Jeez Guys, just go in the rear or other end...remove the gear case-then the snap ring-bearing cover and magnet housing. Pour out/BLOW out the brush debris and replace the brushes with deair brushes. Leaving the endcover with the tach inplace. You can't clean the armature like the deair or flow motors but it will work for another 10K hours. Assuming all the BP motor problems are from all that brush debris BLOWing around in there. And legal issues...they tell us how to replace brushes in deair, but not flow but it's ok to and they send your flow brushes so what is the bp motor difference?

I said that well.

hahaha you guys are hilarous...well it does work and if you can save money by rebuilding them for only $2, thats how much the soft brushes cost. i will do it. i've been rebuilding them for the past 2 years with no problems......

How can you trust a new motor more than a rebuilt one? Especially the way the world is today with cutting cost and making everything cheaper. I have had brand new machines tear up, it mechanical and can't be trusted to work everytime. In my opinion the only difference in you changing the brushes and a new motor is the warranty, and your putting money in fresenius' pocket. One more thing, tell me how a blood pump could effect pt safety and compare it to all the other situations that would envolve pt safety.

My question is; What is the incentive to save money buy rebuilding a blood pump rotor motor? Bonus, Trip to exotic locale? Do you trouble shoot PC boards to component level? The reason as I have stated before that major medical device manufacturs do not go to component level by field technicians is liability. You may be the greatest tech in the world.(Which would make me wonder what you are doing in dialysis??) But if it goes to court and the mechanical records are pulled and shown that to save money by replacing a component instead of buying factory new or reman parts you are going to be found liable. It does not matter if whatever was done had anything to do with the failure that caused the medical incident.

That's why you get insured KD5DWE. I-D-10-T!!!

Were not talking about PC boards, were talking about replacing brushes in a motor. How is it any different than replacing the brushes in a dea motor? It's the exact same concept.

OK Mr. Insurance the I-D-10-T gives me an idea of the level of your own intelligence and originality. I have entered this discussion with my identity out there for anyone with any sort of ambition to find out who I am. Yes everyone is insured these days. However with the attitude that I am insured I don't care what the consequnce of my action is has made a lot of lawyers rich and brought heartbreak and sorrow to many. I understand that changing the brushes in the deaer motor is not that much different than changing in a blood pump tach motor assembly. The concept of it being a PC board in a complex piece of medical equipment to the most simple piece. If the manufacture does not support the rebulding of the component level who am I to argue. I know the humongus company I work for thought that if it were cost effective to do we would be required to do it.

KD5DWE hit on the nail, that was the point that I was trying to make at the begining, if there are no instructions from FMC on how to change those brushes there must be a reason why other than financial gain, FMC is big enough world wide and ZMAN there are instructions to replaced deair brushes to support the documentation

Does anyone replace the brushes in the flow motor? Nobody has answered my question about how a blood pump motor would effect pt safety.

Of course people replace flow motor brushes, now does it mean this is correct when there is no instructions by FMC to back it up? now there is no known blood pump motor incidents that I have heard of, but I sure dont want to find out it happened in my clinics, be for sure that a detailed investigation will be done on the machine from the time the machine was installed by FMC to the day of the incident

Is the Patient Safety a concern?? Most of the blood pump issues have been with a patient on the machine. We are told to replace the motor/gearbox now. So why isn't there any PM for the motor brushes like the deair? Seems very "stupid" for lack of a better word, to wait for the BP motor to fail with a patient on the machine than it would be to have a preventative maintence in place? FMC tech service says they know what I talking about but their hands are tied and they don't hear about the scared patient when their machine BP quits or the yelling PCT's!

Glad someone is backing me up, thanks Mark. let me break down the pt safety issue for you concerning the blood pump motor brushes being changed. The blood pump itself cannot cause any pt safety issues. The reason being: you can check to rotor to make sure it is appling the correct amount of pressure, you can calibrate the blood pump speed, and you can check to see if the motor is actually pumping the correct amount of volume that you set the speed for. The clinical staff have 3 different pressures that they monitor. If the art needle was to come out the pressure would change outside the limits and the blood pump would stop. If the ven needle was to come out the pressure may not go outside the limits and if they do the blood pump would stop, but if the staff isn't paying attention the could reset the machine and the new limits would be set for that new pressure and the pts blood could be pumped out. Now if this was to occure the clinical staff would be held liable not technical. If the blood pump was to mess up during a tx it would just stop pumping, and if you can't get it to start back, that's why you have a manual hand crank. If for some reason you can't return the pts blood, the blood lost in the ecc is not enough that it will kill the pt. New motors stop running during tx, so I don't see how this affects pts safety.

Let'say there is a patient incident, everyone that was involved with this patient will be question, and when you're asked why did you replaced BP brushes when there are no instructions by Manufacturer on how to perform it?, are you going to answer:

1- It's OK to do it
2- Every Tech in the USA does it
3- I've read it in a blog that it can be done
4- I know what I'm doing
5- I've done it before and nothing happen

That's right, you will be liable, If you are willing to go thru this investigation GOOD LUCK your name will be in the news and in the dialysis world and all because you were trying to save your company (that now dont want to do anythig with you anymore) money $$$$$$

I hope everyody got the message, bottom line is "you" need to cover your behind, nobody else will, companies want you to save them money, they can always say "I wasnt aware, he's certified he should've known better" and you will be the escape-goat