing the data, we're going to be able to give researchers and other manufacturers the ability to make a finger probe of their own while knowing that it is calibrated![]()
I don't know yet, but I also suspect that nellcor's calibration data is almost all white-skinned people.![]()
beware of many dyes. what looks like black or dark purple can have sharp fall in absorption when it comes to near-IR. a gotcha for anything like said oximeters.![]()
@Tarek Loubani So, what's the challenge with the stethoscope? I must have missed it.![]()
@Tammo Heeren : Challenge right now, you mean?![]()
...or optical adapters.![]()
@Tarek Loubani Yes. What keeps you from using in where you want to use it?![]()
@Thomas Shaddack : Actually, we have to have ours dark otherwise we have problems. Our white pulse ox's were a problem.![]()
FYI everyone, I'll post a transcript after the chat, in case you want to go back and grab a link.![]()
why not swap the led and sensor in the cheap chinese pulse ox's and spend more time in finding a way to getting the data logged (onto a cell-phone, for instance)?![]()
@Tammo Heeren : Cost and military blockades in Gaza, cost in other places, remoteness in places like rural canada![]()
@Dr. Clint LeClair : But why? it costs $25 to make ours from scratch![]()
there was even a problem with some trackballs/mice. unexplained failures at only a certain time of day. turned out the NIR went through the plastic when sun was shining into the office in a certain angle and overwhelmed the phototransistors on the rotation sensors.![]()
@Tarek Loubani So shipping stethoscopes to Gaza is not possible?![]()
Essentially impossible, though Israel would reply by saying medical devices aren't banned![]()
de facto, they are.![]()
@Tarek Loubani So your plan is to make them in Gaza.Hack Chat Transcript, Part 1 01/29/2020 at 21:04 • 0 comments
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You might remember Christoph from such hackaday articles as https://hackaday.com/2017/06/30/3d-printed-halbach-motor-part-deux-tuning-testing/ and https://hackaday.com/2014/05/24/the-hour-of-the-3d-printed-clock-draws-nigh/![]()
You wrote that first one, Dan.![]()
Right, Christophe - knew it looked familiar. Honestly looks like it could snap that PCB in half with a few twists of the wrist![]()
ahaha. Will not seek to confirm.![]()
p.s., here's the thingiverse link, though have patience as the site still sucks: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2064269![]()
While I'm here with the world's best hackers, maybe another question: Is it possible to correctly assess these capacitors without desoldering them the board?![]()
Hi Tarek, great innovations. I read your papers and it's an amazing work![]()
Thank you so much, Chinna!![]()
I suspect you might be working on a electronic stethoscope as well?![]()
Not really. We thought about the idea and let it go for three main reasons: The first is that the electronic stethoscope is a significant step backward with current technology in terms of usability and quality. Any health care provider who's used both can testify to that. They are primarily an advantage for people with hearing issues, and for teaching. The second is that they are largely covered by patents still. And lastly, our project is trying to approach the basics of each piece of equipment. After we get them out there, maybe we'll circle back to upgrade things.![]()
Thanks for the reply. It's good to know these reasons from an expert.![]()
I mean from you![]()
Thank you for the vote of confidence. Our team is trying to make the best decisions based on the situation as we perceive it, so the decisions are always more discussions and priority-setting than final say![]()
I am working on ophthalascope attachment for a smartphone![]()
I'm working on a printer for synthetic skin, but I got nothing to show for it yet, am here to learn :)![]()
I found that the lenses are pretty costly![]()
@Chinna and @Matteo: That's great. Please let me know how things progress and hwo we can help![]()
@Chinna: The lenses are indeed expensive. It's one of the reasons we started with an otoscope (look in ears). https://github.com/GliaX/Otoscope![]()
I've been occasionally kicking in my mind how we could accomplish an ophthalmoscope in a way that's reliable and sustainable. Haven't quite figured it out yet...![]()
Yep, I saw your otoscope. It's great. I made one of my own as well, but it's with rechargeable batteries.![]()
What do you mean by rechargeable batteries? I use mine with some rechargeable AA batteries. Would that count?![]()
Also, would be amazing to see your design.![]()
![]()
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Oh!! phone-based!![]()
Cool idea with re-using a stock holder.![]()
Yep, but can be used without the phone as well![]()
Yep![]()
cool!![]()
An amazing hacker named Kliment Yanev made a phone-mounted for us that we could never really get to work. I ended up deprecating it in our otoscope repo: https://github.com/GliaX/Otoscope/tree/phone_mounted![]()
@Chinna : Is it FLOSS?![]()
It would be great to link to it at least from our rep![]()
repo![]()
I yet to document my design![]()
![]()
![]()
This is the opthalscope![]()
But the lens I ordered was a fake one, so didn't work as expected![]()
That's a real shame, @Chinna. We've found that documentation is the most important part. It allows us to both succeed and fail gracefully. Because other people have documented their work, we were able to move some projects forward much faster than we thought we would be able to (e.g., our ECG). And lots of people have built on our incomplete projects too![]()
I will make these designs open source in the next two months or so![]()
Yep, saw your repo and I will make a similar one for my work as well![]()
Excellent. Please share it when you do!![]()
You are very inspiring and I hope to contribute to your efforts when I can![]()
https://hackaday.com/2019/09/20/fitness-tracker-hacked-into-optical-density-meter/
Fitness Tracker Hacked Into Optical Density Meter
What do fitness trackers have to do with bacterial cultures in the lab? Absolutely nothing, unless and until someone turns a fitness band into a general-purpose optical densitometer for the lab. This is one of those stories that shows that you never know from where inspiration is going to come.
