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Help Us Crowdsource Repair Information for Hospital Equipment!

Hi everyone! If you suddenly find yourself with a lot more time at home, and would like to put some of that time to good use helping mitigate the current health crisis, we invite you to check out the announcement here:

Help Us Crowdsource Repair Information for Hospital Equipment

We’ve already got over 100 ventilator service manuals posted online for free, for anyone anywhere in the world to use, but we need to find all of them—and organize them and make them easier to use. And when that’s done, there are other kinds of medical equipment that desperately need the same treatment.

Update: Thanks so much to everyone who helped (and who continues to help)! We’ll have a public announcement about the project soon. Meanwhile, if you have any more manuals that you don’t see on iFixit.com, DM me or email biomed [at] iFixit [dot] com and we’ll be happy to help get them posted!

Stay safe everybody!

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Score 18
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Do we know if there are some that are higher priority than others?

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We added some high-priority tasks to the post above^^ :)

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I am based in NYC. I can and will help search, but more importantly, I have tools and am skilled at mechanical and electronic repair. Can iFixit help connect hospitals with skilled repair volunteers like me? luigi@mercone.com

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30 Replies

Hi guys, you are doing a great job here.

I can help in 2 ways

  1. I am SEO and Performance Marketing Expert. I am doing it for almost 10 years now and worked for many niches and markets (global projects up to 20+ languages)
  2. I can translate manuals into the Polish language.

Just contact me: tgromysz@gmail.com

Best regards and stay safe!

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2 Comments:

Awesome! Thanks for volunteering to pitch in! We'll reach out when we need the help :)

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Thanks a lot for offering your support in translating to Polish. We’re currently not supporting that language yet, but you’re more than welcome to fill in that form if you want us to reach out again as soon as we start offering that language: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQ....

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Sounds like a great project!

I might be able to help in a couple ways:

  1. I have a BS in Mechanical Engineering, have worked on cars and electronics almost my whole life. I was a field support engineer for an oil & gas company for four years diagnosing issues and doing field repairs of electronic equipment.
  2. I lived in Venezuela for two years, and my Spanish is pretty good for a Gringo.
  3. david.clawson@gmail.com

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Score 6

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Thanks for volunteering! We'll be in touch soon!

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Hey David! We'd love your help in Spanish translations! If you want to start right away, just pick the first entry in the spreadsheet Jeff posted here: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Siemens_Ve.... Changing your language setting to "ES" on the top right will automatically also change the "edit" button into a button called "Comenzar la traducción" - that goes for the device page as well as for the guides once you open them. If you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to get back to me at translators@ifixit.com!

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Hi, I can also help with that as native speaker in Español ;)

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@angeluru Epa! Parece que ya lo hiciste! Gracias! :-)

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@davidclawson de nada! ;)

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Hi,

Reddit on reddit :) Seems to be a project to join!

I can provide Hungarian translations. Will advertise this project to all fluent EN-HU speakers also.

email: ferenc.bedo74@gmail.com

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Thanks so much for getting the word out! We appreciate it so much <3 We'll get back to you on translations!

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Thanks a lot for offering your support in translating to Hungarian. We’re currently not supporting that language yet, but you’re more than welcome to fill in that form if you want us to reach out again as soon as we start offering that language: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQ....

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Happy to help here as well guys.

  1. I worked 5 years in a research lab working with PCR machines, incubators, etc.
  2. Currently at an fortune 100 tech company with their technical support team.

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Score 7

1 Comment:

Thanks for volunteering! If you've got any intel on the most common ventilators used—or access to their manuals—let us know!

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I’m currently working on getting Drager manuals online - Frank’s Hospitals says “download prohibited” but in times like this I don’t think that applies.

email: nikmurali02@gmail.com

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Score 3

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Drager manuals have been hard to come by. Thanks for your help!

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Found a website that has links to a lot of documentation and repair manuals many of which already have tarnslations. Havent had a chance to make any new pages or anything for them but figured adding the link would be helpful.

The page has links to manufacturer and other webistes containing teh documentation.

https://www.clinicalengineeringbank.com/...

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bdnmarshall download and add on here https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Ventilator

I may need this help in a few days/weeks. I am one of the frontline people taking care of whatever comes through the doors.

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Don’t know anything about medical devices, but I can help with the search. MedOne seems to have quite a few under https://www.medonegroup.com/pdf/manuals/...


