Man Makes 3D Printed Prosthetic Hand For Son For Only $10

[dipsydoodle]

Twelve-year-old Leon McCarthy has been missing fingers on his left hand since birth due to lack of blood flow during his development. within the womb. Traditional prosthetic units to help people like Leon can run tens of thousands of dollars. In search of a cost-effective alternative, Leon’s father discovered a YouTube video by inventor Ivan Owen. Owen and Richard Von As from Johannesberg, South Africa began to collaborate on a high quality, low cost 3D printed prosthetic (which has already been covered by IFLScience). Because Owen and Van As do not hold a patent or charge to download the plans for the hand, the cost of materials is all that is required.

Despite the materials being inexpensive, 3D printers still carry a hefty price tag. Fortunately, Leon’s school owns a 3D printer and made it available. With only $10 in material and about 20 minutes with the printer, Leon now has a new “cyborg” hand with fingers able to close, which he sees as “special, not different.” The fingers are controlled by flexing the wrist, which pulls on cable “tendons” to close around the desired object.

Leon is now able to grasp his backpack handle, hand a snack to a friend, and even grip the handlebars on his bike just like any other kid with two hands. As Leon grows up, Paul will merely have to print another device to accommodate the larger wrist. Because the hands are so inexpensive to build, the two have been able to tweak different designs in order to find something to better suit Leon’s needs.

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/man-makes-3d-printed-prosthetic-hand-son-only-10 includes video.

[polly7]

1. Amazing. nt.

[Jester Messiah]

2. Fabrication tech like this is gonna make a lot of people start to question...

just why it is that certain items cost so damn much. A quick google for "prosthetic limb cost" shows that a few grand will get you a "cheap" one.

This is gonna upend a lotta rice bowls...

[mike_c]

4. I gather that most prosthetics are one off, hand made, precision craftmanship...

...because they've been a poor fit for mass production, no pun intended. This sounds like a case of fabrication technology catching up to demand and creating a solution that didn't exist before.

[Sirveri]

5. Part of the price is the cost of the machine.

How many hours you can run the machine is a serious consideration. Cost/Max Run Time = Cost/minute. Multiply that by the amount of time to run and it's not cheap. Our school has one of these as well, that model currently costs 15,000 dollars retail, though we bought it 5 years ago for twice the price. Higher priced models have better accuracy and lower scrap parts amounts. For something with interconnected moving parts, you need high accuracy or the device will bind up. There is also the price of the modeling software, which is typically solidworks which runs another 7k per workstation. Then there is the cost of the engineering to design the device.

Materials costs are nothing in comparison, it's all about shop time.

[Jester Messiah]

6. Fair point.

My hope is that costs will come down in the next several years. If the tech becomes ubiquitous, it will change the face of manufacturing forever. Especially if it becomes possible to recapitalize the build material from previously fabricated projects.

[hollysmom]

3. i love when technology is put to good use.