EBME Forums Forums Free discussion Free discussion Equipment Manuals

Wonder what everybody’s thoughts are to creating an EBME online library of service/operation manuals. We need to badger the companies to liven up and not charge so high prices for paper manuals, especially if they can be condensed to a PTF. Seems obvious that the manufactures are reluctant to share this info unless the equipment was purchased through them and the price is right.

I would imagine going down this route one could find lots of problems with copyright law. If this were to be set up it would need to be done with the full knowledge and cooperaation of the respective companies.

A number of manufactures are now publishing pdf version of their service manuals on their web sites.

As well as the copyright issue, there also need to be controls on revision history and ensuring that the latest version is available within the library.

But the real issue that stops anyone creating a public on-line library of service manuals would be the cost of internet bandwidth.

Chilly

What if the EBME website could co-ordinate an on line Library? that would be something!

The safest way would be to have a link to each manufacturer's site with the official manuals. That way you would always have access to the most up to date version available and no one would have to keep checking to make sure there wasn't a new issue.

Just going onto the various sites yourself is a bit of a nightmare because the internal links to the manuals are often buried away somewhere obscure - so a direct link to the right sub-site or section would be really useful.

A good place to start is with all the companies who "advertise" on this site !

Roy,
Excellent idea. We already have a links page https://www.ebme.co.uk/links/index.html where anyone can add links. We just need to ask Huw nicely to change 'Miscellaneous' to 'Service Manuals' and then start badgering our reps to add links themselves. It is quite a simple process, just click on ADD A SITE and follow the intructions. If anyone knows of company site links to service manuals feel free to ADD AWAY.

The problem is one well known supplier of monitoring equipment recently supplied us with a new model and will not supply us with a service manual until we have completed the service course.
This is the first time with this supplier that we have had a problem, but I wonder if this is the trend for the future?

A certain shaver manufacturer sold us some software to manage their new monitor and then said after it arrived we had to go on a three day service course before we would be allowed the access password. This course covered the whole range but we only had one small model. This was a rule from the top but was sorted out locally.
I also know of a vent. manufacturer who only releases manuals after you have been on ... and paid for ... a service course even though the tender spec said the manual had to be available. It was available but at a high hidden price.
I do think this is a way of forcing us to go on the very expensive service courses.
We must remeber to add free service courses and service manuals in to all tender specs in the future. And in a way that they can not wriggle out of them.
All this is just a way of getting more money out of us.
Robert

Hasn't the NHS recently started an anti-fraud drive to combat the waste of tax-payers' money? Why not try reporting this sort of thing to them? They may be aware that it "happens", but they might be able to do something constructive about it if they have specific incidents to quote to the guilty parties!

Plenty of companies charge over the odds for all sorts of things - including claiming that parts are their own when they source them from RS/Farnells. If you do the same, they say you are breaching the CE mark, etc to try to make you pay several times the price.

Clare

This isn't fraud just extortion, the suppliers aren't breaking any laws on insisting that NHS staff go on expensive courses.

Roberts approach is the best way forward, insist on free training course places in the tender specs.