Not Satisfied With Digital Prosthetics, Ian Davis Invents his Own Mechanical One
Ian Davis lost his fingers in a work accident and said his insurance wouldn’t cover his prosthetic. So he built his own! Via interesting Engineering
In an unfortunate accident he had in his own shop, his fingers were badly injured, doctors told him it’s either your fingers or your life. “…being a maker, it was a tough deal,” Ian said as he had to use his hand for everything.
Insurance told him, to be eligible for a prosthetic you would have to lose your palm as well. So the fingers are “not medically necessary”, you learn a new thing every day. Seeing there’s no way around, he utilized his professional knowledge as a mechanical engineer and got into 3D printing to build his own prosthetics. He made and scrapped many models but he seems to have found a good ground to build on.
In a recent update on his YouTube channel, Ian announced that he’s still making improvements and tweaks to his partial hand prosthetic. He recently added a “splay” functionality.
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