Project: 3D Printed Exoskeleton
Nov. 1st, 2014 12:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
artsyhonkerI'm looking for a London-based 3D modeller who is willing to help me with a project which has the potential to make life better for a lot of people.
I have EDS type 3, which means my ligaments is more stretchy, and my joints are much more flexible and bendy than they should be. For most of my body, this means lots of physio training to keep muscles strong so they can support the joints instead. For my hands, this doesn't work so well: hands don't have a lot of muscle in them, so exercise to increase stability isn't really practical.
One partial solution to this is to wear ring splints. The splints stop the joints bending backward, meaning less pain and more strength.
Unfortunately, ring splints are kind of a specialist item.
Currently available splint options:
The NHS will make custom thermoplastic splints for all kinds of conditions, but thermoplastic isn't great for long-term use on the hands: it's hard to keep clean, and the plastic that's strong enough for long-term use is thick enough to be cumbersome. And it wears out, which means new splints (and, for most of us, a new referral process) every few years.
The NHS will also give people Oval-8 plastic splints. These are great for short-term use. They're relatively cheap -- they can be bought from the manufacturer for about 5 Euros each if you don't fancy going through the NHS referral system when you've lost one -- and definitely better than nothing. But they aren't without problems. They're injection-molded plastic, and I find the edges uncomfortable. In order to be strong enough they are a bit bulky, and I'm strong enough to still bend my fingers the wrong way when wearing them. The ones on the ends of my fingers fall off quite regularly, which is annoying and means I can't use them when playing keyboard instruments. And plastic is hard to keep clean. My skin tone matches the splints quite well but I don't really like the way they look, I tend to feel self-conscious and not wear them that much in public. I'm experimenting with decorating mine using nail varnish, but this isn't necessarily going to be a high-quality solution. (Lots of outlets sell these singly for about £20 each, by the way, which is not good when you need 16 or 18 of them.)
After that, the options are private. The NHS won't prescribe something that isn't plastic.
There are Murphy ring splints. I haven't tried these. They're stainless steel so more durable and hygienic than plastic splints but they're expensive. They do look a little more like jewellery.
There is a lady in the UK who has got her jeweller to make some Oval-8 style splints in silver. I have ordered two of these. They're cheaper than buying Murphy splints from UK retailers, but still cost significantly more than the plastic versions. My hope is that they'll be more comfortable and stay on better, but I won't know until I try wearing the finished product. For me to splint my hands properly using these would cost around £500. I'm pretty sure there's some kind of copyright/trademark/patent infringement going on here, so I'm not going to link to them. I don't know what the profit margins are like -- quite low, I think -- and if this one person stopped making the splints I would be unable to replace them.
EDS Ring Splints is a company in the US making off-the-shelf measurement-based wire splints in a variety of shapes, similar to Murphy splints but different enough in their construction to be legally OK, I think. I have a medial thumb splint from them, but it doesn't fit as well as I'd like, and I probably should have gone for a full thumb splint; however thumbs are just difficult, and probably will require custom splints. Their finger splints look promising, and I've been happy with their customer service, so I have gone ahead and ordered a hypermobility splint set for one finger. The deco splints look like a good option if something stronger is needed, but what I like about the one I chose is the fact that the two splints are linked together -- so hopefully the distal one won't fall off! But, $30 USD is still a lot for something that may not even fit, and that's for the basic steel rather than the silver version. The round wire may be uncomfortable compared to, say, the "court" inside of my wedding ring, and in something I wear every day that's a big concern. I also think the profit margins are a little on the low side for something that is a handmade product, and I worry about the viability and scalability of the business. The biggest advantage of these splints is that I could almost certainly find someone in the UK who could make copies of them for my personal use if they do work out, as working with jewellery wire is something people do.
There's a company called Prink that claims they'll have silver ring splints coming soon. They're based in Thailand. I'm dubious. There's a silversmith in California selling some silver and gold ring splints on Etsy.
There are three companies that I know of making jewellery-quality custom ring splints. SIRIS in the US is the most famous, and their splints are beautiful. There is also The Beautiful Splint Company in Yorkshire, and WE Design in the Netherlands. The latter are by far the most advanced, particularly their various thumb and wrist splints (have a look at the product gallery. All of these companies offering custom work require a prescription from a hand therapist to order products, and that's not easy to come by.
The NHS, you'll recall, won't prescribe for jewellery-grade finger splints. I went to a private hand therapist, and she hadn't really heard of the various splints on offer. I paid £190 for two appointments, at which I was given some therapy putty and a custom thermoplastic thumb splint I could have had on the NHS. I wasn't impressed. I will be trying again elsewhere but lots of people simply can't afford to spend that kind of money just to get a prescription.
