EBME Forums Forums Maintenance Technical Assistance Imed Gemini PC-2TX Event Log

Hi All,

Does anybody have the procedure and/or software to download the event log from a PC-2TX / PC-4 Gemini pump? I have a couple of over-infusion incident pumps where the logs would be very helpful to track down "finger faults". Our local Carefusion branch in Oz do not have the ability to do this (bizarre, I know) and have told me they will need to send the pumps back to Basingstoke for the download. Now I have been through this process before and didn't see my pump for many months (and when I finally got it back that ward had upgraded to Alaris GPs anyway and didn't want the pump anymore, haha!)

Any help / advice would be greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards,
Keith

Bizarre? Pathetic, more like!

If I remember correctly the "PC" part of the model name is meant to indicate that these pumps are designed to communicate with (and even be controlled* by) a PC.

Do you have the manual? My old PC-1 manual seems to contain a few clues about interfacing (although I've never been lucky enough to try it myself). It mentions a "C2 Communications Protocol", whatever that is (something proprietary, but perhaps not too demanding, would be my guess).

Are you thinking that the pump will contain a longer event log than the one it holds available for viewing at the front panel then?

Meanwhile, I would be interested to hear about the "over-infusion" (in general terms, of course). Was it the pump(s) do we think? And if so, in what way, and er, how?

Whilst trawling around for a while on the 'net, I came across this .pdf. Looks interesting! Anyone know anything about it? See also the website.

* Has anyone actually done that, I wonder?

Thanks for the reply Geoff. I only have a PC-2 manual handy but I could probably track the 2TX one down. The old school PC-1s and 2s have a semi-secret keystroke log but it is an arduous task to decode it by hand. The "hightech" PC2-TXs and PC-4s contain detailed logs but unfortunately you cannot view these at all from the front panel. I can however inform the clinicians of the last programmed rate, VTBI, and total volume infused for each channel which may prove to be semi-useful.

If I have time I might stuff around with hyper terminal but from what the local Alaris lads tell me I can expect garbage to come out!

"Semi-secret", "hightech"? Secret (extended) logs? Man, now you've really piqued my interest!

"Garbage out"? Maybe. Or perhaps it's "just" a matter of decoding it!

I'm not familiar with the 2-TX ... what's that one like, then?

Haha well the keystroke log is not super secret, but I don't think it is listed in the service manual. To access it on the PC-1s and 2s you enter maintenance mode the usual way then hold the volume pot in at the rear whilst cycling through the menus. It is half a dozen or so menus in, I think it is called "Event History".

The PC-2TX looks fairly similar to a PC-2 with the addition of an LCD display and full keypad. Functionally it is slightly more advanced as it allows for drug dose calculations and has a real time clock.

I think all Alaris needs to decode the "garbage" from the 2TX log is the correct software and I suspect this has been lost some time ago. I assume they could easily obtain this from the UK but as they do not make any money from incident investigations I guess they prefer to send it away.

Sounds like you're getting great service support out there!

Yes, if anyone knew how to break that data down, that would be interesting. I'm assuming just a bunch of digits, so as long as we know the length of each error code string, and have an up-to-date list of the error codes to hand, "decoding" should be straightforward enough. It could even be our old friend, the CSV (comma-separated values) file, for all I know (which would make matters even easier). You don't have a sample file, I suppose?

I seem to recall stuff like ...


... in the PC-1's. I wonder whether all the software evolutions in Gemini's use the same codes? I'm guessing that they probably did, with later versions simply adding more codes at the end of the list.

In passing, my favourite code was the one which turns out to be "NVRAM Insanity"! There should also be an "Insane Power-Down" and "Insane Key Data" in there as well. All of which just goes to prove, I suppose, that someone in San Diego has (had) a good sense of fun!

PC-2TX.

Meanwhile, does anyone know the whereabouts of .pdf manuals for the various Gemini models?

And lastly, Keith ... did those pumps over-infuse, or not?

Come on, Keith ... did we ever get to the bottom of this one?

We shan't rest until we get to the bottom of the Gemini PC error codes saga. Were there "undocumented" codes? What was the rationale? Was the next error code number simply added to the list as need be? Did things (the error code list) change with the introduction of the TX pumps (what did "TX" stand for)? Surely enough time has passed since these things were making money for Imed/Alaris et al for someone to "spill the beans" now?

Who has the complete error code list for each variation of these pumps? And who has the manuals?