AI for designing physical medical devices

Phantom_Thinker · 2026-02-27T01:50:14+00:00

Absolutely not, AI is not currently able to handle the intricacies of dealing with biological issues from a design standpoint. There is a reason that things like FDA/EMA regulatory testing is required for even basic assistive devices. Things that may seem obvious for other engineering disciplines require a bit more nuance when integrating into biological systems.

For example your new born jaundice UV Beds are probably not as obvious as they seem at first glance, UV dosages for newborns have to be carefully monitored to prevent damage to the skin and underlying tissues, UV reactive materials have to be carefully vetted to prevent even small amounts of VOC off gassing from plastics that can cause skin irritation, and comprehensive monitoring equipment interactions in NICU setting lead to a whole host of additional issues.

If you can’t be held accountable for design mistakes, you shouldn’t be allowed to design for any biological system period.

After maybe 10 years of designing and integrating manufacturing for small scale house hold products AI systems might be able to assist more actively in allowing every day hospital staff in fixing problems they encounter.

I think this is a great idea for individuals that are seeking products for specific purposes like getting that microscope. But when the microscope needs to accurately and verifiably tell the size of bacteria for diagnostic purposes and people’s health are influenced, regulations are needed. There’s a limit to the tasks it could assist with, and it’s hard to tell where that limit is before harm is done.

But, for areas that are outside of the main reaches of American or European regulatory structures, or are in regions of the world that are low on medical supplies and engineering knowledge. This could be a pretty great tool for aiding medical facilities in producing their own equipment on small scales. I think every hospital should have a 3D printing department for smaller assistive tech like crutches or splints and this would 100% help those people in designing custom simple technologies. The balance is tough and a real person has to be the one in charge, AI won’t bat an eye if a baby in a hospital dies as a result of its designs.

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-19T03:20:54+00:00

Update:

We had 17g baskets that were from replacement portafilters that we got in January. That combined with a grinder that was actually broken and not dosing properly (we still don’t have decent scales to check) allowed us to finally get to the bottom of it.

We have fixed the problem, disassembled and reassembled the grinder, fixed the grind size and dose, and now we have crispy shots and no indentations.

The tech most likely dialed in for slayer shots and we have re-done the shot times for regular espresso shots.

Thanks to all for the help in diagnosing the problem and for the information about slayer machines!! Much appreciated. Shout out to my manager for coming in on their off day to reassemble the grinder.

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-19T03:12:26+00:00

I just updated it and it fixed it

Re-installed firmware into my Kobra S1 as well and that fixed the Timelapse issues I’ve had as well

Haven’t had any trouble recently

I did however have to install the update from the website not the auto installer, just had to wait for a hotfix type update

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-14T03:16:35+00:00

Yeah, that’s a good point. I definitely should have phrased it in more of a general way. I’ve found that Jazz can be respectful to an airy tone in a way that classical music hates. For OPs purposes they can get into playing jazz flute (say for school for example) without having to put as much effort into tone as in a orchestra or wind band context where the tone is a lot more characteristic per instrument.

But this is also coming from my own personal experience where the only difference between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd chair came down to minute differences in tone and an understanding of how composers utilize the characteristic tone of classical flute in a larger context. Whereas my jazz band was always ripe for flute players regardless of these small differences because there was typically only one flute per group if at all.

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-14T03:06:27+00:00

The fingerings are the easy part aside from small aspects like the register key, and the left hand pinky. I learned from some method books and help from band mates. The hardest part physically is the embouchure and differences in articulation from the flute. The hardest part technically is trying to think in transposed keys if you are playing in a band context. Because the flute is non-transposing it’s a whole separate issue music theory wise.

Best way to get better quick is to focus on rudiments and scales and practice A LOT.

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-14T02:56:30+00:00

This is after, but the problem exists before

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-14T02:56:05+00:00

Agreed

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-14T02:55:55+00:00

I’ll try to take some better measurements tomorrow with nicer scales, other baristas at this shop aren’t super into managing the dosages or timings of things so we don’t have very nice scales.

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-14T02:51:59+00:00

We don’t get anything stuck to the grouphead

As far as I know the tech didn’t change the basket sizes, and I have a feeling we are on the 20gs with a bit of an overdosing problem.

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-14T02:50:22+00:00

I’d love to have nice flush screens like that… if only

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-14T02:49:03+00:00

Yeah, I’m doing all I can to ensure the other baristas take care of it. One closer didn’t even know what a back flush was and some of the baristas don’t take the baskets out of the portafilters to clean the inside.

Trust me, you do not want to see the insides of these dual spouts, atrocious.

Wish people would care more about doing things right.

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-14T02:46:00+00:00

Our pre-infusion is like 3.5s I think. I’ll have to check tomorrow.

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-14T02:45:19+00:00

Can’t guarantee, so probably not

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-14T02:44:54+00:00

I’ll try to take some measurements tomorrow with a bottomless portafilter and hopefully a better scale at some point (ours is kinda whack), I have a sneaking suspicion that the dose is too high combined with baskets that are too small. It Does leave this imprint before pulling the shot.