I’m in programming, so I can automate stuff if it helps(e.g. Mass download of manuals, etc.) and can also do French-English translations.


alex7.up4.2@gmail.com

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5 Comments:

@barberousse double check your link. I get a 403Forbidden error.

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@barberousse We'd love your help in French translations! If you want to start right away, just pick the first entry in the spreadsheet Jeff posted here: https://fr.ifixit.com/Device/Siemens_Ven...

Changing your language setting to "FR" on the top right will automatically also change the "edit" button into a button called "Commencer la traduction" - that goes for the device page as well as for the guides once you open them. If you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to get back to me at translators@ifixit.com!

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@oldturkey03 Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. the manuals' url are all under that folder, but there is no listing there. I just now found the list of all the ones they have: https://www.medonegroup.com/resources/eq...

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That's a great list! Can you download them and upload them to the right page for each? https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Medical_De...

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@barberousse just got to check into it deeper. Thanks Alex

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Hospital staff here: We could also use instruction manual/troubleshooting on 3M Bair Hugger

wait! Found the bair hugger service manual. Could use Arctic Sun manual.

Now have the Arctic Sun too! Thanks everyone.

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Score 4

10 Comments:

Nikhil beat me to it! Website hadn't updated yet. Let us know if that's not what you need.

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Thank you so much!

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@Mary S - I'm not an expert in these things, but have worked on electronics and mechanical stuff pretty much my whole life. I don't know if it'd ever be helpful, but I'd be happy to do a FaceTime or phone call to talk through something or take a look at pictures if something needs to be swapped out. I guess that would be if the situation were pretty serious.

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I am a computer programmer and all around computer nerd what can I do to help ? I only know English

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I started this project to automate download and upload of service manuals: https://gitlab.com/CycleOfTheAbsurd/ifix...

I'm currently working on the upload part (the procedure requires Javascript, so it's a bit more involved than I expected). If you want/can help adapt it for other websites in the Google Sheet or improve it that'd be great!

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Awesome. Thank you both! Folks here have already identified a lot of different sources of manuals (see the Sources to Download worksheet)—we need to round all those up so they're safely mirrored in a single place. Automating any or all of that process to speed it up would be hugely helpful.

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http://www.frankshospitalworkshop.com/eq... is a good source for a lot of ventilators except the Dräger ones. I’m working on tracking those down one by one. I’ll need help translating them from engineering speak into something nurses could use more easily, though.

Edit: Alright, we’ve added everything from Frank’s ventilators. Thank you!

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I am a Technical Editor. I can extract procedures to web content and rewrite for wider audiences as needed. My background is not in Biomed, so I will need Subject Matter Experts point out which procedures in which manuals need to be extracted. Just point me at the ones you think are highest impact and I will get started immediately.

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I would like to help to translate from English to portuguese but the Portuguese option is disabled in the translation panel.

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Hi Joao, it is great. Just be careful, you were editing the English version instead ;)

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@angeluru

When I noticed that i stoped. I thought i was making the translation. That is why i then posted the above.

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Sure, no problem! :)

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Thanks a lot for offering your support in translating to Portuguese! You're right, at the moment the translation of guides is not yet open on our platform, however, you should be able to translate device pages such as this one: https://pt.ifixit.com/Device/Medical_Dev..., as well as the subpages of that one. You’re more than welcome to fill in this form if you want us to reach out again as soon as we start actively supporting that language with guides, too: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQ.... If you'd like to send over any other translation, please feel free use the translators@ifixit.com. Translating PDFs is not something we’re set up for—we'll have to create guides first and appreciate your help in this in English if you feel up to it.

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If, hypothetically, the virus suddenly worsened, hospitals ICU’s would be overwhelmed and sick people turned away. In such a case, we might need to provide life support for neighbors and loved ones for several days at home. I see that the earliest mechanical ventilators are bulb type that are operated by a human attendant. This is a little like CPR until the ambulance arrives. I also thought one could make a simple device from a bulb siphon or a bicycle pump. Obviously, the power and control are all human volunteer powered. I realize that this is a type of emergency life support until proper help can be obtained and should never be used unless the case was immediate risk of death. I was trained in CPR and Stop the Bleed where you need to know how to act in life/death situations if no professional was available. I don’t think we will get to this point, but you know most of us have a box of matches and candles in a box, just in case. A topic might be about how to rig one of household items, how to disinfect, how to administer, assuming volunteers would sit and do the monitoring and work around the clock. If my wife was dying of respiratory failure and hospitals were closed, I would try about anything to keep her alive. I am a retired systems engineer and am not trying to be inflamitory, only just trying to have a plan D in case plans A, B and C don’t work out.

