• Question: How long does it at to make a prosthetic hand?

    Asked by Moriparty to Alejandra, Ana, Daniel, Sophie, Todd, Zach on 10 Mar 2017. This question was also asked by 592arth42.
    • Photo: Daniel Morse

      Daniel Morse answered on 10 Mar 2017:

      I’ve no idea!

      To make a living 3D model of the roof of your mouth however takes about3/4 weeks in the lab.

      Mechanical engineering of a prosthetic hand may take longer because of the design, and making of it..but I can make a hundred models at the same time of mine! 🙂

    • Photo: Alejandra Aranceta

      Alejandra Aranceta answered on 10 Mar 2017:

      It doesn’t take long to create the mechanical part, you can even 3D print the parts and just link them together. The complicated part is the controller, that means, how you are going to make the prosthetic hand to move. The most common controller is myoelectric, which means that acts from the electric activity that your muscles produce whenever they move!

    • Photo: Todd Burton

      Todd Burton answered on 13 Mar 2017:

      There are groups at Edinburgh university that have 3D printed a prosthesis capable of simple grabbing tasks. Something like this may only take several hours to create. In reality most prosthesis are a lot of complex and may be tailored to a persons needs, this would be the job of a biomedical engineer in the NHS.

      http://www.homepages.ed.ac.uk/astokes2/research_PRR.html

    • Photo: Ana Gallego

      Ana Gallego answered on 15 Mar 2017:

      I am not sure about hands because I am only familiar with legs.

      Each leg is make of individual components such as bolts, housings, o-rings, tubes, springs, etc, which are made individually. Some of these components you can buy already made and other we make in our factory. Each component can take from minutes to a few hours to be made.

      Then, to put it all together it can take also a few hours.

      It all depends on how complex the limb is.

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