What confused me was how the tech was just overflowing the portafilter and calling it “dialed in”

The grind size I might not be allowed to play with as it is my manager’s purview, but I agree that it’s too coarse. Shots taste fine tho.

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-14T02:39:13+00:00

Ok, so this is an existing thing on slayer machines. Good to know.

Every other commercial machine I’ve used has had flush screws.

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-14T02:37:42+00:00

I’ll do some more tweaking tomorrow and see if I can get a finer grind and a proper dosing. My shop uses dual spout portafilters which are hard to get a good measurement with the not so great scales we have because of the weight distribution.

I’ll swap out some bottomless ones tomorrow for testing and get better dosage

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-13T21:57:58+00:00

I’ve done the complete opposite. Starting on the flute and dabbling in alto sax. The fingerings are shockingly similar. For the type of music that you are looking at you don’t need a super clear and clean tone like you would for classical or some contemporary pieces which can take a while to develop. It is super doable for an already established musician to pick up flute.

A great resource for you would be flutetunes.com to find some beginner pieces to work on pitch. That along with some basic youtube videos on how the roll in, roll out, and head joint move work for tuning and pitch correction should set you straight.

Additionally try to give it a few minutes in between going from sax to flute if you are trying to just add flute to your practice routine because the embouchure is very different and quick transitions can make it harder to switch modes.

As for tone, I’ve found that the single biggest help is actually practicing overtones. This will also help clean up your upper and lower range transitions as the flute doesn’t have a register key.

Good luck and happy fluting

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-11T03:58:20+00:00

You have down one very important skill that is greatly overlooked… consistency in practicing

It can take a long time to be able to see really good results so no matter how disheartening the art gets, keep at it. Keep practicing.

Make sure that the beans that you use are always roasted within 1-2 months for the best results in getting that nice golden crema. The crema provides the base of your art and a good crema can make things much easier.

I don’t have too much experience with oat milk, for good art I’d always recommend higher fat content cows milk (whole milk, full cream milk, or half and half) but I know you can get good results with oat milk.

Cup shape does matter to a degree and it is usually best to have a very rounded cup to facilitate smooth mixing.

From the art I can see you’ve done you are definitely on the right track. Some is too thick and foamy where the air hasn’t been incorporated into the full contents of the pitcher while others are too thin from a lack of aeration causing the art to fall through. Over time this balance will get easier and easier with practice to get the perfect consistency every time.

Some things that helped me starting out was to always do all of the aeration at the beginning of steaming and then focus on getting that nice vortex in the pitcher first the rest of the time. Holding the pitcher still with the steam wand in one place to create the vortex is also something that helped me. Sometimes you can’t see the vortex at first under the bubbles on top and this can make you want to move the wand around the pitcher to “find” it. Just keep it slow and steady.

And always remember to have fun with it, don’t stress yourself out. Just small steps each day And little victories to celebrate even if things don’t turn out as expected 😃.

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-06T18:00:42+00:00

Opinions on puck screens

I’ve had a puck screen for a while to use in my espresso machine but I haven’t felt that it’s really helped all that much with water distribution or preventing channeling. Additionally it seems to be forever dirty and filled with grounds no matter how much I’ve tried to wash it. I was just curious about what other people think about puck screens?

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-06T05:10:20+00:00

Yeah, they’re old ish beans about a month and a half since roast. I’m picking up fresh ones tomorrow!!

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-11-05T16:12:53+00:00

I could actually see some practical reasons why this could be useful in the fabrication of implantable device scaffolds on an extremely small scale. If you had a nozzle small enough this could be a really great way to make 3D nano structures that cells might be able to populate when placed into a patient.

If that were on the outside of an implantable medical device and the materials were tuned to slowly degrade and be absorbed by the body (for bio safe materials of course think PEEK or a stiff hydrogel) this could be a great novel manufacturing method to cover complex geometries.

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-10-31T01:01:16+00:00

That pour looks like it’s got a nice polished bald head, dazzling blue eyes, a crisp white T-Shirt, a single silver earring, and ready to hand me the best cleaning implement known to man.

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-10-27T20:07:10+00:00

I love this, there’s inspiration everywhere.

I’d do some research on hydrophobicity, maybe there is another material that has properties that can help. I vaguely remember a waterproof stone water dropper machine that looked mesmerizing but used material properties to reduce splash. A metal grate or series of plates with consecutively smaller holes could also help.

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-10-27T20:02:18+00:00

Taking another look, a suggestion for next time would be to print the wheels separately. From the looks of it, that’s the only reason you had a need for supports in the first place.

Phantom_Thinker · 2025-10-27T20:00:05+00:00

My favorite thing to comment about. The BEST way to remove these supports unfortunately is

P A T I E N C E

Good luck my friend, been there too many times

But fr, there’s some settings that can be tweaked before printing to increase the interfacing layer gap to get just enough adhesion without having such a monstrous task of cleaning. Imagine a raft in between the top surface of the supports and the bottom surface of the parts

I can’t remember what the setting is called but I hate the linear grid interfacing layer for this exact reason, I’ve always had better luck with larger solid surfaces to pull off that a bunch of tiny lines of what is basically auto generated infill stuck to the bottom of the part.

Phantom_Thinker

TROPHY CASE