I'm a RN in a regional teaching hospital. It's a BIG deal when an OR tanks. We don't have spare OR tables in storage. An OR down means dozens of cancelled surgeries, anywhere from 3 to 8 surgeries A DAY until the problem is fixed. These patients have already been waiting weeks or months. If the surgery is urgent, cancer, trauma, etc., those patients will 'bump' another theatre.
that is a really interesting point, often when there are waitlist times politicians blame the other side or they promise to fix it by throwing money or whatever. i wonder how many issues are caused by technical problems not the staff. seems like an issue, that could be brought up further politically - granny can't get operation as we cant fix the equipment.
I remember when the pandemic started off and hospitals were overwhelmed and these garbage companies wouldn't allow repairs. You had patients dying because ventilators and other life saving equipment was down and desperately needed repairs that hospital techs were doing anything including ghetto rigging motors, batteries ac fan blower units from cars just to make it work.
This is really interesting. I can see how the danger of incompetent repairs causing medical errors (in the immediate presence of medical professionals, mind you) would be VASTLY outweighed by the downtime added by increasing the barriers to repair. In debate, you are always supposed to refute your opposition's STRONGEST argument first. I can't see how someone could even refute this little tid bit of measurable calculus let alone the more basal human freedoms and environmental protection arguments.
A small company has ethics because a customer can point the finger at the boss easy. even take a small company to court. so if a parts manufacturer refuses to sell you a part, take them to court over ensued damages until they sell that part. This is the right thing to do.
@@ashot11223 I find it very troubling to declare that ethics are solely the result of avoiding conflict or consequences. Your comment also makes no sense because as you correctly point out sueing the ownership of a smaller company is easier than a larger one due to their lack of resources; they can't lock you in a costly legal battle like larger companies. You should see how the cost prohibitive nature and disprortionate influence over lawmakers would make larger companies HARDER to successfully pursue legal actions against... Regardless, smaller companies have ethics because they will not become successful without clients, who will not recommend them if they do not do what they say they will do. 'Deontological ethics' are very primitive forms of ethics. Rarely would someone in western society rely on this as their primary moral compass. It would better be described as simple law adherence or codified religious morality, not ethics. Currently, parts manufacturers are within their legal rights. If a parts manufacturer refuses to sell you a part, you have absolutely no recourse. It is currently almost always in violation of some contract or deal between entities if aftermarket or oem parts are available through a third party. Compulsion by law for manufacturers to sell you parts is not, nor has it ever been a right to repair platform, rather to stop PREVENTING the market from facilitating these transactions. Meaning, whoever is manufacturing that part should be able to make it available to the public in order to repair their goods (for a markup) on behalf of, or in spite of the product manufacturer. There will always be market restrictions which prevent manufacturers from maintaining a parts supply, and this is not something we should attempt to regulate away, as it adds an unreasonable dimension of liability and risk to producers.
Did you know the FDA did a report on third party servicing of medical equipment and found that there wasn't sufficient evidence to conclude third party repairers caused a problem? www.fda.gov/media/113431/download The more you know! I didn't realize when I hit the record button in zoom it would sound like a 70s tv. sorry :/ I'll use OBS next time.
I'm not a repair person but this channel has exposed me to issues I didn't know existed! I appreciate you featuring this guy's story, this is ridiculous.
@@Matthias_Fischer I am sorry but I can't find the details of the parts of the products on the site? Could you give an explanation of where to find them?
@@Matthias_Fischer Certified apple technicians exist too, except they aren't allowed to do what Louis does. Certified just means you have permission from the company.
@@rossmanngroup Louis, it looks like this guys story may not be 100% true. Refer to: skytron.dcatalog.com/. Past end of life equipment may not be covered though, and I wouldn't see that as being negative.
i am a nurse to preface this, i work in a level 3 trauma center / community hospital. because its so difficult and expensive to get new parts for some of our devices many of them remain broken or missing functionality for months, we need them so badly each day that removing them even for a few days just isnt an option, or its so prohibitively expensive that we can't afford it. just wanted to add my expierence.
My sister is looking to get into a hospital after having worked some really crappy conditions at a nursing home(she's a CNA), I imagine she is going to be really dissapointed to see that.(despite how a couple of the managers are there treat her she really cares about the patients but just can't take the abuse they give her, apparently HR informed the managers about her complaints if her stories are accurate. Remember folks HR isn't actually there for the employees it's there to get ahead of lawsuits.)
I'm an EMT and it SUCKS when a small ER's CT machine goes down and we have to spend days shipping their patients to different ERs because the people that make the machine are snails about sending someone out to fix it
@Cole S True but if the alternative is sorry we will not treat you until the technician comes next week, for medical equipment the consequences from that can go from having to come back next week to literal dying so unless it is something like the radioactive core of x-ray machine I don't see why a proper 3rd party technician cant repair it
@Cole S i feel like in a hospital setting that would make sense, to have the person who repairs the device be held responsible for the functionality of it. liability is everywhere in a hospital. the repairs being preformed on hospital equipment would be held up to higher standards than repairs on non-emergency related devices, and with proper testing after the device is repaired, i would not think it would be less reliable or less functional than it's factory state. often times, (look at automotive recalls) the device will actually become more reliable after the device is repaired.
@Cole S You seem to operating under the assumption that the on-site or third-party repairer is incompetent. If the manufacturers made the schematics, manuals, and part available then hospitals and medical companies, which are VERY liability conscious, would ensure that their repairer would be trained and certified. - I interviewed once at a company that repaired and refurbished major medical machinery, but even using new parts from the manufacturer, they were only able to sell the fully functional items they finished to third-world countries, because the device companies hold American hospitals over a barrel. If a hospital were to use a refurbished, but otherwise perfect machine, companies could easily 'blacklist' that hospital and refuse to sell them anything ever again. Or charge them more for future purchases.
I can see a difference between an operating table motor and a CT machine in terms if complexity. I would trust a repair done by an average competent technician on an electric motor. I would only trust the most specialized and highly trained person to service a CT. Your average doctor can remove a mole, less so perform a brain surgery
@Cole S Its not "I should be able to repair it myself" - its about having the possibility of doing so - as things stand, NO ONE can fix certain things, as explained in the video. OR Table broken motor: > OEM: This is end-of-life. Can't repair. > Motor OEM: Can't sell this to you. > Third-party technician: Sorry I just can't get this part, if I could I'd fix it for you and save you 98% of the cost of a new item.
I work as a maintenance engineer in a meat packing factory and there is a few machines that have "special parts" and not only do you need to buy that part from the manufacturer, alot of the time they are designed to need a special tool that only they sell and only works for this one job, one example was basically a spanner with a special profile to take of locking nuts, the spanner cost a grand
Same with the lugnuts at the wheels of a Ford Fiesta. My brother blew a tire and responding Highway officers dont have a tirw wrench that could remove the lugnuts. 3 responding units later (wherein a tow truck was already being considered) we were able to flag down another Ford Fiesta whose owner lent us his wrench. The tire wrench provided by Ford is of poor quality that the metal chip and tore after a few uses! My brother feverishly looked for an online non-Food replacement.
I recently brought a welder, wasn't able to remove the disc on my saw after messing about i grabbed a old bit of steel,. drilled two holes and welded two nails into them, cut them down and it worked a treat, i love electronics and thinking "could a tin hat team like me build a duplicate chip board to replace these charging chips he can't get hold of?" then i look at the actual size of the bits and think not today with my eyesight.
@@chrispartosbro4555 The problem isn't that we couldn't build a replacement chip or circuit. It's more that they implement serial that says it's a particular chip. Generally, you can buy a chip that functions identically to the apple part, but won't have the apple serial identifier.
I am working in medical devices development more then 20 years and due regulations there is insane amount of paperwork. It is ok for "Big" devices as CT, MR, strongly ok for radiotherapy etc. But same amout of paperwork is required for everything, sometimes I think even for door knobs. And paperwork cost a lot. And paperwork do not stop in moment where development is done. Everytime when you change anything (pump, type of lightbulb, whatever... ) welcome in recertification hell. That's strong motivation for manufacturers to stop support ASAP and sell new device. On the other hand whole process is used by manufacturers of middle range priced devices to sell more. I really do not understand why complicated modern MR and blood preshure meter are same kind of medical device. To right to repair: I think 90 % can be repaird by anyone with qualification, service manuals and access to certified parts. Rest is on absolutelly different level like MR which is liquid helium cooled or radiotherapy device. And for this kind of stuff , price of hardware is ususally less than half, rest is maintanance, service on site under 24 hours, nonstop remote monitoring etc.
IMO it's doable. I only sweep floors part time for extra cash at the local truck trailer manufactures here, but they do paperwork for every job. For truck trailers. Yes, they have risks, insurance, safety etc. If a truck company can do it, medical companies can. They can rebuild an entire trailer from nothing, and have parts/traceability/insurance/testing for the entire chain.
The resistors on the boards of alot of industrial manufacturing equipment (Robots, PLCs, other controllers) have been stripped of their color coding. They make every effort to ensure that the device is unreparable by the factory. Everything you have ever bought is impacted by the lack of right to repair legislation, indirectly at least.
Surface-mounted components are small. So they normally have tiny characters/digits on them. Just that the space to print is tiny and many times there is no print because it's meaningless to even try. So it's size and not copy-protection that introduces the problem with proper markings. A robot don't need markings when fitting the components. And with schematics, you don't need markings when replacing. The problem comes when the manufacturer refuses access to schematics and component placement information.
I've seen more than a few products where components have been solvent-washed, potted, or sanded down to obscure their markings (including chips where there's plenty of room to silkscreen the Mona Lisa on them if you wanted to) - it's just A Stupid Thing Some Companies Do.
@@samus4799 That's stupid. Easiest way for copy-protection is to use FPGA or microcontrollers with the copy-protect bit/fuse activated. Then it isn't possible to read out without very advanced equipment. And anyone with that equipment can X-ray the PCB and all chips and measure the properties of discrete components. So no real protection from such adversaries. Just one thing - lots of equipment with I/O may have EMI filters, PTC etc and some such protection components can look like axial resistors without color rings. A PLC is a prime candidate for that kind of components to protect the individual inputs and outputs.
@All About Medical Devices that would be the hospital to make sure they hire people that know what they are doing the idea that only the "qualified" people should repair these is the reason why hospitals have to just rebuy entire items there is no replacement and if there is it cost more to do it or longer then just buying new The manufacturer doesn't need to give out every piece of info or even service it fast just let other people buy and repair them all they have to do is move out the way
@All About Medical Devices that's the issue they don't sell any parts and half of time oem repair is not nearly sufficient or feasible so most hospitals are better off just rebuying items which is far from financially or environmentally good the liability of broken devices as discussed in other videos the fdc found that there is little if any difference in quality of the repair vs oem repair when third parties substituted in legally speaking we would have tweak lability to fall on hospitals to implement this or whoever is preforming the repair then which isn't great but idk if anyone has any other ideas the current system has hospitals rebuying thousand dollar beds because no one will sell them a screw
I'm a biomedical engineer at a veterinary hospital and deal with this regularly. On a lot of the more expensive equipment we're limited on what we can do. We're usually forced into a six figure a year service contract or one of us can go to factory training which is usually tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even with the vendor training, many of the companies don't give us the same service resources as the factory and they will only sell us very expensive modular parts. A recent example is on our MRI machine we could only buy a $18k part from Seimens but we found that the problem was a $40 power supply inside the modular part. I also had a hand switch on another machine that I was able to properly repair for $25 after GE wanted to charge $26k for the entire assembly. These are just a few examples but it's frustrating especially when we've gone to all of the factory training and they still extort us. Thanks for bringing this to light Louis.
You'll be surprised how much how banking software is past end of life and the extended warranty period is also gone. IF they can do it for banking they should be able to do it for every industry.
@@yumri4 software is a very peculiar field where things keep working unless you intentionally break them. So by all means, updates and new versions are always, always counter productive if what you already have works fine.
@@YounesLayachi I agree thus why they have the right to continue using what is insanely out of date. Alike to how we should have the right to keep on using what the manufactures think is "out of date". Sure we don't use the 64+ core processor like compute servers do but we do want our tech to keep on working for more than 1 year.
This conversation is both fascinating and deeply concerning to listen to. Just knowing what this guy is saying means millions of lives are at risk because a manufacturer is too greedy to sell parts is a horrible thought. The worst thing is I could hear genuine concern from this guy in his voice. He knows it's only getting worse for everyone 🙄 Great video Louis, you've opened a lot of eyes with this discussion
Somewhere a medical device vendor is listening to the bit about using a donor video card and telling their engineers, "Next revision we begin serializing all parts...."
@@YounesLayachi LOL it's because they are greedy little shits, why resell a $200 card when you can manufacture a $5000 card that can only do one thing.
I had mentioned this before and got quite a positive response from it. Right to Repair is also a a matter of National Security. The lack of it really does hamper the ability of a nation to do anything at all. Food, health, or simply remain prepared for any type of emergency. Let alone a consumer's rights and well being. It is so much more than that. Lack of Right to Repair can quite literally bring a country to its knees overnight under the right circumstances. As it is right now, it's a slow burn. But tomorrow? Who knows...