I recognise that some stuff is just never going to work off-the-shelf. I will probably have to have custom jewellery made if I want thumb splints that aren't thermoplastic.
But for fingers, things are a bit simpler. Fingers are basically just tapers with joints in them. 3D printing is an ideal way to make finger splints: prototypes can be printed quite easily, rather than needing injection moulding equipment. But it should be possible to create ring splints in a variety of sizes and styles, which are both more comfortable than the plastic Oval-8 splints and cheaper than the custom-made ones. Shapeways offers printing in a wide variety of materials, including plastic, brass, steel, silver and gold. So it would be quite feasible to get plastic splints printed to test fit, then order the ones I like in steel or brass for everyday, and eventually silver or gold for "best". If one got lost it would be easy to replace. Shapeways probably aren't going out of business for a long time yet, because 3D printers are still niche items.
And using Shapeways, we could a) share the design with others, who could make their own modifications if they wanted to b) offer people-who-aren't-me the opportunity to buy splints the same way, and charge say 5% or 10% extra which would then be split with whoever is working on this project with me. We wouldn't have to do order fulfilment and stuff because Shapeways already has all of that in hand; the work would be in the development and the advertising, but once it gained momentum it would just sit there making a bit of money now and then, and making a lot of people's lives easier. If it got to the point where we had to do serious amounts of customer service we could re-distribute prices/profits such that we could pay someone to do that. I'm not really interested in making huge amounts of money from this, though, I'm interested in helping people who are in my position of not being able to access appropriate metal splints without paying large amounts of money.
I don't know how much development work is involved, but I'd be willing to try and do some kind of crowdfundy thing so that whoever is doing the actual 3D modelling work can get paid. But first, I need to find someone to work with. I'm based in London, and I'll want to meet regularly in person.
If you're interested in getting involved in this project, comment here or e-mail me at artsyhonker at gmail dot com.
I have EDS type 3, which means my ligaments is more stretchy, and my joints are much more flexible and bendy than they should be. For most of my body, this means lots of physio training to keep muscles strong so they can support the joints instead. For my hands, this doesn't work so well: hands don't have a lot of muscle in them, so exercise to increase stability isn't really practical.
One partial solution to this is to wear ring splints. The splints stop the joints bending backward, meaning less pain and more strength.
Unfortunately, ring splints are kind of a specialist item.
Currently available splint options:
The NHS will make custom thermoplastic splints for all kinds of conditions, but thermoplastic isn't great for long-term use on the hands: it's hard to keep clean, and the plastic that's strong enough for long-term use is thick enough to be cumbersome. And it wears out, which means new splints (and, for most of us, a new referral process) every few years.
The NHS will also give people Oval-8 plastic splints. These are great for short-term use. They're relatively cheap -- they can be bought from the manufacturer for about 5 Euros each if you don't fancy going through the NHS referral system when you've lost one -- and definitely better than nothing. But they aren't without problems. They're injection-molded plastic, and I find the edges uncomfortable. In order to be strong enough they are a bit bulky, and I'm strong enough to still bend my fingers the wrong way when wearing them. The ones on the ends of my fingers fall off quite regularly, which is annoying and means I can't use them when playing keyboard instruments. And plastic is hard to keep clean. My skin tone matches the splints quite well but I don't really like the way they look, I tend to feel self-conscious and not wear them that much in public. I'm experimenting with decorating mine using nail varnish, but this isn't necessarily going to be a high-quality solution. (Lots of outlets sell these singly for about £20 each, by the way, which is not good when you need 16 or 18 of them.)
After that, the options are private. The NHS won't prescribe something that isn't plastic.
There are Murphy ring splints. I haven't tried these. They're stainless steel so more durable and hygienic than plastic splints but they're expensive. They do look a little more like jewellery.
There is a lady in the UK who has got her jeweller to make some Oval-8 style splints in silver. I have ordered two of these. They're cheaper than buying Murphy splints from UK retailers, but still cost significantly more than the plastic versions. My hope is that they'll be more comfortable and stay on better, but I won't know until I try wearing the finished product. For me to splint my hands properly using these would cost around £500. I'm pretty sure there's some kind of copyright/trademark/patent infringement going on here, so I'm not going to link to them. I don't know what the profit margins are like -- quite low, I think -- and if this one person stopped making the splints I would be unable to replace them.
