EasyBreathe: Mechanical

Who are we?

EE-Emerge is a course offered by the University of California, Davis for sophomores and juniors who have an interests in computer science, electrical engineering, and computer engineering. Throughout a year, students organize and manage a yearlong electronic project. None of this is possible without Texas Instruments' sponsorship.

Mechanical Team

Overview: Easy Breathe

Easy Breathe provides an electronic based face mask designed for medical workers that is comfortable and conscientious to use. The Easy Breathe mask utilizes a centrifugal fan to provide air flow to the user's mask. An optimized human machine interface is also used to allow intuitive operation and status reporting for a user. The developed mask allows medical workers to work more comfortably and makes working easier through its communication features.

Mechanical Design

The mechanical design is done by SolidWorks and was fabricated through the use of a 3D printer. The electronic contain three mechanical pieces: the mask, the tube, and the electronic enclosure. The mask is a standard respirator mask with a 3D Printed cap attachment to attach the tube to the it. The mask will be using a 3M particulate filter. The tube connects to the electronic enclosure. Within the electronic enclosure, it will house the battery, the fan, and the printed circuit board (PCB). The fan of choice is a centrifugal fan as it simplifies the design by taking air from the side opening and directing it upwards. The buttons and LEDs are placed at the top of the enclosure for easy access and communication. Below is the current iteration of the fan enclosure.

Mechanical Process

Here is the journey that we took to get to our current design iteration. Originally, we were basing the design off the PCB and an axial fan. This caused the buttons and LEDs to be on its side. Due to these reason, the enclosure was an inconvenience to medical workers if we were to manufacture the design.

In the next iteration, we changed the fan, from an axial fan to a centrifugal fan. The reason for this change the exhaust mechanism of both fans. The axial fan will exhaust is not directional, needing an attachment to direct air up the tube. The centrifugal fan solves this issue and provides a simpler design to implement. We decided to reposition the battery to save space and added brackets to hold it in place. We also used the same PCB model due to our timeline restrictions, but we knew in order to save more space and make a better design, we needed to brainstorm a new design around a PCB model with dimensions we wanted.

Our brainstorm for this new iteration allowed us to center our design over a new PCB model. We wanted to change the dimensions of it as well as configure more optimal positions for the buttons and LEDs so that saving space and functionality was implemented. Specifically, we wanted the PCB to be size of the fan that way it could be put behind the fan, and the buttons and LEDs moved to the top of the enclosure for easier access.

After working alongside the hardware team and refining other small details, we implemented this new design. Below, you will see the current design iterations

Future Works

Depending on user feedback, iterations will be made in regards to comfort, usability, and power consumption.