I have a university in my city. They Have a vacuum-chamber from the eighties. The manufacturer is gone. A new one cost in the millions. They wanted to upgrade/replace the aging electronics, so they got somebody to reverse engineer hoe everything works for a year. That was cheaper then buying a new one.
That was really great Louis, I used to work for a medical equipment recycling company here in Quebec Canada. I can confirm all that was said is true. Most of our business as the recycling company has gone to movie studios cause they don't care if the equipment was not 100% functional. They were like it's all good as long as it power up and we can film it, just tell us how's it working if it's operational normally and we'll fix it with cgi. We rented about 50% of the stuff we tried to recycle to movie production cause it was not resalable. But our ultimate goal was to put those equipment back into service. We were only able to get 25% of the equipment back into service, the movie rental of equipment as props was the bread and butter of the mission. Without the movie rental side of business we could not sustain that business, our repair rate was so low cause our only option was to salvage parts from multiple units to make some viable working ones. Sad but true, also sad that this company no longer exist.
When you're so early the video is only 720p, wow, it just gets worse and worse as the story unravels. I dread to think how much of the world is absolutely fucked because of stuff like this happening. Does it not occur to companies that you can help the custom AND profit from helping them?
Manufacturer: "Sorry, that equipment is end of life." Surgeon: "Well, if I don't get this thing fixed right now, my patient's going to be end of life!"
TBF things do eventually go beyond end of reasonable life. There are a number of reasons for this. Some components become unsourcable. Some designs get so old, they are no longer on par with current technologies. Etc. If you got 20+ years out of a mechanical product like that, you did good and it's time to replace it. Most cars only last 10-15 years, and manufacturers only support them for 10 years with parts.
@@WarpFactor999 yeah, some things do get obsolete, but some are still very functional and save for one component that is still in production, but not available for sale unless you are the manufacturer....
You gotta get a flange and a coupling to go from the pump to a generic brand of motor for the operating table. Then you can just switch the motor out every next time
Heh, I did something like that once. A propitiatory motor failed (non-medical, but explosion proof). Rewinding the stator was something like $10k and a month leadtime. Instead what I did was cut the original motor up and turned the original face into the adapter flange that would allow me to install a 56C explosion proof motor. I think the total cost (minus my labor) was like $500, and the filter was up and running again after like 3 days.
Louis you should speak with Justin from the Better Biomed Channel as well. It would be great to see you two talk in a live stream as he has raised the same issues as John. I work as an in-house Biomedical Engineering Technologist for a hospital and there's a lot to discuss around this topic. Some changes in the field are due to technological/clinical evolution, and some changes are simply corporate profiteering.
Growing up my dad worked repairing endoscopy equipment, first for Olympus then started his own business. Was pretty cool, he would just swap out video cards and make bank.
@@krdow9 nope it is definitely not still around, he hasn’t done endoscopy work since about 2004. He had a slick deal set up one of his best friends was a guy who bought and sold the equipment to hospitals and dad serviced any machines coming or going. Had the units shipped to the house too, he converted one of the bedrooms into a workspace and worked on them whenever he felt like it. We’d get light sources and video processors shipped to us from around the globe, we’d get units shipped in that took 3 weeks to get from Africa, he’d crack the top, replace one board in 2 minutes and ship it right back out invoiced. Eventually the manufactures made it almost impossible to obtain the necessary replacement parts and the units themselves started being built with far less quality. Much like how everything electronic that used to be robust and serviceable has become cheap plastic garbage that’s easier to just throw away and buy a new one.
Re the other video that was removed. Just a recommendation, install two firestations in your shop, at the front and the rear, two fire extinguishers at each, or three per code, add a flashlight to each and possibly a face mask. Put up the signs and have them checked every year. Your local FD could help you. Remember to demarcate them with orange and black striped lines. OHSAS is important but may save your life. It sems rom what I can see, that the flamable liquid that was used was not normal, that it one of the reasons you ran out of extinguisher. If you install a camera, be aware of federal and local laws. The accelerant used would be interesting to know.
I was in an emergency room one evening and the EKG cord had a short and told the ER Dr. that the cord had a short! He said they can't fix it because it has not failed! I said I learned in electronics class to cut the cord and that makes it fixable if it is a safety hazard! ...and unplug the machine first of course! Ha! I told him I could fix it, but he said it has to be certified, and couldn't be soldered only replaced! $2000.00+ cost! I asked for a discount because of my electronic diagnosis, and sure as heck I got one!!!
Might try to get state DOTs on board. I’ve worked in their parts depts, and entire districts of roads would be shut down if they couldn’t get parts/fix plow trucks during a snow storm.
my dad once tried to repair a hv power supply for a detector tube in a 15 year old xray scanner. he called the company that produced the part because they where producing a fairly simmilar part to that day. they told him they didn't never rpoduced that part and had no information on it. a out a day later some gentleman calls him back and tells him they infact produced the part for a company back then but werent supposed to tell anybody and they can't sell him the part or tell him any specs.
I work for the IT&Hardware department of our local hospital. For ordering the right size prothesis, you need a scale on the radiogram. This is typically acheived by a 25.000mm steel ball on the image (in the same plane as the joint to replace). Over time, these steel balls have a certain tendency to "disappear". You can either buy them from the manufacturer of the x-ray system or you can buy them as truck spare parts: bearing balls with the same diameter cost not even 5% of the "medical device". And hygiene is - for once - not really an issue here ;-) Nevertheless: you have to get the OK from a qualified radiologist. Greetings from Switzerland
i have them it got tiring to see that spammed nonstop no matter how many times i replied to it and said we have them. it also didn't make sense to give whomever did it the kicks of knowing it got a reaction.
I think Louis, the problem here is that the opportunity cost of that motor is 40k USD. They could sell one to you or put it in a brand new table - you know what a company would wish to do. In most of the supply chains these days, they run as per a demand plan which is closely tied to manufacturer's production plan, especially because most companies don't plan much for spares based on market feedback and instead work on the probability that X% would need replacement. That can go horribly wrong. Stocking spares again is just working capital down the drain. You don't know when demand will actually come over the product life or even beyond. Given these uncertainities with spares, a company internally would find it way easier to say I can't replace the part and save on inventory space, Working capital, gets leaner supply chain as they can also then pressrize the supplier into reducing prices since they save on carrying costs as well, and that's what most do.
Awesome insight to those ridiculous money making schemes. If we don’t get right to repair soon this will completely break our neck and leave us at the mercy of industrial conglomerates
I worked in an FDA regulated industry. I can tell you the amount of documentation with the Device History Record of products is a lot. When you take implantable electronics from someone they have to discard them because of cleanliness after being in the body. If third party can be approved with FDA regulations I don't see it as a problem and that the DHR can be updated with the latest changed. Ultimately its about the safety to the patients and compliance to FDA. If those can be met I don't have a problem with it. If they can lower the cost of health care thats also a win. I think the biggest cost is designing the products and working with the FDA to approved these products. It would be good if the FDA had supercomputers to rigorously test the devices and make it not so costly when the manufactures want to update the device. Any updates usually cost going through the FDA process again.
Someone below commented that it's good to bring up other aspects of of this issue than just laptops and cell phones and I agree completely. I'd love to see Louis bring on a farm equipment technician or another specialist who is tangentially involved in the right to repair movement.
I used to fix lab equipment for life sciences research. I found that it was way easier to get parts for things. I could easily email manufacturer and ask for a certain part and most of the time I could get things. It would be pretty pricey but we got it. We had steris autoclaves. They had pretty good tech support for their parts. They are fairly protective of sharing of information but we could still ask them questions and they even emailed us to notify that they were discontinuing their electronic board that they were using 2004-2019. And offered to let us purchase them before it was no longer in stock. Only major manufacturer we couldn't get parts for or information from was beckman centrifuges. Other manufacturer like fisher scientific or vwr were fairly responsive and was able to supply parts. Sadly most parts were made just for that device but at least they were able to supply us with most things.
The da Vinci machine system is a medical miracle in and of itself!!!! I would love to find out the service maintenance protocol on the system...multiple internet systems. Multiple computer redundancy systems, and a few technicians to keep it running smoothly before, during, and after surgery! Gee I wonder if I was a repair tech for them if I would need medical malpractice insurance too! A former student of mine finished med school at USC and said the students trained on it during its down time and watched several surgeries performed by remote Doctors! Thanks for this video! You always have awesome content and make people think!!! And as always...I have learned something new!
@Louis Rossman I work for one of the biggest medical equmiment companies. First of all documentation is quite a lot of paper. You cannot compare this to a car truck or whatever. Usually the service life of a system is 10 year after the last system was deliverd. Most (>99%) spare parts are on stock in different warehouses around the world, so they can be delivered within 24 hours. Even for us as the manufacturer it is very difficult to provide spare parts after at the end of the servicelife often already during servicelife. In comparison to e.g. notebooks there are only very few system sold. There are products which are sold less then 100 times per year. Or even less then 200 times in total. But these system contain very specific mechanics and electronics. The biggest problem is the availability of certain parts like RAM-Moduls, oscillators, PCs, Graphiccards etc.. The productionperiode of these parts is limited. If a product is discontinued, we have to estimate how many we will need until end of support to stock them. If our calculation is wrong we have to find these parts. We bought parts for like 100 times their original retail price because only one vendor had them on stock. For each part there is a detailed specification that includes the exact version of hardware and software. Regulation does not allow us to use alternative products without extensiv testing. There is a reason for this: e.g. a ceiling mounted system can perform inintended movments due to a newer version RAM-Chip in a motorcontroller. Processing of images can fail due to a wrong firmware on a graphics card. I can give you dozend of examples like this. We also buy used systems back to harvest spare parts. But there are countries which do not allow the delivery of used spare parts. Good luck finding a new 2005 PC with a very specific system configuration. We know how which of our systems are in operation, even after end of support. Due to limited storage and cost of storage we have to decide when to scrap spare parts. If 5 years after end of service your system, which is the last of its kind in operation worldwide, dies due to a dead circuit board we cannot help you. If you can find a third party service provider who can fix it good for you, but be aware of liability.
Then there are people that don't have the manual - and add "Hydraulic fluid" from a normal auto store and add ATF - causing all the gaskets in the solenoid control box to expand and break/jam up because the MFG doesn't like to specify the exact type of hydraulics oil you should use... If you can find a manual for it. Most of the sites that host manuals for surgical tables have received many C&D letters for specific models. It is a huge pain.
IMHO that is a furthering of this "lifetime service provider" mindset that these companies WANT to get everybody into in the "olden" days that would be published in the included service manual where as NOW they want you to pay the authorized repair service to "service and inspect" your equipment
@@jasonriddell Service manual for example says - Hydraulic oil PN:XXXXXXX. The cap for the baby tank says - use SKYTRON Hydraulic oil only. They wont sell it to you. That is the issue. Some naïve inhouse techs that doesn't know or have access to the proper information make a mistake and cause a huge issue (being now the equipment needs a $12k solenoid box that is "not field serviceable"). It is a double sided blade - but it all starts with actually having access to know you need to use Shell Tellus S2 V 32. Them hiding that information is a huge part of what can and does cause problems that are easily avoidable.
I work in maintenance at small company producing ladders. I have definately seen this shift taking place. For example. Those plastic straps on a package or cargo pallet. The machine that pulls and fuse them together. We have always service them our selves. On the older models there were always an exploded view and spare parts list in the manual. Not on the latest model. When I called the company about it I was tild that they no longer provide those and that I have to send it in to an authorized service center to service it. No thanks, guess we're only using the older ones from now on.
Aviation, medical, nuclear...I worked on nuclear safety and control systems and I'm pretty sure the acceptance criteria would be the same for all these...the unit would be tested beyond manufacturer specs at the repair location and again at the in-service location no matter who repairs it. None of the items are used to a high level and typically operate at around 50% of maximum capability. Plenty of the stuff is old and the companies are no longer in existence so I had to do what you sometimes have to do and consult the datasheets to find a suitable replacement part. The info then goes to engineering and dedication so I might get the part in 6-12 months...
Canadian armed forces can NOT get repair information on there "non combat" support vehicles beyond the "civilian" versions of the same as when "sold" new it was a "full service" contract and Navistar does NOT provide manuals for stuff under contract and now off contract is of little help supporting equipment that has "rotated out" of active duty on front line divisions but is used in training and "reserve unit"
@@jasonriddell Yeah I had some security-related equipment where they would not provide me any information on. Some MW detection equipment I was able to figure out and replicate a duct-taped version of the system, but any of the items that mounted to a gun I had to send back unserviced...30 year old equipment..
I used to work as a Biomed in a dutch hospital/clinic. I also have a few examples where big medical equipment manufacturers keep schematics and parts to themselves. I'm not going to name any but my collegue and me discovered a simple rotary encoder to be defective inside a ventilator one day. The company charged us around $250 while we managed to find the exact same part from RS components for les than $6. We were not allowed to use it because it would become a liability issue if something went wrong during use. Another company would not let us replace a simple cable on a electrically adjustable leg-rest (Which would be clamped on an OR Table). We have no clue as to why, but they just wouldn't sell the cable to us. And those are just a few examples. Of course in the medical world, there's a lot of laws and regulations for servicing equipment, because many times life depends on it. But even we as certified technicians can't just do some of the simplest things, which would save the patient, the hospital and even the manufacturer a lot of money and/or time.
