SOTECH Health Breathalyzer

SOTECH Health homepage linked above

Breathalyzer

As part of the SOTECH Health, I was the sole mechanical engineer working on a handheld breath analyzer device for early detection of respiratory illness.

I saw the project through the early proof of concept and industrial design phase through to early prototype and a final manufacturing run of 175 units meant for clinical trials.

Within the role I worked with industrial designers, contract manufactures, and component vendors to yield the final product all while owning the CAD and overall hardware design.

The breathalyzer included the use of a high volume mouthpiece which was designed with biosafety and cross contamination in mind and to prepare the breath sample for reading by SOTECH Health's proprietary sensing platform.

This role involved working closely with scientists at UTD where the technology orginated and my alma mater.

Technical Challenges and Solutions

Challenge:

An internal flow path contained a split line which caused a micro turbulence which affected the accuracy of the device.

Solution:

The solution was to rework the angle of the split line removing it from the affected flow path area while maintaing the ability to use a mirrored part. This was done by creating a diagonal split line for a mirrored part. This created a closed flow path with the needed flow characteristics.

Challenge:

Due to the internal geometry, one of the electronic PCB boards needed to be mounted at a 90 degree angle to its plastic enclosure counterpart.

SOTECH Health Breathalyzer shown above along with Companion App

Technical Skills Used

Created Initial Concepts for injection molded handheld device based off of previous CNC Milled Aluminum Prototype
Led engagement with industrial design consultants to create industrial design and preliminary master model of the device while validating that the form factor would be able to satisfy technical requirements
Analyzed and quantified flow of breath thought the device through analytical and experimental development
Created the component split of the master model owning the CAD for the full device. (Solidworks)
Completed finishing features of the seven custom injection molded pieces and one compression molded piece.
Designed the User interface within the constraints of the Industrial Design
- Designed internal flow path out of two pieces with a diagonal split
  - Resulted in one mold saving costs, and kept the turbulent flow away from the proprietary sensor.
- Designed "light pipe" injection molded component which redirected light 280 degrees
- Collaborated with vendor to design a custom membrane switch for user input
- Adapted industrial design specified Pantone colors and surface finish and adapted specifications relative to what was possible with draft surfaces and fabrications techniques.
Ran tolerance analysis on the final assembly before creating fabrication package and sending out for parts
Prototyped device design with internal fdm style 3D printers (Internally sliced and printed). Then prototyped using external SLA style 3D printers for fitcheck.

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