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This is real. Yes, a McGyver solution- not unlike Apollo13. There are several workarounds to use CPAP machines infused with oxygen- regulated from simple welding equipment. There are hundreds of thousands of CPAP machines already in the affected population. A further study of viability is in order.

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I am a professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, teaching Introduction to Materials Engineering and Electronic Manufacturing. We have access to a giant machine shop and hundreds of 3D printers. All of them are sitting idle right now, and we have a skeleton crew on campus that are trained and ready to use them. The university has switched to 100% virtual and most of the students have returned home. I am “virtual” instructing ~175 students next quarter. I think this would make a wonderful final project. Many of them have already taken Technical Writing and wrote manuals for iFixit. I would like to coordinate with your team to best utilize our resources.

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Talk about an amazing opportunity!

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Eric, thanks for your post. I'll check with Marty Rippens who heads our university partnership program and see if he can coordinate with you.

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Hey! love to give a hand. Anyway I can help as an EE/ME?

Does anyone have any sale statistics for ventilators? Is there a dominant brand or series so we can focus our repair efforts to have the most impact? Thanks :D

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We've been asking every healthcare provider we're in touch with about which ventilators they use. Feel free to ask your friends and local providers as well, and add anything we're missing to the spreadsheet! Drager/Draeger manuals seem particularly tough to find, so any help with those would be great.

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Good news bears: some Drager service manuals uncovered. Added to drive. More to come, still digging.

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Fantastic, thanks Anthony!

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I found the October 1995 ventilator manual for the Puritan Bennett 7200 but it’s over 40Mb so iFixit won’t allow the upload …

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If you link to it I can probably download it and try to reduce the file size. Alternatively, I could slice out the most valuable sections, if we know what they are.

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Can you divide it into several parts and upload each one as 7200 Manual part1, part2 etc.

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Yep! I've asked about having this technical limitation removed, but for now an easy-ish workaround is to split the PDF into two or more files. If you're not sure how to do that, you can email the file to moderation@ifixit.com and we'll handle it. Thanks!

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Located Mallinckrodt  Series 700 Service manual (11/99), but the file is 64 mb and can’t upload.

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We'll likely need to break this up into two or more smaller files. If you want, go ahead and email the file to moderation@ifixit.com and we'll take it from there. Thanks for tracking it down!

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Just so I'm clear, you want a device page for every model of ventilator?

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Generally yes, one device page for every unique model.

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High-Priority Tasks in the initial post are being continuously updated. Huge thanks to all those who have helped so far! We’ve made tremendous progress. Keep it up!

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Should we put priority on updating the drive over the doc? Both could probably use some tidying up. I’m still searching for more manuals in the mean time. Keep up the good fight guys :D

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I have discovered that some anesthesia machines have built in ventilator functionality. I think we should expand our searches to include such machines. Let me know what you think. An example, I found service manual for this guy: https://www.heartlandmedical.com/product...

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How does one get started? (I tried to upload manuals to Device pages, but I don't think I have the permissions.) I'm a technical writer (though unfamiliar with ventilators) and am fluent in Russian. My email is a.shvets.10@gmail.com

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@enpaton @salvagedcircuit @ishikawa @jeffsu Mark White kjohnst @joaoripper cwestp Tyler Wolfe Micah Mary S @barberousse bdnmarshall @nmurali @mtdrz8 Ferenc Bedo davidclawson Tobiasz Gromysz

sorry I clumped you all together in here. You guys have no idea what this support really means to us frontline staff . As some of you know I am an RN and the director over an ED and ICU in a small 70 bed hospital. Yes we are running out of supplies. We do have N95 masks and gowns etc. but our supplyline is good for 2 (two) days after that there just is no more. We can’t even get a “no-touch thermometer” This is is absolutely crazy and so frustrating. I have been talking to our biomed guy, correct singular as we only have one (contracted service and responsible for 5 other hospitals). Most common vents we have are the Puritan Bennett (Medtronic) (ours are the 840 model) and I learned that this model luckily does not suffer from any common parts failing. Most problems are leaks in the system pressure circuit. Software and GUI issues are the problems that he has mostly dealt with on those. Please remember that when they are talking bout vents and hospital beds not being available that we also do not have the manpower to run or fill those. The nursing shortage in our nation has never been addressed. Yes, hospital groups can be profit-before-people as well. What I would like to ask is, what are the chance of having something like a rapid response team on here? Let's say our vents or other systems break and we need help (advice, parts etc. fast) will it be okay to send you out an SOS?

okay time is of the essence so my iFixit time is very limited. Thank you so much for everybody on here trying to help. Each and everyone of you is appreciated by me and my team. Stay safe!