Really interesting talk Louis. I work in the semiconductor industry. The market power the equipment vendors have to force this kind of waste is wild. It makes me eyes twitch daily.
So I used to for a major third party medical tool repair firm that you've actually talked to and featured in your videos before and I can readily attest to the fact that medical companies go out of their way to make tools and devices unrepairable by third parties. I remember that there was a tool that we had been looking into starting to offer services for and we had actually been able to buy one batch of the motors from the motor manufacturer. Then the OEM found out that we had bought the motors and made the motor manufacturer stop selling them to us. Turns out that it was actually a standard motor with a slight tweek to the design (i don't remember if it was a difference in the shaft or an extra mounting hole, or a different thread) that was apparently "custom" engineered for the medical tool maker. Since the medical tool maker had paid an engineering charge to have their version made they technically "owned" the design. The motor manufacturer was actually pretty cool about it though and basically said if we paid the same one time engineering cost (about $50,000 at the time iirc) they would gladly sell us THE EXACT SAME MOTOR because then we would "own" the design too. .... good times....
My only disagreement with the arguement here is the idea that you need a specialized field tech to service an mri, or an x-ray machine. Right now I agree that you do, because the amount of people who are "specialized" in repairing these machines are limited and because of their cost, and limited numbers in general very few people know how to repair them. However, in 30 years when they aren't so specialized and every hospital have 10 or more the industry to service them will be there. Its along the same lines of phone repair. We didn't have phone repair techs before phones, and before they became mainstream it was a very specialized skill to repair a phone. Now that the information, and the product is widespread, pretty much anyone can do it, given the tools and the know how, in 10 or 20 years it will probably be the same way with mri, or x-ray. When the first truck came out how many people knew how to fix them? It was highly technical, and your average person would probably screw it up, and now every tom dick and Harry calls themselves a mechanic.
20yrs ago I did work for a clinic and when I discussed upgrading (RAM/CPU/HDD) on the slow computers that were running their devices (for a fraction of the cost the manufacturer was charging) the manufacturer told me that if I modify anything and a patient dies they will blame me for the it. Needless to say we told the client we couldn't be responsible for that and they would have to use whatever the manufacturer sold them. My understanding was that when it comes to medical stuff the entire system is certified as one device so even though its got simple parts, you cannot modify anything or you are voiding the device certification.
Same with Agfa Healthcare Computed Radiography devices (or just CR). In the U.S., if you go into ebay, there are a few CR from the old line (CR30 to Cr85), you can get those to replace/repair your CR, but parts like motors, you have to get them from Agfa (if they have it) or get an old used CR for parts. And for the DX line up, although they are still "new", soon they will be replaced by the DR line up. Agfa CR are still in use in many countries, specially in the middle east and latin-america. And the spare parts market is really small sometimes. As for repairs, they are not so hard to repair, if you are good with computers and have skills to assemble and disassemble, they are quite easy to maintain, and that explains why an old CR25 is still rolling and working today in some places.
Agfa is interesting. Most of their (printer at least) units were designed more for the UK market where the sales reps are also the service techs. They are very highly modular systems. Feed issue? Nope - We wont sell you a new roller or pick up suction cups, you need to replace the whole drawer. They are frustrating.
My company that makes life saving products had a centrifuge get damaged when we were performing weekly PM. One of the threads that holds the bowl in place was stripped. We checked if we could get it serviced. However, we would had to pay the manufacture technician's plane ticket, hotel, per diem and hours of service. We fixed it ourselves instead with a $20 dollars worth of tools. It's sort of ridiculous how much we pay for service contracts as well for our equipment and monitoring devices, which of course breaks down constantly, but is required in order for us to be compliant with regulatory agencies.
To add to the long list of people/groups that should support right to repair, you should see if any environmental organizations would be willing to help get out the message. If devices were able to last longer, there would be less environmental damage from the constant (and often forced) upgrade cycle that has been foisted upon the consumer by large corporations.
I have worked with medical equipment repression. Once upon a time, an HDD 512 Mb (store price about 100 Usd) failed at that time. We demanded 1000 Usd for it. Plus work. If they did not buy work and parts from us, we refused and calibrate the machine the PC controlled. This was and is how it is with everything for medical equipment in Norway.
Maintenance supervisor for nursing home facility. Before company purchased lift chairs and other equitment. I call the manufacture about the equitment we are looking at to purchase. I look into the availability of its repair aspects. Then look up part numbers and call to see if parts are truly available. Naturally it's got too be larger investments weather by 5 components or 1 large coat.
Excellent interview highlighting far reaching this issue is. Literally every from farming, technology, education, health, etc. Is affected negatively by this nonsense
We have "surgical" (overhead) lights where I work. There is a pin-stop that keeps the lamp arm from turning more than 360 degrees and tearing the electrical power wire. We have a couple where the pin sheared off. My biomedical engineering department is not * allowed * to replace them with a precisely machined pins because it's not made by the original manufacturer (as is not available from them) . The solution? - they want us to buy a new $1500 lamp. I have 50 of these in my department, that's $75,000 just work lights...
Well. Unfortunately it is understandable. Liability issue. If lamp would fail in some catastrophic way causing damage because of improperly manufactured pin, whom to blame? Who is going to bear responsibility? To get over the problem properly the pin would have to be tested, and certified that it fulfills all reliability criteria. Sounds like headache already?
@@MrPzyt I understand. General aviation (small planes like Cessna, etc) is the same. A "certified" replacement part is 3x the price of a regular unit. You must use certified parts unless the plane is registered as "experimental".
Sounds like every other field of repairing things. I did think that medical companies would be a lot more professional given the cost of their equipment and how much money is lost if its not functional. One reason I never buy American stuff is because the companies are such assholes when it comes to parts and service. You are right about them wanting to screw money out of you on an ongoing basis rather than just for the occasional spare part.
look at the money most AMERICAN companies are "returning" to shareholders VS "CAPEX" and wonder why America is NOT the place it WAS as far as manufacturing
The problem with medical equipment is that it doesn't always work this way. Medical certification is more expensive than consumer certification - giving less flexibility for the company to 'grab another part' and fix it that way. 2nd is supply and demand. Surgical tables are not high in demand; competition is steep, because you only need a few other competitors to severely fragment the market. This also means that, there are few players in the market as well that will survive. As a result, prices are way higher than they would be. Add 00 at the end of whatever price you are thinking, thats a good start. 3rd important point is that the earning model of med device companies is not in Selling the device - but the Maintenance of it. Often they will give huge discounts on the sale of products - even more if you buy the machine in 'bulk' for the hospital. Sometimes they even sell products/machines for next to nothing to keep you in the maintenance contract. The combined software package with some equipment usually is on a yearly fee for the right to run it and receive updates / maintenance / troubleshooting support. You typically pay some insane amount per user. To give an idea, in Holland the radiotherapy machine costs 1.5mil eu new (will run for about 10years). But the server workstation lisence to make treatmentplans costs 100k a year (and you typically make 4 plans a day per lisence) - oh and the hardware in it isnt even that special for a server... Maintenance per machine costs somewhere less than that 100k but not sure how much. The maintenance constract means that a company technician is on site within hours of a fatal hardware fault (machine wont work), and new parts arrive after days, which we are still charged for...
I had an ambulance ride from San Angelo Texas to Dallas, Texas. ABout 250 miles, 4 hours. No meds given, just a hospital transfer. My insurance paid out like $12,000 and I was billed $5000. After that, I refused ambulance transfers and that cost me $60.
Wow youtube is being good with these video recommendations. Last one was a video cbs on Right to Repair now its advertising Eli talking about Right to Repair.
We severely need 3 things for right to repair: 1. Allow open bid of manufacturer capacity, sale of excess unspoken for part stock, and banning the "no sell" contracts 2. Require schematics+board view for devices sold, in 2 formats: a document (physical and pdf), and a standardized data format that a program can read and allow easy navigation / id of traces, components, etc -- like zxw tool / paul daniels software 3. The ABILITY to repair reasonably without having to go to the manufacturer - NO bs serialization that prevents operation of features (you need to DETECT feature support in a device), no "multi part locks" for "security" that cannot be reset, no blacklisting of parts (fail gracefully / degrade gracefully if shitty parts used), access to pairing tools, diagnostic software, and no "booby traps" when opening the device (eg: hiding a thin ribbon cable under a sticker in hopes the repair person damages it), etc. Basically, give people access to parts at market availability, provide info on how the device is assembled / designed circuit wise, and make it REASONABLE to repair without bullshit blacklisting of parts, or rejecting parts due to serialization. If security is needed, then allow WIPING of sensitive data to get a working device again. This does let them say "well, if you want data, you have to go to us, but we can address that later if need be in a separate push). They could also say the "os" or "firmware" is user data, and is wiped in repairing, so could use that as a loophole. This seems like a lot, but companies already have this info, and DELIBERATELY fight to not allow this info/tools so people can repair. If somebody repairs a device insecurely / badly... well then that repairman was malicious. We don't ban people from replacing their own house locks / verifying they own the house and getting a 3rd party to replace them. People can easily install a lock cylinder with a "master key" without you knowing, and sell that so you can be robbed. But that's not really a concern, as we have legal ramifications for that.
Many of the proprietary parts in biomed field come from government requests. Boards need to be intrinsically grounded which requires stupid and proprietary board design. One I run into a lot working on hospital beds is the screws are a regular self tapping screw that are blunt. They are 3$ a pop for a 1/4” screw because they are blunt. Buy a bag of them and hit a bench grinder for a half hour and you have 100 for 5$ and time. All because a lawmaker decided you can’t have sharp screws where they are inaccessible in some clinical setting. There is a strong biomed info sharing community with corrected part numbers for almost anything you need. Most is not online for fear of being sued so make friends and contribute and you can get stuff done. Companies will intentionally have schematics with wrong part numbers available to the public. (Stryker). Had to get corrected one from a good outside rep but that is a new line of right to repair fraud that is unacceptable.
@@evannibbe9375 nah the government is just people who listen to who pays them **lobiest** so the only way to change it is to replace them with yourself
@@evannibbe9375 The thing that makes your statement wrong is that me and you don't get lobbied and paid off by billion dollar corporations, which is a problem that needs to be fixed BEFORE we give the government any more power.
If the product is EOL (end of life) most manufacturers still keep some stock of parts on hand sometimes for years, there is also a very extensive grey market where 3rd party service providers buy from places upgrading to newer models and then resell parts etc. Things like motors are usually made by some other company so you can sometimes source that direct especially if the original purchasers have discontinued usage.
Hello Mr. Rossmann, I think an angle that you're missing when talking with these people who are making the judgements for "Right to Repair" is the most simple and relatable for everyone. These companies are SO HARD PRESSED to make it so "everyday people" CANNOT repair their own property, that it's easily related to this example: Just think about when we were kids, riding around on our bikes. We were fixing them all the time. The most common thing that we had to do was, put the chain back on. You unbolted the back wheel, moved the wheel forward, put the chain back on, scooted the wheel back to tension the chain and bolted the wheel back on. So simple that we were doing it at the age of 6. With the way companies are approaching the "Right to Repair" THIS is how that repair would go. You get out of school, finnish your homework and can go out and play. You hop on your bike to go to your friends house to hang out and POP, your chain comes off. Remember, you can't repair it. So, you go inside and tell your Dad/Mom what happened. Remember, they can't repair it either. They tell you that they'll have to call Husky in the morning to come put your chain back on. So, you walk back and forth from your friends house for 2 weeks until the Repair "Tech" shows up and fixes your chain. You get home from school, and your Dad/Mom tells you that the repair man from Husky came by and fixed your bike. And, because you've been having to walk to your friends house for the past 2 weeks, you can do your homework later after you get home from your friends house. Excited, you run outside to your bike, hop on it and start riding it towards your friends place. In your excitement, you do what EVERY kid has done. You get up off the seat, stand up on your pedals, grab the handlebars tight, get a big grin on your face, lean forward and PUT ON THE GAS! You stomp on the pedal at its apex for maximum force to finally feel the wind blow through your hair again... POP... Your chain comes off again, you're not ONE BLOCK from your house! You slow down, hop off your bike, throw it to the ground and (with no parents around) start letting out a fluid stream of foul mouth that rivals Ralphy's when he finally snapped on the bully from the Christmas Story... Because you know: 1) Some how YOU are going to be blamed for your bike not working again. 2) Your parents might not have the money to repair it again. 3) In all cases, you'll be walking to your friends house for the next few weeks. All because Husky (in this case), won't let you, or ANYONE, other than "Husky Trained Techs", unscrew a bolt, put the chain back on, and screw the bolt back down. I hope this helps. 😆 Thanks for Reading, Good Luck to You, ~xRYUKAMIx
i work as a service technician in the medical section in venezuela, and most of the time equipment goes down its the same history that was shown in the video, also the bigger vendors of equipment here have a really bad reputation of doing more damage you your equipment than it already has. and part sourcing is usually done almost as back alley deals, there are no real vendors for parts, just old decomisioned equipment as donor, sometimes you have to adapt other parts to be able to make things works
Right to repair encourages reuse and extends the life of devices. Keeps stuff out of the waste stream, raw materials don't need to be mined, and someone probably saves money. Regulations keep a lot of medical equipment from being salvaged.
