EBME Forums Forums Maintenance Technical Assistance Drager Oxygen cells

Does anyone having problems with drager monitors oxygen cells life duration?

They don't seem to last as long as specified and Drager keep saying we are only one complaining about this. and on top they don't come cheap either.

We have recently had some teething problems with their Oxydig anaylser, it has been back to Draeger Service twice in a month, and the fault is still being looked into. However I do not think it was related to the cell, but this has not yet been confirmed.

Chris-H

Don't forget, any oxygen cell will have a much reduced operating life if the o2 is left on!

Especially in Theatres!!

What a surprise, Drager being totally shocked and never in their wildest dreams of ever hearing of any fault with their equipment before.(I think this is a standard reply they pick up in training) It must be the way your treating them Joe.

The oxygen cells supplied by drager generally contains s shelf life of 15 months or usage time of 12 months (whichever is earlier). The life of O2 cell greately depends upon the O2 contact hours.
Here, you have not mentioned about which O2 cell you are talking. Is it on-line cell or side-stream monitoring oxygen cell. It has been observed that sidestream o2 cells are totall non-reliable in their performance after 4 months (although they carry usage life of 6 months).

The cells on our Cato (Tiny Button type cell) Anaesthetic machines are most unreliable, life spans of days to a max. of about 6 weeks being the norm. Due to this however in most cases we are given replacements FOC....They also say that they (Drager) don't have this problem in any other location, which seems to be a standard statement from most equipment suppliers re. any technical problem for which no fix has been found. Theatres are difficult areas though as gases can be left flowing reducing the life span of O2 cells.

I used to work for Drager SA and our company policy at the time was that the O2 cells supplied to the customer must have at least 6 months shelf life left(the guarantee date is shown on the lid). If the cell failed within the guarantee period we'd replace it free of charge.

I know that in Netherlands they kept track of the O2 cell's serial nr and if it fails they will also replace it but you'd pay on a pro-rata basis. Sort of pay-as-you-go type of thing.....

Weve always had our Cato sells changed FOC if they fail in the warranty period stamped on the base.
I understand that the period that Drager have their service engineers change the cells is directly linked to the fact that they dont want to send engineers into hospitals at all times of day and night just to change cells. Therefore if they are changed at planned service time this cuts down on the number of calls due to worn out cells.
As for the comment about cells only lasting a few months. We have cells on all levels of device that easily last 12 months +.
Maybe there is a care of device issue, are the devices being left with the basal flow running all the time for instance as this will wear the cell out quicker.