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I will leave this tab open constantly and respond back as soon as I can. I am in NY EST time zone, but I am up odd hours as well. You can feel free to comment here or reach out to me via email.

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It sounds like some kind of rapid response chat group (eg WhatsApp, Slack or Facebook Messenger - personally I'd go for WhatsApp) could be useful here, with a mixture of people like yourself who are on the frontline, and people with skills or resources.

@Jeffsu or @kaykay how about setting something up under the iFixit banner? I can then let people know about it in relevant forums online.

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Just wondering if fixing ventilators is a pressing problem. If many ventilators are sidelined because of "failure code" , "need calibration", or other maintenance issues and are backed up ahead of very limited in-hospital maintenance/repair staff, then maybe we could marshal local repair techs or iFixit types to help out hospital repair staff. I know I could help repair staff in local Austin area if needed

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Quick lunch break to keep abreast with this task. We are now starting to see an increase in febrile illness etc. It feels like its ramping up :-(

Yes, that is the problem We do not know what is going to go down. Shoot I already have trouble with our wireless network. IT so far behind and up to their eyeballs in work orders. Currently trying telemedicine with iPads to protect our docs and nurses. There are not enough iPads and we are donating and setting up our own stuff from home. Support is pretty much out the window. I should start hitting Apple up …:-)

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oldturkey03, since you are in the system, who or what position at my local hospital would be the best to approach on trying to provide assistance to tech support for their machines?

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Great Project!! — Getting toolboxes ready? Anything special in the user manuals?

Items required by user manuals and expected based on work with ventilators (details are important for developing countries and in places that might be new working with ventilators or volunteers showing  up to help)

As demand requires many more ventilators into hospitals and field units, what are the secondary and tertiary effects and consequences that can be predicted?   Most easily, is that the units will break and need repairs. Are we sure that all items in the repair and maintenance routines are available?

Frequent decontamination of the equipment will be required. The fastest way of achieving this at present is to train the workforce to handle decontamination.

Some patients (non-infected) but who are already on support systems may have to be moved to houses and their homes will have to be prepared for at least a few weeks and family members or caretakers will have to be trained in this.

Procedures on should be performed by trained and authorized personnel only. Maintenance should only be undertaken by competent individuals who have a general knowledge of and experience with devices of this nature. No repairs should ever be undertaken or attempted by anyone not having such qualifications.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RWen...

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Hello!

My name is Eduardo Ortega and I am a graduating engineering (embedded software) student looking to aid in this endeavor. I have previous experience in IT/software debug, creating technical documents and have intermediate-ish knowledge for writing/reading in Spanish. Please let me know which area I may focus my energy on as I become familiar with the work done and learn which areas to prioritize.

My email is below.

eortega@sandiego.edu

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Hey Eduardo! We'd love your help in Spanish translations! If you want to start right away, check out the spreadsheet Jeff posted here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1.... At the moment, there are mainly device pages to translate. To do so, just click on the respective link, change your language setting to "ES" on the top right and then the "edit" button will automatically also change into a button called "Comenzar la traducción". If you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to get back to me at translators@ifixit.com!

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Hello Sandra! I just saw this so I apologize for the delay - I would love to help with Spanish Translation! I will check out the link and email if I have any questions, thank you for your time!

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Hey Jeff,

Is there a place to view what has already been found? Willing to upload all the (30? or so) versions of the PB980 (sent the English earlier) if you still need them….

June

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Hi June! Thanks for your contributions so far. We're mostly using the spreadsheet and Google Drive linked in the original post above to coordinate. You can find the PB980 materials here—we've received several documents that contain maintenance procedures and parts lists, but I suspect the full service manual is still out there somewhere. If you have something besides what's shown there, we'd love to include it! Thanks again.

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Hi guys! I'm from Brazil. unfortunately I don't have any ventilator material yet .. I have some manuals of imaging equipment and I can provide them if they need ... thankful to be part of this team.