The company I work for tries to keep a level of possible migration with previous tech, so If a motor of ours that is old fails it should be possible for one of the newer ones to be set in compatibility mode and do the same work as the grandfathered series, within reason over 30ish years is still a bit over. I do think that there should be equipment standards so you don't lose a life because you couldn't find a motor. A company I worked for used to dedicate itself to building imitation motors for old equipment, their largest revenue was for spare parts for gasline valves.
As an electrician, I had to replace a gearbox on a conveyor dishwasher. From the company the part was $1200 plus delivery. I went on the internet and found the exact same part for $600 delivered so just look around on the web
Louis starts to sound more and more like a professional lawyer (in a good way). Good job louis, you are the one channel i have suscribed to which deals with nothing that really matters to me, but I still like your very-well-put-together content.
it is quite importiant to keep in mind that you in fact need specialized hardware in an Operation room. they must be EX certified and have a galvanic isolation on every component. It's common, that several flamable gases are used when performing a surgery. as example, if you swap the GPU with a random one, you're taking the risk to blow up the room. Such components need to be engeneered for this specific reason. If you take an other GPU that meets the requirement, you also must re-certify the system as a whole. Good luck with that. I agree on the O-Ring
Coming from en ex-OEM SE - one common thing is that 3rd party companies or clinics are not given a full service manual. For internals there is usually a supplement document under different creative names, that contains a lot of crucial data, unavailable to others
This kind of thing happens in many industries. I got a used Hobart dishwasher. I found the hoses were all rotted out. I looked at Hobart's catalog and the hoses costs over $100 dollars EACH. Really expensive for a few hoses under a foot long. I looked up the technical specs of the hoses and bought hoses from another manufactured that far exceeded the standard of the old hoses for around $10 each. I work in technical support for a company that sells medical equipment, I can understand some of the issues with right to repair. Who ever does the repair should be liable if something goes wrong. But if some unknown 3rd party has been tinkering around and something goes wrong the manufacturer will probably get blamed for the issue. 3rd party repair people can really screw up our equipment because they have no clue it needs to be aligned, and even if they did it's months of training to learn how, from a tiny staff that doesn't have the resources. As for old equipment, sometimes they do become unserviceable, when no one makes the parts any more. We keep a stock of parts we refurbished from customers that upgraded, but then we have to pay an inventory tax, so eventually they throw them away. After that servicing becomes impossible. On a side note if you contact a manufacturer directly to get a part they may tattle on you. We had the company that manufactures our stages contact us to tell us that a certain one of our customers contacted them directly looking for a stage.
I just replaced an o-ring to a water pump, solid brass block from 30 years ago or more. They still do replacement parts (though probably out of manufacture, so "new" old stock). Ordered new o-rings, and they just sent a rando one by the looks of it, thankfully the new seals I ordered were right and a perfect fit. You know what though, all those seals and o-rings are replaceable with patterned/measured parts. I just need to know the measurements and can order them from anyone/anywhere, even if it needs to be cut to custom size.
Easy fix: remove liability from the companies that make the medical hardware. Once smaller competitors don't have to pay millions of dollars a year in government-mandated private liability insurance and retain hundreds of lawyers and attorneys for any possible litigation resulting from a claim then then competition from smaller companies would blossom and the market would be free to correct not only the prices of the hardware, but also create the ability for customers to choose more repairable alternatives.
Re: medical- In the old days Biomeds did chip level repairs, but the complexity has significantly increased and miniaturized. With with the number of devices skyrocketing they don’t have the time to sit and analyze schematics to do chip level repairs. Board level -yes. Still many items are repairable but require factory training to have access to parts. (Seen as a responsibility by the mfg for good or bad) boards should be available along with test procedures and final test procedures and data sheets to submit to the hospital and maybe the mfg for tracking trends. High dollar items increase the cost of service requiring special tools, training, OJT and software. There are plenty of off the shelf parts used in expensive equipment that should be allowable to replace, but buying from alternate sources and alternate hardware has some risk. For example- Technology changes so much in 5 years the chips on video cards can be impossible to get after 3-5 years a newer video card may be found that would be considered an improvement, but the drivers or software it uses can reassign resources in the device causing the device to fail. (I’ve seen that happen with something as innocent as printer drivers packages.) Manufacturers can’t do the same type of repairs 3rd parties can due to FDA requirements and liability. You can’t cannibalize scrapped units without returning them and running the parts through a series of tests with a paper trail all for the FDA. They are then sold or used as reprocessed or refurbished. I work on equipment that takes two years to become on your own proficient to troubleshoot and repair after the 6 week training. Most 3rd party companies won’t invest the time and energy with a high turnover staff. Liability is often the driver to not purchase service from 3rd party. Not to mention the FDA’s strict rules on changing or modifying hardware in a controlled device. I am 100% for right to Repair! Customers often want the biggest bang for the buck and are willing to go on the cheap. For many things that’s OK, but for medical… I think there does need to be some more thinking and consideration then just opening up parts to everyone who thinks they can do a repair on a piece of equipment going to be used to save a life. I know plenty of people who think they can fix anything and settle for it’s good enough. It’s good enough in medical isn’t acceptable. In the end it’s a lawyers decision for big hospitals and a financial decision for smaller facilities.
VW had a commercial where they said they'll have any part and bolt available for 25 Years or something. But I needed a rubber hose and they only sell the whole fuel line system which is insane. I'm better off buying a used car. Anyway, I bought some lawn mower hoses, but they are bad quality, it's $1.00 USD, but I have to change it every year because it cracks and gasoline vapors escape from it in a hot engine compartment. Opposed to $600 USD, but it lasts 18 years.
@@fredbloggs5902 it's possible, but it's putting people at risk. I replaced the fuel hoses with air hoses at some point, as a temporary fix, while I searched for proper fuel hoses. The hoses got eaten away and popped out. Luckily it happened while the engine was cold or else... Who knows...
@@captainheat2314 I found some Teflon tubing, but I need a some AN fittings and adapters, but I'm not sure it would fit my system. So I'm stuck with the $1.00 "nitrile rubber" hose. (I doubt it's Nitrile Rubber)
@@captainheat2314 Replacement hose: SEMPERIT FUB FUEL DN 8 PN 12 bar, Made in EU I think DN stands for ID (internal diameter) which is 8mm. PN might be Nominal Pressure. Stock hoses didn't have writings left on them, but they wore the original VW Mk.4 Golf 1.4 16v AXP engine.
After watching this video, I got to say something. I am a retired senior X-Ray service engineer. I had spent over 30 years installing and repairing X-Ray equipment. All of this time I spent working for 3rd party companies. The last one I spent 25 years working for. The guy you have on there is talking about equipment that is past its serviceable life. Yes, I have had to tell customers that their equipment is no longer serviceable. Then they ask is there anything I can do to fix it find a different part that will work in it. The service personal is not allowed to put parts that are not factory certified in the equipment for safety reasons. As technology changes and the manufactures have to keep up. I am not saying there should not be a right to repair for 3rd party venders. When it comes to medical equipment would you want a factory trained person work on it or someone that is not trained. In my career I went to numerous schools to work on different equipment. In most cases the schools I went to were so I could work on the equipment. Medical equipment in most cases is very sophisticated and one has to have a working knowledge of what one is working on. If you are going to be talking about the right to repair stick to your apple computers/phones/iPads or ever farm equipment but stay away from medical equipment as it takes highly trained individuals to work on them as your life depends on how good of a job they do.
I've used to work in a small SMT production facility in my hometown. Company used cheap Chinese SMT line which started with a printer literally from 1999 (Bought in 2013 as "new", but in fact the whole machine was developed and first time sold in 1999). One day piston which stops PCBs on the conveyor stuck in drawn out position. Thankfully machine spotted that and refused to work at all. Calling manufacturer and asking "what is that and how to fix this shit?" is useless since manufacturer probably speaks ONLY Chinese and we would be really god damn lucky if the company even exists today. So what guys from technician department did is disassembled IBM-PC machine and took apart all PCI-e components on a test. They found out that a tiny common diode suddenly changed his voltage threshold and now operates at lowest as 9v instead of 3 or close to zero. We quickly found a similar diode in our component warehouse and fixed the god damn board. Worked as a charm. Later during my working years I found out that every machine on every line is a PC based machine with few "dedicated" parts in them. Basically what those machines are is a tons of pistons, sensors, movable solenoids and other stuff all controlled by a PC machine through numerous ports. The true uniqueness is those PCI-e boards which are most likely one of a kind and only for this exact machine and model. You cant even update system software on these machines as drivers for those boards were written for old operating systems. Luckily we were able to do that as those machines were ours and ours to exploit. Medical equipment is totally different league in itself. Yet it does not change the fact that everything is possible to fix if you know what you are doing. Unless you cant get parts for it of course.
As a type 1 diabetic with an insulin pump, fortunately my experience has always been positive dealing with medical device companies. If my device were to become faulty within the warranty period of the product (which tends to be quite long compared to other warranty products), the medical device company would overnight a replacement to me. Great this is how it should work. NOW lets say I lose my job, my health insurance, and my insulin pump is no longer under warranty period. If my pump were to go down, I would have no reasonable option to repair or replace the device. These devices usually cost anywhere from $6k-10k for something the size of a pager. Having the option to repair the device myself, or have some electronics repair shop do it would be good, but I don't think I'd ever use it. What if the person dies after fixing it himself because it malfunctions? The device could no longer be considered "validated" or certified to work within its specified parameters. Having education or training on this subject could fix some of that. There would need to be some clause with medical devices making it so that the manufacturer would not be responsible for personal injury or loss of life after repairing their products.
The dairy plant I used to work at had Tetra-Pak cream separators. I believed they allowed the company to send maintenance techs to train how to tear them down to replace seals and PM them. But they rarely took them apart because they were worried to damage any of the carbon seals or the stack disk arrangement inside the bell housing. I'm not positive but I have heard wind that these cost about $400,000 just for the separator. That isn't installation, complete plumbing, CIP system, utilities etc. The company had 7 of them.
I'm a RN in a regional teaching hospital. It's a BIG deal when an OR tanks. We don't have spare OR tables in storage. An OR down means dozens of cancelled surgeries, anywhere from 3 to 8 surgeries A DAY until the problem is fixed. These patients have already been waiting weeks or months. If the surgery is urgent, cancer, trauma, etc., those patients will 'bump' another theatre.
that is a really interesting point, often when there are waitlist times politicians blame the other side or they promise to fix it by throwing money or whatever. i wonder how many issues are caused by technical problems not the staff. seems like an issue, that could be brought up further politically - granny can't get operation as we cant fix the equipment.
I remember when the pandemic started off and hospitals were overwhelmed and these garbage companies wouldn't allow repairs. You had patients dying because ventilators and other life saving equipment was down and desperately needed repairs that hospital techs were doing anything including ghetto rigging motors, batteries ac fan blower units from cars just to make it work.
This is really interesting. I can see how the danger of incompetent repairs causing medical errors (in the immediate presence of medical professionals, mind you) would be VASTLY outweighed by the downtime added by increasing the barriers to repair. In debate, you are always supposed to refute your opposition's STRONGEST argument first. I can't see how someone could even refute this little tid bit of measurable calculus let alone the more basal human freedoms and environmental protection arguments.
A small company has ethics because a customer can point the finger at the boss easy. even take a small company to court. so if a parts manufacturer refuses to sell you a part, take them to court over ensued damages until they sell that part. This is the right thing to do.
@@ashot11223 I find it very troubling to declare that ethics are solely the result of avoiding conflict or consequences. Your comment also makes no sense because as you correctly point out sueing the ownership of a smaller company is easier than a larger one due to their lack of resources; they can't lock you in a costly legal battle like larger companies. You should see how the cost prohibitive nature and disprortionate influence over lawmakers would make larger companies HARDER to successfully pursue legal actions against...
Regardless, smaller companies have ethics because they will not become successful without clients, who will not recommend them if they do not do what they say they will do. 'Deontological ethics' are very primitive forms of ethics. Rarely would someone in western society rely on this as their primary moral compass. It would better be described as simple law adherence or codified religious morality, not ethics. Currently, parts manufacturers are within their legal rights.
If a parts manufacturer refuses to sell you a part, you have absolutely no recourse. It is currently almost always in violation of some contract or deal between entities if aftermarket or oem parts are available through a third party.
Compulsion by law for manufacturers to sell you parts is not, nor has it ever been a right to repair platform, rather to stop PREVENTING the market from facilitating these transactions. Meaning, whoever is manufacturing that part should be able to make it available to the public in order to repair their goods (for a markup) on behalf of, or in spite of the product manufacturer. There will always be market restrictions which prevent manufacturers from maintaining a parts supply, and this is not something we should attempt to regulate away, as it adds an unreasonable dimension of liability and risk to producers.
Did you know the FDA did a report on third party servicing of medical equipment and found that there wasn't sufficient evidence to conclude third party repairers caused a problem? www.fda.gov/media/113431/download
The more you know!
I didn't realize when I hit the record button in zoom it would sound like a 70s tv. sorry :/ I'll use OBS next time.
