Given that there is a risk of a global shortage of ventilators due to COVID-19, manufacturers like Tesla and Mercedes have invested their resources into building ventilators. Impressively, as Tesla recently showed off in a video, these companies use numerous car parts to build ventilators.
Similarly, Maingear, a company that specializes in making desktop gaming PC casings, has now built an emergency pulmonary ventilator. Dubbed LIV, the ventilator uses an old version of Maingear's F131 PC case as the chassis.
The LIV has been designed specifically in response to help critically ill and intubated patients amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. It is based on a platform that is already in use in Switzerland and Italy, and offers fully automated operation with or without a breath trigger. This allows healthcare workers to start delivering oxygen in as little as 1.5 seconds.
The MAINGEAR LIV has preset standard values to make it incredibly simple to use, as well as dedicated software which is controlled via touch screen interface, living access to fine adjustments in addition to the manual regulation controls on the device.
Maingear claims that the LIV can be produced at a quarter of the price of traditional ventilators that are in use today. However, the company is still waiting for the FDA's approval for use in the United States, and is currently in talks with state officials to deploy it in the country. Maingear also hopes to make the LIV available internationally in the future.
