We are the (proud?)owners of just one of these clever devices. Within the hospital, it's use is occasional, and presents no problems at all.
However, on the rare occasions that it is used to support a patients ticker on the journey to a regional centre/London, we experience problems.
Our frontline fleet of ambulances are equipped with invertors which are meaty enough to cope with the requirements of all the medical device permutations thrown at them - but not the balloon pump.
The balloon pump appears to have an extremely high, but short lived (mSecs) current draw at switch on (even when switching from iinternal battery to invertor supply). Once this hiatus is passed, quiescent current settles down to a respectable level, well within the spec of the invertor.
The problem;
The invertors also have very respectable over-current protection, and when confronted with this short lived assault, 'crowbar' and refuse to run.
So, how do we overcome this initial surge?
I am told that 'other ambulance trusts do not have this problem'. Datascope have not been particularly helpful, and the 'anonymous ambulance trusts' fairly silent as well.
Before we invest time and effort in the reslovement of this interesting problem, has anyone else been involved in similar, and can I avoid any 'wheel reinvention?
Kind Regards