If you turn on original audio in zoom settings it fixes that
It's okay. Takes us back to a time before all this mess
Here for the aesthetic, put a video filter on next time too!
Loouuu you doing great work man!! Remember to add the GoFundMe link!!!
Hey, at least it's better than my math teachers zoom recording. The recorded video is 240p and the audio is so compressedi can barely hear them 😂😂
It's good to bring up other aspects than laptops and phones to the matter.
Hopefully it doesn't just go in one ear and out the other and people continue saying it's just Apple that's the problem.
@@WanderTheNomad no its just Honda and Apple
I'm not a repair person but this channel has exposed me to issues I didn't know existed! I appreciate you featuring this guy's story, this is ridiculous.
Thank you for watching!
@@Matthias_Fischer I am sorry but I can't find the details of the parts of the products on the site? Could you give an explanation of where to find them?
@@Matthias_Fischer I require proof. Link me.
@@Matthias_Fischer Certified apple technicians exist too, except they aren't allowed to do what Louis does. Certified just means you have permission from the company.
@@rossmanngroup Louis, it looks like this guys story may not be 100% true. Refer to: skytron.dcatalog.com/. Past end of life equipment may not be covered though, and I wouldn't see that as being negative.
i am a nurse to preface this, i work in a level 3 trauma center / community hospital. because its so difficult and expensive to get new parts for some of our devices many of them remain broken or missing functionality for months, we need them so badly each day that removing them even for a few days just isnt an option, or its so prohibitively expensive that we can't afford it. just wanted to add my expierence.
My sister is looking to get into a hospital after having worked some really crappy conditions at a nursing home(she's a CNA), I imagine she is going to be really dissapointed to see that.(despite how a couple of the managers are there treat her she really cares about the patients but just can't take the abuse they give her, apparently HR informed the managers about her complaints if her stories are accurate. Remember folks HR isn't actually there for the employees it's there to get ahead of lawsuits.)
I'm an EMT and it SUCKS when a small ER's CT machine goes down and we have to spend days shipping their patients to different ERs because the people that make the machine are snails about sending someone out to fix it
@Cole S True but if the alternative is sorry we will not treat you until the technician comes next week, for medical equipment the consequences from that can go from having to come back next week to literal dying so unless it is something like the radioactive core of x-ray machine I don't see why a proper 3rd party technician cant repair it
@Cole S i feel like in a hospital setting that would make sense, to have the person who repairs the device be held responsible for the functionality of it. liability is everywhere in a hospital.
the repairs being preformed on hospital equipment would be held up to higher standards than repairs on non-emergency related devices, and with proper testing after the device is repaired, i would not think it would be less reliable or less functional than it's factory state. often times, (look at automotive recalls) the device will actually become more reliable after the device is repaired.
@Cole S You seem to operating under the assumption that the on-site or third-party repairer is incompetent.
If the manufacturers made the schematics, manuals, and part available then hospitals and medical companies, which are VERY liability conscious, would ensure that their repairer would be trained and certified.
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I interviewed once at a company that repaired and refurbished major medical machinery, but even using new parts from the manufacturer, they were only able to sell the fully functional items they finished to third-world countries, because the device companies hold American hospitals over a barrel.
If a hospital were to use a refurbished, but otherwise perfect machine, companies could easily 'blacklist' that hospital and refuse to sell them anything ever again. Or charge them more for future purchases.
I can see a difference between an operating table motor and a CT machine in terms if complexity. I would trust a repair done by an average competent technician on an electric motor. I would only trust the most specialized and highly trained person to service a CT. Your average doctor can remove a mole, less so perform a brain surgery
@Cole S Its not "I should be able to repair it myself" - its about having the possibility of doing so - as things stand, NO ONE can fix certain things, as explained in the video.
OR Table broken motor:
> OEM: This is end-of-life. Can't repair.
> Motor OEM: Can't sell this to you.
> Third-party technician: Sorry I just can't get this part, if I could I'd fix it for you and save you 98% of the cost of a new item.
I work as a maintenance engineer in a meat packing factory and there is a few machines that have "special parts" and not only do you need to buy that part from the manufacturer, alot of the time they are designed to need a special tool that only they sell and only works for this one job, one example was basically a spanner with a special profile to take of locking nuts, the spanner cost a grand
Same with the lugnuts at the wheels of a Ford Fiesta. My brother blew a tire and responding Highway officers dont have a tirw wrench that could remove the lugnuts. 3 responding units later (wherein a tow truck was already being considered) we were able to flag down another Ford Fiesta whose owner lent us his wrench. The tire wrench provided by Ford is of poor quality that the metal chip and tore after a few uses! My brother feverishly looked for an online non-Food replacement.
I recently brought a welder, wasn't able to remove the disc on my saw after messing about i grabbed a old bit of steel,. drilled two holes and welded two nails into them, cut them down and it worked a treat, i love electronics and thinking "could a tin hat team like me build a duplicate chip board to replace these charging chips he can't get hold of?" then i look at the actual size of the bits and think not today with my eyesight.
@@chrispartosbro4555 Some Chips in the iphone now are smaller than a grain of salt. :(
when this happen you grind down a spanner or get the shape lasercut
same part for a fraction of the price
@@chrispartosbro4555 The problem isn't that we couldn't build a replacement chip or circuit. It's more that they implement serial that says it's a particular chip. Generally, you can buy a chip that functions identically to the apple part, but won't have the apple serial identifier.
I am working in medical devices development more then 20 years and due regulations there is insane amount of paperwork. It is ok for "Big" devices as CT, MR, strongly ok for radiotherapy etc. But same amout of paperwork is required for everything, sometimes I think even for door knobs. And paperwork cost a lot. And paperwork do not stop in moment where development is done. Everytime when you change anything (pump, type of lightbulb, whatever... ) welcome in recertification hell. That's strong motivation for manufacturers to stop support ASAP and sell new device. On the other hand whole process is used by manufacturers of middle range priced devices to sell more. I really do not understand why complicated modern MR and blood preshure meter are same kind of medical device.
To right to repair: I think 90 % can be repaird by anyone with qualification, service manuals and access to certified parts. Rest is on absolutelly different level like MR which is liquid helium cooled or radiotherapy device. And for this kind of stuff , price of hardware is ususally less than half, rest is maintanance, service on site under 24 hours, nonstop remote monitoring etc.
IMO it's doable. I only sweep floors part time for extra cash at the local truck trailer manufactures here, but they do paperwork for every job.
For truck trailers.
Yes, they have risks, insurance, safety etc. If a truck company can do it, medical companies can. They can rebuild an entire trailer from nothing, and have parts/traceability/insurance/testing for the entire chain.
Paperwork is a whole can of worms
Once again, heavy handed regulation makes the consumers the losers.
I'm willing to bet that the overcharging on the fixing of the tables is equally distributed on all of the patients bills
Absolutely
The trickledown theory… all expenses trickles down to the bottom…
Louis is proof that we dont know what we are capable of until we try.
The resistors on the boards of alot of industrial manufacturing equipment (Robots, PLCs, other controllers) have been stripped of their color coding. They make every effort to ensure that the device is unreparable by the factory. Everything you have ever bought is impacted by the lack of right to repair legislation, indirectly at least.
Surface-mounted components are small. So they normally have tiny characters/digits on them. Just that the space to print is tiny and many times there is no print because it's meaningless to even try.
So it's size and not copy-protection that introduces the problem with proper markings. A robot don't need markings when fitting the components. And with schematics, you don't need markings when replacing. The problem comes when the manufacturer refuses access to schematics and component placement information.
I've seen more than a few products where components have been solvent-washed, potted, or sanded down to obscure their markings (including chips where there's plenty of room to silkscreen the Mona Lisa on them if you wanted to) - it's just A Stupid Thing Some Companies Do.
@@michaelgraziano8038 Yes, lots of products have sanded off the markings from chips. But I have never seen it for resistors.
@@perwestermark8920 I think they are special production order units from the component manufacturers.
@@samus4799 That's stupid. Easiest way for copy-protection is to use FPGA or microcontrollers with the copy-protect bit/fuse activated. Then it isn't possible to read out without very advanced equipment. And anyone with that equipment can X-ray the PCB and all chips and measure the properties of discrete components. So no real protection from such adversaries.
Just one thing - lots of equipment with I/O may have EMI filters, PTC etc and some such protection components can look like axial resistors without color rings. A PLC is a prime candidate for that kind of components to protect the individual inputs and outputs.
Ah yes, you only need to look at the Ventilator Crisis to know Right To Repair isn't just about freedom and money, it's about life and death.
@All About Medical Devices that would be the hospital to make sure they hire people that know what they are doing the idea that only the "qualified" people should repair these is the reason why hospitals have to just rebuy entire items there is no replacement and if there is it cost more to do it or longer then just buying new
The manufacturer doesn't need to give out every piece of info or even service it fast just let other people buy and repair them all they have to do is move out the way
@@warhead811 That's why there's a thing called accreditation.
@All About Medical Devices that's the issue they don't sell any parts and half of time oem repair is not nearly sufficient or feasible so most hospitals are better off just rebuying items which is far from financially or environmentally good
the liability of broken devices as discussed in other videos the fdc found that there is little if any difference in quality of the repair vs oem repair when third parties substituted in legally speaking we would have tweak lability to fall on hospitals to implement this or whoever is preforming the repair then which isn't great but idk if anyone has any other ideas the current system has hospitals rebuying thousand dollar beds because no one will sell them a screw
I'm a biomedical engineer at a veterinary hospital and deal with this regularly. On a lot of the more expensive equipment we're limited on what we can do. We're usually forced into a six figure a year service contract or one of us can go to factory training which is usually tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even with the vendor training, many of the companies don't give us the same service resources as the factory and they will only sell us very expensive modular parts. A recent example is on our MRI machine we could only buy a $18k part from Seimens but we found that the problem was a $40 power supply inside the modular part. I also had a hand switch on another machine that I was able to properly repair for $25 after GE wanted to charge $26k for the entire assembly. These are just a few examples but it's frustrating especially when we've gone to all of the factory training and they still extort us. Thanks for bringing this to light Louis.
Ah yes, I love it when someone else tells me my device is "end of life".
You'll be surprised how much how banking software is past end of life and the extended warranty period is also gone. IF they can do it for banking they should be able to do it for every industry.
@@yumri4 good point!
@@yumri4 software is a very peculiar field where things keep working unless you intentionally break them.
So by all means, updates and new versions are always, always counter productive if what you already have works fine.
@@YounesLayachi I agree thus why they have the right to continue using what is insanely out of date. Alike to how we should have the right to keep on using what the manufactures think is "out of date".
Sure we don't use the 64+ core processor like compute servers do but we do want our tech to keep on working for more than 1 year.
Saw the removed video, I’m hoping the idiots responsible are caught!
This conversation is both fascinating and deeply concerning to listen to. Just knowing what this guy is saying means millions of lives are at risk because a manufacturer is too greedy to sell parts is a horrible thought. The worst thing is I could hear genuine concern from this guy in his voice. He knows it's only getting worse for everyone 🙄
Great video Louis, you've opened a lot of eyes with this discussion
Somewhere a medical device vendor is listening to the bit about using a donor video card and telling their engineers, "Next revision we begin serializing all parts...."
No, they're going to the excuse of the Customer not buying their equivalent of "apple care" service.
@@subliminallyinc Only for 10k/month per item.
2 work day fix guarantee.
Oh my god it's the worse, making a PC out of proprietary parts, why reinvent the wheel.
@@YounesLayachi LOL it's because they are greedy little shits, why resell a $200 card when you can manufacture a $5000 card that can only do one thing.
@@YounesLayachi I ask myself that every time someone tells me how great they think Apple Macs are.
I had mentioned this before and got quite a positive response from it. Right to Repair is also a a matter of National Security. The lack of it really does hamper the ability of a nation to do anything at all. Food, health, or simply remain prepared for any type of emergency. Let alone a consumer's rights and well being. It is so much more than that.
Lack of Right to Repair can quite literally bring a country to its knees overnight under the right circumstances. As it is right now, it's a slow burn. But tomorrow? Who knows...
I have a university in my city. They Have a vacuum-chamber from the eighties. The manufacturer is gone. A new one cost in the millions. They wanted to upgrade/replace the aging electronics, so they got somebody to reverse engineer hoe everything works for a year. That was cheaper then buying a new one.
And they can fix it anytime it breaks down.
That was really great Louis, I used to work for a medical equipment recycling company here in Quebec Canada. I can confirm all that was said is true. Most of our business as the recycling company has gone to movie studios cause they don't care if the equipment was not 100% functional. They were like it's all good as long as it power up and we can film it, just tell us how's it working if it's operational normally and we'll fix it with cgi. We rented about 50% of the stuff we tried to recycle to movie production cause it was not resalable. But our ultimate goal was to put those equipment back into service. We were only able to get 25% of the equipment back into service, the movie rental of equipment as props was the bread and butter of the mission. Without the movie rental side of business we could not sustain that business, our repair rate was so low cause our only option was to salvage parts from multiple units to make some viable working ones. Sad but true, also sad that this company no longer exist.
In fact, if a hospital can’t quickly fix a device, that delays urgent medical care for many, many patients.
important point
Do you think medial device technician should drive priority vehicles ?