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Can you get us parts? Can your crew create the guides? All of the the techs that contribute to this site have the skills and know how to repair almost anything. Give me a guide and parts and we can repair most anything. Anyway we can get that info or broken machines to do teardown.

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Folks in this thread and elsewhere in the community have been uploading a lot of guides! So thankfully we don't have to reinvent the wheel—the service manuals already exist, we're just making them easier to find.

If you know of specific parts that commonly fail and/or are hard to come by, let us know! We might have friends who can help.

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Hi, I am a robot tech out of TN. I have been working on small machines for 15 years. My skills can adapt to repairing any small machine, especially with guides provided here. I am willing to help repair any machines that are in the area that are in need of service. I haven’t been able to coordinate with anyone though to put me in touch with anyone who may need my services.

chemojayat hotmailDOTcom is my email.

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Your regular readers might also be well positioned to MAKE ventilators:

https://simulation.health.ufl.edu/techno...

or other similar? Understand if you think out of scope, just seems like there might be need

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Hello!

I am a Denver-based health reporter with Kaiser Health News. I’m working on a story about the maintenance and repair of ventilators during this pandemic, and would love to speak to folks who are having trouble getting ventilators back online because of limited access to repair manuals, software locks or other obstacles. Any biomeds out there on the front line that want to tell me what their days look like right now? email me: markianh (at) kff (dot) org

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I'd like to volunteer to repair these vents, with 35 years in electronics, my last job was building and repairing prototype sonars for the Navy. It's the only way I can help so please contact me I'll go anywhere the need is the greatest. Kelly Burgess Gomez 512-274-4972

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I’m a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering. I’m bilingual in Chinese and English and semi-fluent in German. I can translate to/from Chinese and English but only from German to Chinese/English. Please contact me if any translation work needs done!! Email: mayiqun1997 at gmail.

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Hi Quinn! Thank you very much for your offer to help us with our translations, that would be really great!

Both German and Chinese translations are already activated on our site, I've seen that you already have an account on ifixit.com so you may start right away!

In the Ventilators page of the spreadsheet, Jeff posted above you'll find a list of already created device pages that still need a translation. Click on the respective link to the device page, make sure you're logged in and have the language on the top right is set to your target language. You should then see a "Translate" button in the upper right corner. Clicking on this button will take you directly to the translation interface. Before you start, I would advise you to read the translation guidelines first:https://zh.ifixit.com/Wiki/translator.

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Apart from the ventilators, the following device pages (and their subpages) also need translation: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Blood_pres...

https://www.ifixit.com/Device/CPAP

https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Anesthesia...

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Translating PDFs is not possible via our interface - we will try to create instructions for the most common repairs first, but of course, you are welcome to help us in English if you feel up to it. If you find relevant PDFs in German or Chinese, you can add them in the same way as described here for the English ones: https://www.ifixit.com/Wiki/Medical_Devi.... You just have to take care to specify the language at the end of the file name, for example, _de.pdf, or _zh.pdf, then our team can analyze them and tag them accordingly.

If you find vendor PDFs in German or Chinese language and are not sure how to proceed with them, you can also send them to moderation@ifixit.com and ask the moderation team to arrange the PDFs in the correct language.

If you have any questions or other concerns, I'm available at translate@ifixit.com!

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Quick question: I currently fund one of the ventilators that had a repair guide that could be localized (https://fr.ifixit.com/Device/Siemens-Maq...) but that’s about it…

I can’t seem to find an easy way to track them down. I can’t see any other one in the Google spreasdheet, or on https://fr.ifixit.com/Traduire (I translate/localize in French). Am-I missing out anything? Is it just that there is no other guide available right now? I just don’t want to miss anything…

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Hi Corentin!

In the google sheet, I found a few more guides that still need a french translation:

https://fr.ifixit.com/Tutoriel/Newport+H...

https://fr.ifixit.com/Tutoriel/How+to+po...

https://fr.ifixit.com/Tutoriel/Philips+R...

https://fr.ifixit.com/Tutoriel/Philips+R...

https://fr.ifixit.com/Tutoriel/How+to+po...

The automatically generated list shown on https://fr.ifixit.com/Traduire is based on clicks of the last 30 days, this is why the repair guides for medical devices do not (yet) appear there.

I've sent over more in-depth info about what else still needs to be done via email, I hope I could answer some of your questions and if you have more, be assured that I'm here to help!!

Thank you very much in advance and have a very nice weekend!

Sandra

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Jeff Suovanen will be eternally grateful.