In 2023, I started a project to create an affordable prosthetic robotic hand, which I completed in 2024.
When I began exploring how to produce, sell, and distribute the hand to those who need it, I, unfortunately, encountered the harsh reality of medical certification: an essential process with the unintended consequence of stifling small companies' projects at the outset.
So, I shifted my target slightly: a hand for robots instead of humans—an easier project to start with, at least in terms of safety, regulations, and costs.
@venomyeah Cool project. Would be great to see it integrated into one of these modular arms:
medical certification
Yeah, that’s a lot of money and uncertainty. Provided you know it’s not dangerous, you could always try to market it as non-medical and up to the end user to determine if they want to take the risks.
In terms of pricing, you need to cover the cost of materials, then assign a cost for the time to build, then a reasonable margin on the total. A low margin makes the price competitive, but also decreases your revenue by a lot. Since the product looks 3D printed, we’ll assume you’re aiming for small quantities making it harder to get low prices based on volume.
Would be great to see it integrated into one of these modular arms (Lynxmotion Robot Arm):
I can provide the interface flange for this robot too, I have to check if the wrist of this arm has any electrical interface to provide at least the power and ground to the hand. Any information would be appreciate on this.
medical certification
Yeah, that’s a lot of money and uncertainty. Provided you know it’s not dangerous, you could always try to market it as non-medical and up to the end user to determine if they want to take the risks.
Well, if the law in the USA allows this, it would be great! In Europe unfortunately is forbidden even to provide a medical device as non-medical.
I am considering selling it also in the USA, although, at the moment, we are in the process of CE marking, which I am not sure covers all USA requirements (does it ?).
In terms of pricing, you need to cover the cost of materials, then assign a cost for the time to build, then a reasonable margin on the total. A low margin makes the price competitive, but also decreases your revenue by a lot. Since the product looks 3D printed, we’ll assume you’re aiming for small quantities making it harder to get low prices based on volume.
Yes, you got the point: the problem I am facing is pretty much this. I ended up simplifying the manufacturing process, so with 2 workers I could produce 1 hand in 1 day. It’s still a very low production rate, but the company costs are kept to a minimum. So yes, the price has to be at least 1600 Eur per hand, instead of the 500 Eur I wanted to sell it initially.
Questions for you: how many hands do you think I could sell in the first year? And for which kind of customers/applications?
I can provide the interface flange for this robot too, I have to check if the wrist of this arm has any electrical interface to provide at least the power and ground to the hand. Any information would be appreciate on this.
Not at this time. Easiest to run it on a separate USB cable and power. If the power is 30-36V it can use the arm’s general power supply, or 24V if using the PRO power adapter.
If assembly takes time, you can always create a video detailing how it’s assembled and offer it as a kit. This might save you a lot of time and money.
{…} how many hands do you think I could sell in the first year? And for which kind of customers/applications?
There’s a lot to factor into potential sales which are beyond RobotShop’s control unfortunately. Compatibility with various robots at a lower price would be of interest.
Easiest to run it on a separate USB cable and power. If the power is 30-36V it can use the arm’s general power supply, or 24V if using the PRO power adapter.
I see, then I could include in the package a 24V to 12V adaptor.
If assembly takes time, you can always create a video detailing how it’s assembled and offer it as a kit. This might save you a lot of time and money.
Mmm… I am a bit scared it could wildly expose me to early cloners (before it’s released open source). Still, on the other way, it would put me at the same level as the most dangerous competitors (countries where the labor costs less) so I could lower the price to a level that not even from those countries it would be convenient to copy the hand, or at least they will sell it at the same price as mine, and people obviously will prefer the original.
Again, I would appreciate to know what you think about this.
The main PRO arm runs off 36V, so if you have a unoit to go from 36 to 12V that’s preferred. The alternative is to just use its own 12V power supply.
If someone really wants to copy the design, all they need to do is disassemble it, correct?
In order to make it exactly the same it would require more effort since the internal structures have particular shapes in order to make it work properly.
But those structures can be discovered by sectioning I guess. Also, there are other external structures that would require non-3d-print techniques to be manufactured.
The copiers would need to spend some months studying it before they can produce the parts for one hand with the same level of quality and functionality.
Then there is the assembly process, which has been improved but it still requires specific training and tools for the different phases of the assembly, before the operator can assemble properly a hand.
Discovering the correct assembly process would also require some months of trial and error.
I would say that given sufficient time, the hand is copiable by reverse engineering as anything else, and I want to ensure this time is longer than the time we will need to collect earnings to give the business some stability.
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