After all they also save lives by proxy of fixing the machines
If I have something broken I will fix it, If the manufacturer refuses to supply spare parts that is extortion pure and simple.
When you're so early the video is only 720p,
wow, it just gets worse and worse as the story unravels.
I dread to think how much of the world is absolutely fucked because of stuff like this happening.
Does it not occur to companies that you can help the custom AND profit from helping them?
No he recorded in Zoom
He looks younger lol
i used to think 720p looked pretty decent as it was considered HD back when my internet couldn't handle 1080p like 15 years ago.
@@TheCorington 720p can look okay if it’s done right.
I always watch in 360p, it doesn't make any difference for me
You can go to ANY Caterpillar Dealer with the O-ring and they can tell you the size the type of fluid will tell you the material
@@fredbloggs5902 Well you can buy the sizing cone it's about $300.
@@fredbloggs5902 I checked its $40.
most towns of ANY size have "hydraulic shops" that can CUSTOM BUILD you the whole cylinder / rebuild what you have to take a "normal" O ring
@@fredbloggs5902 cat who knows BUT independant hydraulic shops are NOT going anywhere
Right to Repair will make obsolete such workaround one needs to find to overcome these hurdles manufacturers have put in place
Manufacturer: "Sorry, that equipment is end of life."
Surgeon: "Well, if I don't get this thing fixed right now, my patient's going to be end of life!"
Also Surgeon: Sorry "Manufacturer" i cant help you after that accident. You did not repair my equipment.
@@chukkie0001 nah, doctors are usually beyond that mentality
Pretty much describes the US health system...
TBF things do eventually go beyond end of reasonable life. There are a number of reasons for this. Some components become unsourcable. Some designs get so old, they are no longer on par with current technologies. Etc. If you got 20+ years out of a mechanical product like that, you did good and it's time to replace it. Most cars only last 10-15 years, and manufacturers only support them for 10 years with parts.
@@WarpFactor999 yeah, some things do get obsolete, but some are still very functional and save for one component that is still in production, but not available for sale unless you are the manufacturer....
You gotta get a flange and a coupling to go from the pump to a generic brand of motor for the operating table. Then you can just switch the motor out every next time
Heh, I did something like that once. A propitiatory motor failed (non-medical, but explosion proof). Rewinding the stator was something like $10k and a month leadtime. Instead what I did was cut the original motor up and turned the original face into the adapter flange that would allow me to install a 56C explosion proof motor. I think the total cost (minus my labor) was like $500, and the filter was up and running again after like 3 days.
A very important topic, especially in these trying times!
Thank you, Louis!
Louis you should speak with Justin from the Better Biomed Channel as well. It would be great to see you two talk in a live stream as he has raised the same issues as John. I work as an in-house Biomedical Engineering Technologist for a hospital and there's a lot to discuss around this topic. Some changes in the field are due to technological/clinical evolution, and some changes are simply corporate profiteering.
Growing up my dad worked repairing endoscopy equipment, first for Olympus then started his own business. Was pretty cool, he would just swap out video cards and make bank.
I suppose the manufacturers wanna keep that bank now lol
Interesting. Is the company still around? If so, what’s the name?
@@krdow9 nope it is definitely not still around, he hasn’t done endoscopy work since about 2004. He had a slick deal set up one of his best friends was a guy who bought and sold the equipment to hospitals and dad serviced any machines coming or going. Had the units shipped to the house too, he converted one of the bedrooms into a workspace and worked on them whenever he felt like it. We’d get light sources and video processors shipped to us from around the globe, we’d get units shipped in that took 3 weeks to get from Africa, he’d crack the top, replace one board in 2 minutes and ship it right back out invoiced. Eventually the manufactures made it almost impossible to obtain the necessary replacement parts and the units themselves started being built with far less quality. Much like how everything electronic that used to be robust and serviceable has become cheap plastic garbage that’s easier to just throw away and buy a new one.
Re the other video that was removed. Just a recommendation, install two firestations in your shop, at the front and the rear, two fire extinguishers at each, or three per code, add a flashlight to each and possibly a face mask. Put up the signs and have them checked every year. Your local FD could help you. Remember to demarcate them with orange and black striped lines. OHSAS is important but may save your life. It sems rom what I can see, that the flamable liquid that was used was not normal, that it one of the reasons you ran out of extinguisher. If you install a camera, be aware of federal and local laws. The accelerant used would be interesting to know.
I was in an emergency room one evening and the EKG cord had a short and told the ER Dr. that the cord had a short! He said they can't fix it because it has not failed! I said I learned in electronics class to cut the cord and that makes it fixable if it is a safety hazard! ...and unplug the machine first of course! Ha! I told him I could fix it, but he said it has to be certified, and couldn't be soldered only replaced! $2000.00+ cost! I asked for a discount because of my electronic diagnosis, and sure as heck I got one!!!
Might try to get state DOTs on board. I’ve worked in their parts depts, and entire districts of roads would be shut down if they couldn’t get parts/fix plow trucks during a snow storm.
my dad once tried to repair a hv power supply for a detector tube in a 15 year old xray scanner. he called the company that produced the part because they where producing a fairly simmilar part to that day. they told him they didn't never rpoduced that part and had no information on it. a out a day later some gentleman calls him back and tells him they infact produced the part for a company back then but werent supposed to tell anybody and they can't sell him the part or tell him any specs.
Mr. Rossman, keep up the good fight. This topic is something that we need to have a national conversation about. Thank you for taking this on!
I work for the IT&Hardware department of our local hospital. For ordering the right size prothesis, you need a scale on the radiogram. This is typically acheived by a 25.000mm steel ball on the image (in the same plane as the joint to replace). Over time, these steel balls have a certain tendency to "disappear". You can either buy them from the manufacturer of the x-ray system or you can buy them as truck spare parts: bearing balls with the same diameter cost not even 5% of the "medical device". And hygiene is - for once - not really an issue here ;-) Nevertheless: you have to get the OK from a qualified radiologist.
Greetings from Switzerland
Should always link the go fund me page in the description please ❤️
This is the best thing you could do: conversations with people in other fields just to show the true extent of the problem !
Seen your removed fire video, we don't always see eye to eye, but my prepper instinct tells me you are being targeted. Get surveillance cameras ASAP
i have them it got tiring to see that spammed nonstop no matter how many times i replied to it and said we have them. it also didn't make sense to give whomever did it the kicks of knowing it got a reaction.
Well I just rest my router thinking it was on my end when the comments broke lol. Best of luck tho, hopefully this was just a two time thing...
@@rossmanngroup Fair enough, time to step up security, you're in the big leagues now ;)
Ah okay, I thought this had to do with the recent insurance scam or maybe those jokes about not having a working extinguisher _anymore_ became real
@@CanadianPrepper is canadian pepper like doctor pepper but with maple or smth?
This is absolutely insane, but sadly not surprising in the least.
I think Louis, the problem here is that the opportunity cost of that motor is 40k USD. They could sell one to you or put it in a brand new table - you know what a company would wish to do.
In most of the supply chains these days, they run as per a demand plan which is closely tied to manufacturer's production plan, especially because most companies don't plan much for spares based on market feedback and instead work on the probability that X% would need replacement. That can go horribly wrong.
Stocking spares again is just working capital down the drain. You don't know when demand will actually come over the product life or even beyond.
Given these uncertainities with spares, a company internally would find it way easier to say I can't replace the part and save on inventory space, Working capital, gets leaner supply chain as they can also then pressrize the supplier into reducing prices since they save on carrying costs as well, and that's what most do.
thank you for taking this conversation to every place it is applicable and publicizing it. you really are doing important work with each video on this
Awesome insight to those ridiculous money making schemes. If we don’t get right to repair soon this will completely break our neck and leave us at the mercy of industrial conglomerates
I worked in an FDA regulated industry. I can tell you the amount of documentation with the Device History Record of products is a lot. When you take implantable electronics from someone they have to discard them because of cleanliness after being in the body. If third party can be approved with FDA regulations I don't see it as a problem and that the DHR can be updated with the latest changed. Ultimately its about the safety to the patients and compliance to FDA. If those can be met I don't have a problem with it. If they can lower the cost of health care thats also a win. I think the biggest cost is designing the products and working with the FDA to approved these products. It would be good if the FDA had supercomputers to rigorously test the devices and make it not so costly when the manufactures want to update the device. Any updates usually cost going through the FDA process again.
what a great interview. Many thanks for it.
Someone below commented that it's good to bring up other aspects of of this issue than just laptops and cell phones and I agree completely. I'd love to see Louis bring on a farm equipment technician or another specialist who is tangentially involved in the right to repair movement.
I'm not sure if he has brought anyone on, but he has talked about friends in the Right to Repair movement in farming equipment.
I used to fix lab equipment for life sciences research. I found that it was way easier to get parts for things. I could easily email manufacturer and ask for a certain part and most of the time I could get things. It would be pretty pricey but we got it. We had steris autoclaves. They had pretty good tech support for their parts. They are fairly protective of sharing of information but we could still ask them questions and they even emailed us to notify that they were discontinuing their electronic board that they were using 2004-2019. And offered to let us purchase them before it was no longer in stock. Only major manufacturer we couldn't get parts for or information from was beckman centrifuges. Other manufacturer like fisher scientific or vwr were fairly responsive and was able to supply parts. Sadly most parts were made just for that device but at least they were able to supply us with most things.
Can you please link your gofundme in your videos so it can be easier to find and easier to donate
The impacts of this are outrageous. Costs passed onto the consumer is just the tip of the iceberg.
I love this channel you guys are awesome thanks for giving us even more perspective, John! Appreciate ya
The da Vinci machine system is a medical miracle in and of itself!!!! I would love to find out the service maintenance protocol on the system...multiple internet systems. Multiple computer redundancy systems, and a few technicians to keep it running smoothly before, during, and after surgery! Gee I wonder if I was a repair tech for them if I would need medical malpractice insurance too! A former student of mine finished med school at USC and said the students trained on it during its down time and watched several surgeries performed by remote Doctors! Thanks for this video! You always have awesome content and make people think!!! And as always...I have learned something new!
@Louis Rossman
I work for one of the biggest medical equmiment companies.
First of all documentation is quite a lot of paper. You cannot compare this to a car truck or whatever.
Usually the service life of a system is 10 year after the last system was deliverd. Most (>99%) spare parts are on stock in different warehouses around the world, so they can be delivered within 24 hours.
Even for us as the manufacturer it is very difficult to provide spare parts after at the end of the servicelife often already during servicelife.
In comparison to e.g. notebooks there are only very few system sold. There are products which are sold less then 100 times per year. Or even less then 200 times in total. But these system contain very specific mechanics and electronics.
The biggest problem is the availability of certain parts like RAM-Moduls, oscillators, PCs, Graphiccards etc.. The productionperiode of these parts is limited. If a product is discontinued, we have to estimate how many we will need until end of support to stock them. If our calculation is wrong we have to find these parts. We bought parts for like 100 times their original retail price because only one vendor had them on stock.
For each part there is a detailed specification that includes the exact version of hardware and software.
Regulation does not allow us to use alternative products without extensiv testing.
There is a reason for this:
e.g. a ceiling mounted system can perform inintended movments due to a newer version RAM-Chip in a motorcontroller.
Processing of images can fail due to a wrong firmware on a graphics card.
I can give you dozend of examples like this.
We also buy used systems back to harvest spare parts. But there are countries which do not allow the delivery of used spare parts. Good luck finding a new 2005 PC with a very specific system configuration.
We know how which of our systems are in operation, even after end of support. Due to limited storage and cost of storage we have to decide when to scrap spare parts. If 5 years after end of service your system, which is the last of its kind in operation worldwide, dies due to a dead circuit board we cannot help you. If you can find a third party service provider who can fix it good for you, but be aware of liability.
Then there are people that don't have the manual - and add "Hydraulic fluid" from a normal auto store and add ATF - causing all the gaskets in the solenoid control box to expand and break/jam up because the MFG doesn't like to specify the exact type of hydraulics oil you should use... If you can find a manual for it. Most of the sites that host manuals for surgical tables have received many C&D letters for specific models. It is a huge pain.
So what, it's like you don't want to ask a girl out because she might refuse, but by doying nothing you already refuse yourself.
IMHO that is a furthering of this "lifetime service provider" mindset that these companies WANT to get everybody into
in the "olden" days that would be published in the included service manual where as NOW they want you to pay the authorized repair service to "service and inspect" your equipment
@@jasonriddell Service manual for example says - Hydraulic oil PN:XXXXXXX. The cap for the baby tank says - use SKYTRON Hydraulic oil only. They wont sell it to you. That is the issue. Some naïve inhouse techs that doesn't know or have access to the proper information make a mistake and cause a huge issue (being now the equipment needs a $12k solenoid box that is "not field serviceable"). It is a double sided blade - but it all starts with actually having access to know you need to use Shell Tellus S2 V 32. Them hiding that information is a huge part of what can and does cause problems that are easily avoidable.
@@BHBalast No idea what you are going on about, but good luck with that girl.
I just thumbs up every Louis video now. How can you not like this guy? Youd have to be a lobbyist.
I work in maintenance at small company producing ladders. I have definately seen this shift taking place.