EDS Ring Splints is a company in the US making off-the-shelf measurement-based wire splints in a variety of shapes, similar to Murphy splints but different enough in their construction to be legally OK, I think. I have a medial thumb splint from them, but it doesn't fit as well as I'd like, and I probably should have gone for a full thumb splint; however thumbs are just difficult, and probably will require custom splints. Their finger splints look promising, and I've been happy with their customer service, so I have gone ahead and ordered a hypermobility splint set for one finger. The deco splints look like a good option if something stronger is needed, but what I like about the one I chose is the fact that the two splints are linked together -- so hopefully the distal one won't fall off! But, $30 USD is still a lot for something that may not even fit, and that's for the basic steel rather than the silver version. The round wire may be uncomfortable compared to, say, the "court" inside of my wedding ring, and in something I wear every day that's a big concern. I also think the profit margins are a little on the low side for something that is a handmade product, and I worry about the viability and scalability of the business. The biggest advantage of these splints is that I could almost certainly find someone in the UK who could make copies of them for my personal use if they do work out, as working with jewellery wire is something people do.
There's a company called Prink that claims they'll have silver ring splints coming soon. They're based in Thailand. I'm dubious. There's a silversmith in California selling some silver and gold ring splints on Etsy.
There are three companies that I know of making jewellery-quality custom ring splints. SIRIS in the US is the most famous, and their splints are beautiful. There is also The Beautiful Splint Company in Yorkshire, and WE Design in the Netherlands. The latter are by far the most advanced, particularly their various thumb and wrist splints (have a look at the product gallery. All of these companies offering custom work require a prescription from a hand therapist to order products, and that's not easy to come by.
The NHS, you'll recall, won't prescribe for jewellery-grade finger splints. I went to a private hand therapist, and she hadn't really heard of the various splints on offer. I paid £190 for two appointments, at which I was given some therapy putty and a custom thermoplastic thumb splint I could have had on the NHS. I wasn't impressed. I will be trying again elsewhere but lots of people simply can't afford to spend that kind of money just to get a prescription.
I recognise that some stuff is just never going to work off-the-shelf. I will probably have to have custom jewellery made if I want thumb splints that aren't thermoplastic.
But for fingers, things are a bit simpler. Fingers are basically just tapers with joints in them. 3D printing is an ideal way to make finger splints: prototypes can be printed quite easily, rather than needing injection moulding equipment. But it should be possible to create ring splints in a variety of sizes and styles, which are both more comfortable than the plastic Oval-8 splints and cheaper than the custom-made ones. Shapeways offers printing in a wide variety of materials, including plastic, brass, steel, silver and gold. So it would be quite feasible to get plastic splints printed to test fit, then order the ones I like in steel or brass for everyday, and eventually silver or gold for "best". If one got lost it would be easy to replace. Shapeways probably aren't going out of business for a long time yet, because 3D printers are still niche items.
And using Shapeways, we could a) share the design with others, who could make their own modifications if they wanted to b) offer people-who-aren't-me the opportunity to buy splints the same way, and charge say 5% or 10% extra which would then be split with whoever is working on this project with me. We wouldn't have to do order fulfilment and stuff because Shapeways already has all of that in hand; the work would be in the development and the advertising, but once it gained momentum it would just sit there making a bit of money now and then, and making a lot of people's lives easier. If it got to the point where we had to do serious amounts of customer service we could re-distribute prices/profits such that we could pay someone to do that. I'm not really interested in making huge amounts of money from this, though, I'm interested in helping people who are in my position of not being able to access appropriate metal splints without paying large amounts of money.
I don't know how much development work is involved, but I'd be willing to try and do some kind of crowdfundy thing so that whoever is doing the actual 3D modelling work can get paid. But first, I need to find someone to work with. I'm based in London, and I'll want to meet regularly in person.
If you're interested in getting involved in this project, comment here or e-mail me at artsyhonker at gmail dot com.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-01 04:37 pm (UTC)Hmm. Sounds plausible from a materials/printing point of view, then, but then there's the expertise to know how to make them the right size given measurements of a finger. I note that all the companies involved in this are heavy on the jewellery expertise... Is it worth looking specifically for jewellers with an interest in 3D printing?
no subject
Date: 2014-11-01 07:36 pm (UTC)I don't know how important the springiness is, but the Shapeways solid silver is done using the lost wax technique. That's starting to get expensive but if fitting is the cost of printing a plastic splint, rather than £££ worth of private consultation, it starts being worthwhile, especially for replacement splints once the fitting is done. The stainless steel stuff I have from Shapeways feels pretty strong but it is decorative rather than functional so who knows? The important thing would be that the steel splints don't snap, which could cause injury; I suspect it's impossible to completely avoid this risk, but it would be bad if printed splints started snapping with everyday use.
However, this is what testing is for.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-01 07:38 pm (UTC)Private prescriptions
Date: 2014-11-01 05:02 pm (UTC)Good luck in your venture anyway, I hope it works!
Re: Private prescriptions
Date: 2014-11-01 07:27 pm (UTC)I think 3D printing still has a lot to offer, though, especially for people who perhaps don't want to spend the money for custom splints but find they don't get on with Oval-8 splints.