Chinese Man Builds His Own Prosthetic Hands 144
New submitter macbeth66 writes "Almost 10 years ago, Sun Jifa lost his hands in an explosion. Unable to afford the prosthetic hands recommended by the hospital, he built his own. From the article: 'After eight years of tinkering, he says he finally developed a working model that allows him to grip, hold, and mimic other necessary movements via a system of pulleys and wires.'"
Re:3D printing for cheap prosthetics (Score:4, Interesting)
This man is a badass. If you look at the pictures everything is made from scrap.
Problem is the egregiously high cost of some medical devices. Outrageous in most cases.
However, once he starts building them for others his costs are going to go up, or he will have to absorb a huge amount of liability. It's not always that simple since the majority of most medical device costs are the insurance. That's most often why something that would be a few thousand is all of the sudden 20k in the medical industry. Nothing all that different in the specs, just the insurance.
Material costs will go up once he starts using different materials as well.
We could send this guy a 3D printer and some materials (assuming he has the sophistication to use the software) and it might just end up getting him in trouble with the authorities or landed in court.
All that being said it would be awesome if this guy could get paired up with a Chinese engineer and they could build low cost prosthetic based on his design.
Definitely an inspiration.