EBME Forums Forums Maintenance Technical Assistance B Braun Space PerfusorBattery Full/Empty problems.

How many of you are having issues with B Braun Space batteries on Perfusors.

I am aware of 5 hospitals, some of which have reported to the MHRA about this issue.

The "smart" batteries will report they are full, have 1600mAhr charge, but the moment you try to open the syringe arm, the current drawn causes the battery voltage to drop to such a level that it reports "battery empty" and stops.

Knowing Braun, they have probably told each hospital " you are the only ones seeing this issue".

Just wanted to share this with the rest of you, it came up in discussion on a course at lunch time, Bio meds chatting, and all seemed surprised that other hospitals had the same poor response from these batteries, and no idea it seems to be rife.

Hi Mithrandir

At Chelsea & Westminster we have had this experience. I would be really interested to know about other hospitals who have had this same problem.

Could anyone who has had this problem please email me
richard.aldridge@chelwest.nhs.uk or give me a call 0208 746 8140
I think that the more we complain about this sort of issue, the more likely it is that BBraun will have to change their stance on the projected battery life.

regards

Richard Aldridge
Clinical Engineering team Leader

Brompton.

I have passed on your detals to the head honcho at one of the affected hospitals.

Li-ion battery?

Can we be sure that "battery servicing" (cycling) has been carried out "as per the manual"?

But maybe the root of the problem isn't the battery at ... perhaps the mechanism draws "too much" current, for some reason.

How do they get on when plugged in to the mains?

I'm also wondering if the "battery empty" is actually derived from a voltage level across the battery ... perhaps it comes from some sort of "clever" circuitry (like a bit of current pulsed through a resistor [LOL] in an attempt to make a guess at "battery capacity"). Who knows.

Anyway, it's obviously an interesting problem - and one that needs to be addressed - so be sure to keep us updated.

Do you have the new motherboards in the pumps with the larger pins as we did find that the small pin motherboard had a tendancy for the pins to stick. Solution was contact cleaner and a cotton bud or the replacement of the motherboard.

If you also go into the service software and run the battery test and you can see what the mAh of the battery is.

As for the perfusor model make sure the drive arm guides are not out of the retainers as this will make the arm crash drawing a lot of current and giving you the error with the battery.

Have you tried a known good battery in the offending pump.

I have heard from an interested party that this is the second time this has been reported to the MHRA and that they are not getting replies to it. Anyone got any more concrete info on this as it all seems very hush hush?

Hello guys, we have the same problem in Prague. That "smart" battery remembers the charging/discharging time and current and calculates the capacity. As the NiMH cells inside are older and older as miss the parameters designed and stored in "the smart battery calculating algorithm". So the discharging time is not equal the charging. You can perform the requested battery maintenance, it helps a little. But there are some wards, where the total discharging of battery is not acceptable.

I worked for a Trust that had a battery die in a lift when transferring a patient from ITU. The nursing staff there said they always checked the battery levels before transferring any sick patients.
It was reported to the MHRA who passed the pump on to BBraun for investigation.

Where I currently work we are having problems with the batteries giving false information and incidents have been reported to the MHRA. It too is being "looked in to".

So there are two known reports for starters.

Bring back the days when the MHRA had some independent technical staff.

RoJo

Yes, Robert. Indeed.

But the MHRA is an Agency (so all the clues are there). Yes, just another Quango - and one of the many, sadly.

Take a look at their website:- the same old stock (cut and paste?) "actions" occur under almost every "Bulletin".

Just who are these people, and what clout do they have (does anyone take any notice of them)? And who are they accountable to ... Keith Vaz?

Folk on this forum keep banging on about "risks to thousands of patients". OK, but perhaps they should take a look at matters a little closer to home, as it were.

Fit for Purpose? Let's take a vote (seeing as we're into Democracy today)!

The old "you are the only one with this problem" will always be there.
Thats why we all need to report issues to MHRA so that they can collate them and then issue whatever alerts etc are deemed to be needed. Moitoring centrally has to be the way to do this, but its a sysyem thats only as good as we want it to be.
If we dont report things they cant become issues.
Time after time Ive been told there are no other reports of that fault so i guess its over to us to make sure MHRA get the data from us to build a response.