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By the way, the above article is about my work and we open sourced that project completely![]()
Great project, and great article! Thank you for sharing.![]()
@Chinna great work, inspiring![]()
I'll bookmark this for when Glia starts work on some of our diagnostics equipment.![]()
Thank you![]()
Alright, finally ready for the hack chat!![]()
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Hi everyone, time to get started officially. I want to welcome Tarek Loubani to the Hack Chat today to discuss the open-source medical devices he's been developing.![]()
Thank you for having me, Dan! I'm a long time reader and fan, and happy to be here!![]()
Can you tell us a little about yourself and how you got into rolling your own medical instruments?![]()
I'm an emergency physician who's been a tinkerer from a really young age, I suspect much like all of us here.![]()
I am also a refugee to Canada, having been born a Palestinian refugee in Kuwait, and then having escaped again after the first Gulf War in 1990![]()
When I got into medicine, it was important to me to do work in the places that I escaped that so many of my friends never managed to. My classmates were all smarter and better than me at so many things when the war hit, but I was the one who had an uncle in Canada, so I was able to escape. They were never able to realize their potential, ending up mostly in refugee camps in jordan, syria, lebanon and elsewhere.![]()
Once I started going to conflicted regions like Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, Venezuela, Colombia, I realized that my ideas about high technology and how it could help were stupid.![]()
Instead of robots and some kind of high tech utopianism, what people wanted and were asking for - for that matter, what I needed as a physician - were the simple things.![]()
I was trying to treat patients in Gaza during the 2012 war, and I just couldn't. We didn't have enough stethoscopes, never mind advanced machinery like ultrasound and CT that I depend on in my canadian practice.![]()
My nephew's toy stethoscope got me thinking after I listened to it and realized it wasn't total shit.![]()
That was the genesis of Glia.![]()
Funny - my kids had one of those too, and I found it fairly useful. I mean, there's not much to a stethoscope really.![]()
I think my first printer was a prusa i1, so I was already thinking about the tech.. But it was really with the help of some of this community like Kliment Yanev and Jennifer Glauche that we got started trying to turn it into something that could help in a professional way.![]()
Yeah, the stethoscope is not a technology problem. It's an economics problem.![]()
There's no patents covering it. It's not a special tech. It's just that there is essentially a duopoly that means that if you want a good one, you have to pay $200-$300 USD for it.![]()
Regarding the stethoscope, i'm just wondering i saw there actually seem to be ones from China for around $3, with a metal parts, have you looked at those out of interest?![]()
So we knew it was attainable.![]()
@anfractuosity : Yes, of course. We started this project with smuggling stethoscopes we bought outside.![]()
But those stethoscopes aren't validated and when we tested them, they were terrible.![]()
for example, pvc tubing, poor acoustics, terrible diaphragms.![]()
gotcha thanks!![]()
It turned out that Yes, Virginia, you CAN fuck up a stethoscope.![]()
How would you need to validate stethoscopes?![]()
lol![]()
That doesn't really surprise me. The QC on low grade analog instruments is usually pretty poor.![]()
Those stethoscopes are actually available in Gaza for the cost of around $5 USD. But nobody uses them because they are.. unusable.![]()
ahh![]()
When we give a Glia stethoscope to people there, it's like you gave them sight for the first time. it was such a problem that we actually had to start training people in auscultation (listening with a stethoscope) because the art was lost in Gaza.![]()
to be candid, I thought the greatest use of the 3d printed one would be for add-ons...ie-help training of interns or pre-clinical provider QA with a recordable box in the auditory transmission line, for playback during a clinical-debrief![]()
@riley.august : Exactly. Glia's "product" is not the stethoscope. It's the recipe (source / files / bom) and the QA process (how you know you got it right)![]()
What's the key to a quality stethoscope? Diapraghm? Bell shape? Something else?![]()
@Tammo Heeren : We did acoustic testing to prove the equivalence. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0193087![]()
I'm left with a simpler question. Why hasn't anyone developed a digital stethoscope yet? Audio fidelity's been there for fifty years.![]()
thanks for the reference...will read![]()
@riley.august There are plenty of examples of electronic stethoscopes out there, but they tend to be pretty expensive![]()
I'm just wondering, do you ever need to sterilise a stethoscope?![]()
@Tarek Loubani Right. Equivalency might not be required. Something is better than nothing.![]()
have you ever considered publishing a followup in JET-EM for broader clinical adoption?![]()
@Dr. Clint LeClair: That's one of the important contexts for the stethoscope, and perhaps the greatest use in a rich context. The greatest use in a place like Gaza or any place that is resource poor is giving it to physicians, nurses and paramedics and having them auscultate with it![]()
For example, https://shop.ekohealth.com/products/core-digital-stethoscope?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Shopping&gclid=CjwKCAiA98TxBRBtEiwAVRLquzuEPWTqmW2PQ04wotnpC6RLnY_0KTCqVfFRmAMMMEWsFb7MWK75CRoC1bUQAvD_BwE![]()
$250![]()
So, where do you need help?![]()
@Dan Maloney : The tube size, it turns out... though the other things do matter. But we found that what cripples it the most is the tube.![]()
@riley.august I know I'm coming in the middle of a conversation but I'm assuming that a stethoscope is simple it works and needs to be reliable so good old tech could do that.![]()
@Elias Jaffa is a fellow emergency physician and big part of the Glia team!![]()
Hey everyone!![]()
Yes, I'm Eli Jaffa, an EM doc in South Carolina, USA and a fellow tech / open-source enthusiast![]()
Hi Elias! Welcome!![]()
@riley.august : Electronic stethoscopes just aren't the priority right now.. That's all.![]()
Though less of a straight-up expert like the good Dr. LoubaniAbout Us Contact Hackaday.io Give Feedback Terms of Use Privacy Policy Hackaday API
How are you getting supplies like filament in? Seems like that would be banned too.