For example. Those plastic straps on a package or cargo pallet. The machine that pulls and fuse them together. We have always service them our selves. On the older models there were always an exploded view and spare parts list in the manual.
Not on the latest model.
When I called the company about it I was tild that they no longer provide those and that I have to send it in to an authorized service center to service it.
No thanks, guess we're only using the older ones from now on.
Aviation, medical, nuclear...I worked on nuclear safety and control systems and I'm pretty sure the acceptance criteria would be the same for all these...the unit would be tested beyond manufacturer specs at the repair location and again at the in-service location no matter who repairs it. None of the items are used to a high level and typically operate at around 50% of maximum capability. Plenty of the stuff is old and the companies are no longer in existence so I had to do what you sometimes have to do and consult the datasheets to find a suitable replacement part. The info then goes to engineering and dedication so I might get the part in 6-12 months...
Canadian armed forces can NOT get repair information on there "non combat" support vehicles beyond the "civilian" versions of the same as when "sold" new it was a "full service" contract and Navistar does NOT provide manuals for stuff under contract and now off contract is of little help supporting equipment that has "rotated out" of active duty on front line divisions but is used in training and "reserve unit"
@@jasonriddell Yeah I had some security-related equipment where they would not provide me any information on. Some MW detection equipment I was able to figure out and replicate a duct-taped version of the system, but any of the items that mounted to a gun I had to send back unserviced...30 year old equipment..
I used to work as a Biomed in a dutch hospital/clinic. I also have a few examples where big medical equipment manufacturers keep schematics and parts to themselves. I'm not going to name any but my collegue and me discovered a simple rotary encoder to be defective inside a ventilator one day. The company charged us around $250 while we managed to find the exact same part from RS components for les than $6. We were not allowed to use it because it would become a liability issue if something went wrong during use. Another company would not let us replace a simple cable on a electrically adjustable leg-rest (Which would be clamped on an OR Table). We have no clue as to why, but they just wouldn't sell the cable to us. And those are just a few examples. Of course in the medical world, there's a lot of laws and regulations for servicing equipment, because many times life depends on it. But even we as certified technicians can't just do some of the simplest things, which would save the patient, the hospital and even the manufacturer a lot of money and/or time.
Really interesting talk Louis. I work in the semiconductor industry. The market power the equipment vendors have to force this kind of waste is wild. It makes me eyes twitch daily.
So I used to for a major third party medical tool repair firm that you've actually talked to and featured in your videos before and I can readily attest to the fact that medical companies go out of their way to make tools and devices unrepairable by third parties. I remember that there was a tool that we had been looking into starting to offer services for and we had actually been able to buy one batch of the motors from the motor manufacturer. Then the OEM found out that we had bought the motors and made the motor manufacturer stop selling them to us. Turns out that it was actually a standard motor with a slight tweek to the design (i don't remember if it was a difference in the shaft or an extra mounting hole, or a different thread) that was apparently "custom" engineered for the medical tool maker. Since the medical tool maker had paid an engineering charge to have their version made they technically "owned" the design. The motor manufacturer was actually pretty cool about it though and basically said if we paid the same one time engineering cost (about $50,000 at the time iirc) they would gladly sell us THE EXACT SAME MOTOR because then we would "own" the design too.
.... good times....
My only disagreement with the arguement here is the idea that you need a specialized field tech to service an mri, or an x-ray machine.
Right now I agree that you do, because the amount of people who are "specialized" in repairing these machines are limited and because of their cost, and limited numbers in general very few people know how to repair them.
However, in 30 years when they aren't so specialized and every hospital have 10 or more the industry to service them will be there.
Its along the same lines of phone repair. We didn't have phone repair techs before phones, and before they became mainstream it was a very specialized skill to repair a phone. Now that the information, and the product is widespread, pretty much anyone can do it, given the tools and the know how, in 10 or 20 years it will probably be the same way with mri, or x-ray.
When the first truck came out how many people knew how to fix them? It was highly technical, and your average person would probably screw it up, and now every tom dick and Harry calls themselves a mechanic.
I think he tried lowering the bitrate on this one too ;)
I was waiting for a video like this. So happy to hear what it's like in the medical fields.
20yrs ago I did work for a clinic and when I discussed upgrading (RAM/CPU/HDD) on the slow computers that were running their devices (for a fraction of the cost the manufacturer was charging) the manufacturer told me that if I modify anything and a patient dies they will blame me for the it. Needless to say we told the client we couldn't be responsible for that and they would have to use whatever the manufacturer sold them. My understanding was that when it comes to medical stuff the entire system is certified as one device so even though its got simple parts, you cannot modify anything or you are voiding the device certification.
Same with Agfa Healthcare Computed Radiography devices (or just CR). In the U.S., if you go into ebay, there are a few CR from the old line (CR30 to Cr85), you can get those to replace/repair your CR, but parts like motors, you have to get them from Agfa (if they have it) or get an old used CR for parts. And for the DX line up, although they are still "new", soon they will be replaced by the DR line up. Agfa CR are still in use in many countries, specially in the middle east and latin-america. And the spare parts market is really small sometimes. As for repairs, they are not so hard to repair, if you are good with computers and have skills to assemble and disassemble, they are quite easy to maintain, and that explains why an old CR25 is still rolling and working today in some places.
Agfa is interesting. Most of their (printer at least) units were designed more for the UK market where the sales reps are also the service techs. They are very highly modular systems. Feed issue? Nope - We wont sell you a new roller or pick up suction cups, you need to replace the whole drawer. They are frustrating.
You are the man Louis!
Louis Rossmann is a champion of the people.
i wish this could have gone longer. but amazing. this is insane
My company that makes life saving products had a centrifuge get damaged when we were performing weekly PM. One of the threads that holds the bowl in place was stripped. We checked if we could get it serviced. However, we would had to pay the manufacture technician's plane ticket, hotel, per diem and hours of service. We fixed it ourselves instead with a $20 dollars worth of tools.
It's sort of ridiculous how much we pay for service contracts as well for our equipment and monitoring devices, which of course breaks down constantly, but is required in order for us to be compliant with regulatory agencies.
To add to the long list of people/groups that should support right to repair, you should see if any environmental organizations would be willing to help get out the message. If devices were able to last longer, there would be less environmental damage from the constant (and often forced) upgrade cycle that has been foisted upon the consumer by large corporations.
I have worked with medical equipment repression. Once upon a time, an HDD 512 Mb (store price about 100 Usd) failed at that time. We demanded 1000 Usd for it. Plus work. If they did not buy work and parts from us, we refused and calibrate the machine the PC controlled. This was and is how it is with everything for medical equipment in Norway.
Long live Ducky! And Louis. 🙂
Maintenance supervisor for nursing home facility. Before company purchased lift chairs and other equitment. I call the manufacture about the equitment we are looking at to purchase. I look into the availability of its repair aspects. Then look up part numbers and call to see if parts are truly available. Naturally it's got too be larger investments weather by 5 components or 1 large coat.
An important conversation to be had-thank you Louis for raising awareness for how RtR applies to many industries.
Excellent interview highlighting far reaching this issue is. Literally every from farming, technology, education, health, etc. Is affected negatively by this nonsense
We have "surgical" (overhead) lights where I work. There is a pin-stop that keeps the lamp arm from turning more than 360 degrees and tearing the electrical power wire. We have a couple where the pin sheared off. My biomedical engineering department is not * allowed * to replace them with a precisely machined pins because it's not made by the original manufacturer (as is not available from them) . The solution? - they want us to buy a new $1500 lamp. I have 50 of these in my department, that's $75,000 just work lights...
Well. Unfortunately it is understandable. Liability issue. If lamp would fail in some catastrophic way causing damage because of improperly manufactured pin, whom to blame? Who is going to bear responsibility?
To get over the problem properly the pin would have to be tested, and certified that it fulfills all reliability criteria. Sounds like headache already?
@@MrPzyt I understand. General aviation (small planes like Cessna, etc) is the same. A "certified" replacement part is 3x the price of a regular unit. You must use certified parts unless the plane is registered as "experimental".
Sounds like every other field of repairing things. I did think that medical companies would be a lot more professional given the cost of their equipment and how much money is lost if its not functional. One reason I never buy American stuff is because the companies are such assholes when it comes to parts and service. You are right about them wanting to screw money out of you on an ongoing basis rather than just for the occasional spare part.
look at the money most AMERICAN companies are "returning" to shareholders VS "CAPEX" and wonder why America is NOT the place it WAS as far as manufacturing
The problem with medical equipment is that it doesn't always work this way.
Medical certification is more expensive than consumer certification - giving less flexibility for the company to 'grab another part' and fix it that way.
2nd is supply and demand. Surgical tables are not high in demand; competition is steep, because you only need a few other competitors to severely fragment the market. This also means that, there are few players in the market as well that will survive. As a result, prices are way higher than they would be. Add 00 at the end of whatever price you are thinking, thats a good start.
3rd important point is that the earning model of med device companies is not in Selling the device - but the Maintenance of it.
Often they will give huge discounts on the sale of products - even more if you buy the machine in 'bulk' for the hospital. Sometimes they even sell products/machines for next to nothing to keep you in the maintenance contract.
The combined software package with some equipment usually is on a yearly fee for the right to run it and receive updates / maintenance / troubleshooting support. You typically pay some insane amount per user.
To give an idea, in Holland the radiotherapy machine costs 1.5mil eu new (will run for about 10years). But the server workstation lisence to make treatmentplans costs 100k a year (and you typically make 4 plans a day per lisence) - oh and the hardware in it isnt even that special for a server... Maintenance per machine costs somewhere less than that 100k but not sure how much.
The maintenance constract means that a company technician is on site within hours of a fatal hardware fault (machine wont work), and new parts arrive after days, which we are still charged for...
I had an ambulance ride from San Angelo Texas to Dallas, Texas. ABout 250 miles, 4 hours. No meds given, just a hospital transfer. My insurance paid out like $12,000 and I was billed $5000. After that, I refused ambulance transfers and that cost me $60.
Wow youtube is being good with these video recommendations. Last one was a video cbs on Right to Repair now its advertising Eli talking about Right to Repair.
I have seen a LOT of "right to repair" news clips and such as of late - hoping it is NOT just me and it is getting "coverage"
@@jasonriddell I'm seeing massive channels like Linus talk about it to their massive followings so there's that at least.
We severely need 3 things for right to repair:
1. Allow open bid of manufacturer capacity, sale of excess unspoken for part stock, and banning the "no sell" contracts
2. Require schematics+board view for devices sold, in 2 formats: a document (physical and pdf), and a standardized data format that a program can read and allow easy navigation / id of traces, components, etc -- like zxw tool / paul daniels software
3. The ABILITY to repair reasonably without having to go to the manufacturer - NO bs serialization that prevents operation of features (you need to DETECT feature support in a device), no "multi part locks" for "security" that cannot be reset, no blacklisting of parts (fail gracefully / degrade gracefully if shitty parts used), access to pairing tools, diagnostic software, and no "booby traps" when opening the device (eg: hiding a thin ribbon cable under a sticker in hopes the repair person damages it), etc.
Basically, give people access to parts at market availability, provide info on how the device is assembled / designed circuit wise, and make it REASONABLE to repair without bullshit blacklisting of parts, or rejecting parts due to serialization. If security is needed, then allow WIPING of sensitive data to get a working device again. This does let them say "well, if you want data, you have to go to us, but we can address that later if need be in a separate push). They could also say the "os" or "firmware" is user data, and is wiped in repairing, so could use that as a loophole.
This seems like a lot, but companies already have this info, and DELIBERATELY fight to not allow this info/tools so people can repair.
If somebody repairs a device insecurely / badly... well then that repairman was malicious. We don't ban people from replacing their own house locks / verifying they own the house and getting a 3rd party to replace them. People can easily install a lock cylinder with a "master key" without you knowing, and sell that so you can be robbed. But that's not really a concern, as we have legal ramifications for that.
Many of the proprietary parts in biomed field come from government requests. Boards need to be intrinsically grounded which requires stupid and proprietary board design. One I run into a lot working on hospital beds is the screws are a regular self tapping screw that are blunt. They are 3$ a pop for a 1/4” screw because they are blunt. Buy a bag of them and hit a bench grinder for a half hour and you have 100 for 5$ and time. All because a lawmaker decided you can’t have sharp screws where they are inaccessible in some clinical setting.
There is a strong biomed info sharing community with corrected part numbers for almost anything you need. Most is not online for fear of being sued so make friends and contribute and you can get stuff done.
Companies will intentionally have schematics with wrong part numbers available to the public. (Stryker). Had to get corrected one from a good outside rep but that is a new line of right to repair fraud that is unacceptable.
The government basically sanctioned this but yeah, trust government legislation to fix it, right?
@@evannibbe9375 nah the government is just people who listen to who pays them **lobiest** so the only way to change it is to replace them with yourself
@@evannibbe9375 The thing that makes your statement wrong is that me and you don't get lobbied and paid off by billion dollar corporations, which is a problem that needs to be fixed BEFORE we give the government any more power.
If the product is EOL (end of life) most manufacturers still keep some stock of parts on hand sometimes for years, there is also a very extensive grey market where 3rd party service providers buy from places upgrading to newer models and then resell parts etc. Things like motors are usually made by some other company so you can sometimes source that direct especially if the original purchasers have discontinued usage.
