Protosthetics, a company which takes advantage of open source hardware 3D printers to produce prosthetics and orthotics, has brought its affordable solutions to market with a cluster of LulzBot machines.
Nearly a dozen LulzBot printers are in operation at Protosthetics headquarters in Fargo, North Dakota, helping to positively impact the lives of patients.
These printers, modified slightly to serve Protosthetics, are primarily used for the building of patient-specific sockets. They have also been used to print the Protosthetics Amphibian Leg, a durable and waterproof prosthetic printed with NinjaFlex components. Unlike most typical prosthetics, the Amphibian can be worn in the shower, and other wet and dirty environments.
In addition to tailoring the prosthetic limb to the customer’s measurements, Protosthetics also fabricates custom activity-specific attachments and accessories. These vary in material depending on their application.
Leveraging LulzBot technology, Protosthetics has been able to produce functional, reliable prosthetics with additional features to suit the user and certain applications.
Protosthetics Amphibian Leg
The Amphibian prosthetic leg
“The benefit of having LulzBot 3D printers for us has really been the fact that not only are they a high-quality, very robust machine to start with but the community and the Open Source nature have allowed us to basically build on top of that and incorporate our own characteristics and functionality,” said Josh Teigen, chief visionary at Protosthetics. “Having the support behind [us], that has been one of the biggest keys to our success as a manufacturer in being able to actually deliver clinically relevant products to our customers.”
The LulzBot edition of Cura software has been integral in the design of Protosthetics’ prosthetics. Its efficiency and ease of use has been particularly helpful in the speedy and accurate production of parts.
“For the average user, it’s some basic settings, but then you can expand it to really make it do a lot more things,” said Cooper Bierscheid, chief futurist at Protosthetics. “I think it’s pretty fast and efficient of generating the GCODE, and I really like the feel of it.”
An equal level of praise has been levelled at the LulzBot hardware.
Teigen comments: “We run our printers pretty hard, and reliability-wise they’ve all been very good. I think that’s actually one of the biggest reasons that we went with LulzBot 3D printers versus some of the other printers out there - the reliability and the uptime.”
Protosthetics also highlights the helpfulness of the rudimentary documentation that comes with the printer, such as the instructions and user manual. Moreover, the open source nature of the machines has enabled the company with greater freedom and has proved particularly useful if preventative maintenance needs to occur.
Overall, the LulzBot platforms have enabled significant advancements to Protosthetics’ workflow. This in turn is meaning patients are receiving an enhanced level of care, with more reliable, durable prosthetics.
“You’re able to get your idea out of your head and into the physical world and reiterate that process over and over, and it really alleviates a lot of the costs in rapid prototyping those different devices and coming up with new devices that help people and then eventually moving into the final products that help people,” Bierscheid concludes.
Nearly a dozen LulzBot printers are in operation at Protosthetics headquarters in Fargo, North Dakota.
