We are experiencing some technical difficulties...

We have a Beaver Medical defibrillator trolley that will cause any Codemaster defibrillator to fail its daily test if placed upon it. The trolley is over a year old and has not caused us any problems previously; also we have one other trolley of the same type which has caused us no problems at all. While the defibrillator displays "Test 100J failed", there does not appear to be any other adverse affects when tested with an external tester.

I have spoken to Beaver Medical and Philips Medical. Beaver Medical claim not to have heard of this problem before, although Philips mentioned that this has happened previously with certain trolleys.

We have an idea why this trolley is causing the Codemaster to fail, but would like to know if anyone else has experienced anything similar?

Have you spoken to Dr Andy Smith at the MDA, he is the specialist that deals with Defibrillators. MDA switchboard is 020 7972 8000

Hi Darth Vader.
We received a notice from Beaver dated 14th January 2002.
I qoute,
Advice notice.
BMPHP100D Defbrillator Trolley.

We have been made aware of a situation where an incorrect defibrillator has been used in conjuction with the BMPHP100D defibrillator trolley, resulting in the battery being ejected from the front of the defibrillator.

Please ensure that only the Hewlet Packard M172xA/B series defibrillators are used on the BMPHP100D trolley.
etc. etc.

Hope this may shed some light on your problem.


:p May the force be with you. :p
DOH!.

Many thanks for the replies. The MDA appear to have gone home for the weekend, so I will try them on Monday.

The M1722A/B model names are an alias for the Codemaster series defibrillators. Hewlett Packard liked to confuse people.

Futher investigation reveals that the Codemaster defibrillators will fail the daily check if any steel object of sufficient density is placed near the rear/left corner (where the patient inductor is located). The Beaver Medical trolley we are using is of a design which has a junction of 3 metal plates near the corner of the defibrillator which is susceptible. Moving the defibrillator away from this corner alliviates the problem.

Interestingly, we have another trolley of the same design that does not cause us any problems at all.

Hey Darth,
You look surprisingly like Winston Churchill??
Any relation?
By what you describe, it must be some sort of Capacitive loss. The metal plate absorbing/damping part of the discharge.
Keep us informed. Have you asked Philips for an explanation?

Hello Darth,
For those of us who enjoy helping in a really interesting technical challenge like this appears it might be, but have no idea what a Beaver-Medical Defib trolley looks like ie what electrical/electronic 'gubbins' it has or has not got free-standing on-board the trolley, could you please elaborate a little in this area of detail. Thanks - Nick

I think he looks like Jim Gavin after hearing the news about GE buying out Datex-Ohmeda, or was it when he was having a number 2 ?

Nik, I have sent you an email with some pictures attached. Unfortunately we do not have the means to host the pictures online, but if anyone else is interested send me a PM with your email address.

We're still awaiting an explanation from both Philips and Beaver Medical.

Send them to me and I'll upload them.
H.
huw@ebme.co.uk