Hello Mr. Rossmann,
I think an angle that you're missing when talking with these people who are making the judgements for "Right to Repair" is the most simple and relatable for everyone. These companies are SO HARD PRESSED to make it so "everyday people" CANNOT repair their own property, that it's easily related to this example:
Just think about when we were kids, riding around on our bikes. We were fixing them all the time. The most common thing that we had to do was, put the chain back on. You unbolted the back wheel, moved the wheel forward, put the chain back on, scooted the wheel back to tension the chain and bolted the wheel back on. So simple that we were doing it at the age of 6.
With the way companies are approaching the "Right to Repair" THIS is how that repair would go.
You get out of school, finnish your homework and can go out and play. You hop on your bike to go to your friends house to hang out and POP, your chain comes off. Remember, you can't repair it. So, you go inside and tell your Dad/Mom what happened. Remember, they can't repair it either. They tell you that they'll have to call Husky in the morning to come put your chain back on. So, you walk back and forth from your friends house for 2 weeks until the Repair "Tech" shows up and fixes your chain.
You get home from school, and your Dad/Mom tells you that the repair man from Husky came by and fixed your bike. And, because you've been having to walk to your friends house for the past 2 weeks, you can do your homework later after you get home from your friends house. Excited, you run outside to your bike, hop on it and start riding it towards your friends place. In your excitement, you do what EVERY kid has done. You get up off the seat, stand up on your pedals, grab the handlebars tight, get a big grin on your face, lean forward and PUT ON THE GAS! You stomp on the pedal at its apex for maximum force to finally feel the wind blow through your hair again... POP... Your chain comes off again, you're not ONE BLOCK from your house! You slow down, hop off your bike, throw it to the ground and (with no parents around) start letting out a fluid stream of foul mouth that rivals Ralphy's when he finally snapped on the bully from the Christmas Story... Because you know:
1) Some how YOU are going to be blamed for your bike not working again.
2) Your parents might not have the money to repair it again.
3) In all cases, you'll be walking to your friends house for the next few weeks.
All because Husky (in this case), won't let you, or ANYONE, other than "Husky Trained Techs", unscrew a bolt, put the chain back on, and screw the bolt back down.
I hope this helps. 😆
Thanks for Reading,
Good Luck to You,
~xRYUKAMIx
i work as a service technician in the medical section in venezuela, and most of the time equipment goes down its the same history that was shown in the video, also the bigger vendors of equipment here have a really bad reputation of doing more damage you your equipment than it already has. and part sourcing is usually done almost as back alley deals, there are no real vendors for parts, just old decomisioned equipment as donor, sometimes you have to adapt other parts to be able to make things works
Right to repair encourages reuse and extends the life of devices. Keeps stuff out of the waste stream, raw materials don't need to be mined, and someone probably saves money. Regulations keep a lot of medical equipment from being salvaged.
The company I work for tries to keep a level of possible migration with previous tech, so If a motor of ours that is old fails it should be possible for one of the newer ones to be set in compatibility mode and do the same work as the grandfathered series, within reason over 30ish years is still a bit over.
I do think that there should be equipment standards so you don't lose a life because you couldn't find a motor.
A company I worked for used to dedicate itself to building imitation motors for old equipment, their largest revenue was for spare parts for gasline valves.
As an electrician, I had to replace a gearbox on a conveyor dishwasher. From the company the part was $1200 plus delivery. I went on the internet and found the exact same part for $600 delivered so just look around on the web
Thank you Louis!!!! Amazing content
Louis starts to sound more and more like a professional lawyer (in a good way). Good job louis, you are the one channel i have suscribed to which deals with nothing that really matters to me, but I still like your very-well-put-together content.
it is quite importiant to keep in mind that you in fact need specialized hardware in an Operation room. they must be EX certified and have a galvanic isolation on every component.
It's common, that several flamable gases are used when performing a surgery. as example, if you swap the GPU with a random one, you're taking the risk to blow up the room.
Such components need to be engeneered for this specific reason. If you take an other GPU that meets the requirement, you also must re-certify the system as a whole. Good luck with that.
I agree on the O-Ring
Coming from en ex-OEM SE - one common thing is that 3rd party companies or clinics are not given a full service manual. For internals there is usually a supplement document under different creative names, that contains a lot of crucial data, unavailable to others
This kind of thing happens in many industries. I got a used Hobart dishwasher. I found the hoses were all rotted out. I looked at Hobart's catalog and the hoses costs over $100 dollars EACH. Really expensive for a few hoses under a foot long. I looked up the technical specs of the hoses and bought hoses from another manufactured that far exceeded the standard of the old hoses for around $10 each.
I work in technical support for a company that sells medical equipment, I can understand some of the issues with right to repair. Who ever does the repair should be liable if something goes wrong. But if some unknown 3rd party has been tinkering around and something goes wrong the manufacturer will probably get blamed for the issue. 3rd party repair people can really screw up our equipment because they have no clue it needs to be aligned, and even if they did it's months of training to learn how, from a tiny staff that doesn't have the resources. As for old equipment, sometimes they do become unserviceable, when no one makes the parts any more. We keep a stock of parts we refurbished from customers that upgraded, but then we have to pay an inventory tax, so eventually they throw them away. After that servicing becomes impossible. On a side note if you contact a manufacturer directly to get a part they may tattle on you. We had the company that manufactures our stages contact us to tell us that a certain one of our customers contacted them directly looking for a stage.
I just replaced an o-ring to a water pump, solid brass block from 30 years ago or more. They still do replacement parts (though probably out of manufacture, so "new" old stock). Ordered new o-rings, and they just sent a rando one by the looks of it, thankfully the new seals I ordered were right and a perfect fit.
You know what though, all those seals and o-rings are replaceable with patterned/measured parts. I just need to know the measurements and can order them from anyone/anywhere, even if it needs to be cut to custom size.
This is exactly the content they don't want exposing and which I like being exposed. Thank you from the 🇬🇧
Easy fix: remove liability from the companies that make the medical hardware. Once smaller competitors don't have to pay millions of dollars a year in government-mandated private liability insurance and retain hundreds of lawyers and attorneys for any possible litigation resulting from a claim then then competition from smaller companies would blossom and the market would be free to correct not only the prices of the hardware, but also create the ability for customers to choose more repairable alternatives.
Re: medical- In the old days Biomeds did chip level repairs, but the complexity has significantly increased and miniaturized. With with the number of devices skyrocketing they don’t have the time to sit and analyze schematics to do chip level repairs. Board level -yes. Still many items are repairable but require factory training to have access to parts. (Seen as a responsibility by the mfg for good or bad) boards should be available along with test procedures and final test procedures and data sheets to submit to the hospital and maybe the mfg for tracking trends. High dollar items increase the cost of service requiring special tools, training, OJT and software. There are plenty of off the shelf parts used in expensive equipment that should be allowable to replace, but buying from alternate sources and alternate hardware has some risk.
For example- Technology changes so much in 5 years the chips on video cards can be impossible to get after 3-5 years a newer video card may be found that would be considered an improvement, but the drivers or software it uses can reassign resources in the device causing the device to fail. (I’ve seen that happen with something as innocent as printer drivers packages.)
Manufacturers can’t do the same type of repairs 3rd parties can due to FDA requirements and liability. You can’t cannibalize scrapped units without returning them and running the parts through a series of tests with a paper trail all for the FDA. They are then sold or used as reprocessed or refurbished.
I work on equipment that takes two years to become on your own proficient to troubleshoot and repair after the 6 week training. Most 3rd party companies won’t invest the time and energy with a high turnover staff.
Liability is often the driver to not purchase service from 3rd party.
Not to mention the FDA’s strict rules on changing or modifying hardware in a controlled device.
I am 100% for right to Repair! Customers often want the biggest bang for the buck and are willing to go on the cheap. For many things that’s OK, but for medical… I think there does need to be some more thinking and consideration then just opening up parts to everyone who thinks they can do a repair on a piece of equipment going to be used to save a life. I know plenty of people who think they can fix anything and settle for it’s good enough. It’s good enough in medical isn’t acceptable.
In the end it’s a lawyers decision for big hospitals and a financial decision for smaller facilities.
VW had a commercial where they said they'll have any part and bolt available for 25 Years or something.
But I needed a rubber hose and they only sell the whole fuel line system which is insane. I'm better off buying a used car.
Anyway, I bought some lawn mower hoses, but they are bad quality, it's $1.00 USD, but I have to change it every year because it cracks and gasoline vapors escape from it in a hot engine compartment.
Opposed to $600 USD, but it lasts 18 years.
Why not get 10$ or just better hoses wich are better quallity then?
@@fredbloggs5902 it's possible, but it's putting people at risk.
I replaced the fuel hoses with air hoses at some point, as a temporary fix, while I searched for proper fuel hoses.
The hoses got eaten away and popped out.
Luckily it happened while the engine was cold or else... Who knows...
@@captainheat2314 I found some Teflon tubing, but I need a some AN fittings and adapters, but I'm not sure it would fit my system.
So I'm stuck with the $1.00 "nitrile rubber" hose.
(I doubt it's Nitrile Rubber)
@@Buciasda33 what are your current replacement and stock hoses called?
@@captainheat2314 Replacement hose:
SEMPERIT FUB FUEL DN 8 PN 12 bar, Made in EU
I think DN stands for ID (internal diameter) which is 8mm.
PN might be Nominal Pressure.
Stock hoses didn't have writings left on them, but they wore the original VW Mk.4 Golf 1.4 16v AXP engine.
After watching this video, I got to say something. I am a retired senior X-Ray service engineer. I had spent over 30 years installing and repairing X-Ray equipment. All of this time I spent working for 3rd party companies. The last one I spent 25 years working for. The guy you have on there is talking about equipment that is past its serviceable life. Yes, I have had to tell customers that their equipment is no longer serviceable. Then they ask is there anything I can do to fix it find a different part that will work in it. The service personal is not allowed to put parts that are not factory certified in the equipment for safety reasons. As technology changes and the manufactures have to keep up. I am not saying there should not be a right to repair for 3rd party venders. When it comes to medical equipment would you want a factory trained person work on it or someone that is not trained. In my career I went to numerous schools to work on different equipment. In most cases the schools I went to were so I could work on the equipment. Medical equipment in most cases is very sophisticated and one has to have a working knowledge of what one is working on.
If you are going to be talking about the right to repair stick to your apple computers/phones/iPads or ever farm equipment but stay away from medical equipment as it takes highly trained individuals to work on them as your life depends on how good of a job they do.
I've used to work in a small SMT production facility in my hometown. Company used cheap Chinese SMT line which started with a printer literally from 1999 (Bought in 2013 as "new", but in fact the whole machine was developed and first time sold in 1999).
One day piston which stops PCBs on the conveyor stuck in drawn out position. Thankfully machine spotted that and refused to work at all. Calling manufacturer and asking "what is that and how to fix this shit?" is useless since manufacturer probably speaks ONLY Chinese and we would be really god damn lucky if the company even exists today. So what guys from technician department did is disassembled IBM-PC machine and took apart all PCI-e components on a test. They found out that a tiny common diode suddenly changed his voltage threshold and now operates at lowest as 9v instead of 3 or close to zero. We quickly found a similar diode in our component warehouse and fixed the god damn board. Worked as a charm.
Later during my working years I found out that every machine on every line is a PC based machine with few "dedicated" parts in them. Basically what those machines are is a tons of pistons, sensors, movable solenoids and other stuff all controlled by a PC machine through numerous ports. The true uniqueness is those PCI-e boards which are most likely one of a kind and only for this exact machine and model. You cant even update system software on these machines as drivers for those boards were written for old operating systems. Luckily we were able to do that as those machines were ours and ours to exploit. Medical equipment is totally different league in itself. Yet it does not change the fact that everything is possible to fix if you know what you are doing. Unless you cant get parts for it of course.
As a type 1 diabetic with an insulin pump, fortunately my experience has always been positive dealing with medical device companies. If my device were to become faulty within the warranty period of the product (which tends to be quite long compared to other warranty products), the medical device company would overnight a replacement to me. Great this is how it should work.
NOW lets say I lose my job, my health insurance, and my insulin pump is no longer under warranty period. If my pump were to go down, I would have no reasonable option to repair or replace the device. These devices usually cost anywhere from $6k-10k for something the size of a pager. Having the option to repair the device myself, or have some electronics repair shop do it would be good, but I don't think I'd ever use it. What if the person dies after fixing it himself because it malfunctions? The device could no longer be considered "validated" or certified to work within its specified parameters. Having education or training on this subject could fix some of that.
There would need to be some clause with medical devices making it so that the manufacturer would not be responsible for personal injury or loss of life after repairing their products.
The dairy plant I used to work at had Tetra-Pak cream separators. I believed they allowed the company to send maintenance techs to train how to tear them down to replace seals and PM them. But they rarely took them apart because they were worried to damage any of the carbon seals or the stack disk arrangement inside the bell housing. I'm not positive but I have heard wind that these cost about $400,000 just for the separator. That isn't installation, complete plumbing, CIP system, utilities etc. The company had 7 of them.