A Freakin Miracle
My Respironics BiPap had been getting touchier and more finicky. First came the weak No 3 pilot light on the humidifier. Then the humidifier simply quit using water even when set to 5. Then disaster, press the on off button the menu light came on but the machine played dead.
Being a Medical device, opening the machine even with the right tools was out of the question. Too many tattletale tamper seals.
Something had to be done. Remember I had fiddled round spinning that knob and twidding with it for months.
Last night facing another bout of no therapy I got desperate. I worked and worked to pry the big button off the machine. Success! Under it was a D shaped switch shaft.
I grabbed my big Bottle of Caig DE-OXIT D100
I was ready to try something fruitless and rather moronic.
Dribble DeOxit down an assembled shaft and pray.
I've used this stuff on assembled pushbutton switches before with amazing results. D100 is as thin as alcohol (almost).
Round and round the switch shaft I went, dribbling maybe 15 drops of the red fluid onto the D shaft.
Then the machine sat for 10 hours. All day.
Once again I plugged it in (for the 200th time?)
Once again I pressed the button (for the 200th time?)\
JESUS! The menu light lit up!
I twisted the knob
CRIMINY! All four menu selections paraded on the LCD screen -- repeatedly!
I selected THERAPY
I pushed the button
The blower came on.
Push push push push
Blower on, off, on off
Normal!
I just about fell off the bed. I set the humidifier on 5. For the first time in 3-years the humidifier drained the plastic reservoir tank overnight.
I woke up this morning and pressed the button OFF/ON OFF/ON. Menu, lights everything works like new.
I've used DeOxit D100 on fully assembled switches before and despite shaft nuts and washers it somehow penetrated past the hardware and fixed an intermittent or permanent fault within a switch. Had someone argued the impossibility of this happening, I would have lost my butt betting (and losing) Past an assembled switch? -- gimme a freakin break!
But the hundreds of tries with a deteriorating function switch is something I did myself. The machine had continued to lose functions over three airline flights same route over the last several years. No amount of dial twiddling, tapping, pulling or anything else did the slightest good. The humidifier was permanently stuck on 3. The number whose pilot light was dimmest on the face plate.
Yeah I have "Corrected" assembled push button switches with D100 before for friends. Stuff that was seeming irreparable. Past switch mounting hardware right down the shaft. Repaired PC motherboard edge connectors that responded to no other cleaning, even rubber erasers and floods of CRC contact cleaners.
But an assembled BiPAP machine? A combination pushbutton rotary switch? Fixed ALL of the problems? 15-drops of DeOxit D100? After months (actually years) of enduring a steady freakin cascade of switch function errors and failures? Dribbling down an assembled shaft? Yeah, Elvis just walked on past me right over there.
I will be damned.
- Original sleep doctor out of business 5 years ago
- Replacement sleep doctor demanded new sleep study before anything else. Thousands of miles mutli-day stay on the USA
- Then the machine could be RETURN AUTHORIZED under Rx. With my HMO blessing (and coverage)
- No amount of fooling around with that pushbutton which also rotates for menu ops would work
- Not a question of getting wet
- Something was wrong inside the blower and electronics housing
- I had gone a couple of weeks without therapy
- Contacted the "TEAM" at Respironics email. Same workday response from them
- They gave me an RMA number and to contact toll free number
- MediCare said they they would work with Respironics and secondary insurance agreed to eliminate co-pay once Respironics contacted them
- Obviously I would be without the machine for a month or more
- Obviously this was turning into a NOT FUNNY situation
- UPS said shipping would be 20+ dollars with insurance on Friday. I would have to wait until August to send the machine maybe pick it up in September.
Being a Medical device, opening the machine even with the right tools was out of the question. Too many tattletale tamper seals.
Something had to be done. Remember I had fiddled round spinning that knob and twidding with it for months.
Last night facing another bout of no therapy I got desperate. I worked and worked to pry the big button off the machine. Success! Under it was a D shaped switch shaft.
I grabbed my big Bottle of Caig DE-OXIT D100
I was ready to try something fruitless and rather moronic.
Dribble DeOxit down an assembled shaft and pray.
I've used this stuff on assembled pushbutton switches before with amazing results. D100 is as thin as alcohol (almost).
Round and round the switch shaft I went, dribbling maybe 15 drops of the red fluid onto the D shaft.
Then the machine sat for 10 hours. All day.
Once again I plugged it in (for the 200th time?)
Once again I pressed the button (for the 200th time?)\
JESUS! The menu light lit up!
I twisted the knob
CRIMINY! All four menu selections paraded on the LCD screen -- repeatedly!
I selected THERAPY
I pushed the button
The blower came on.
Push push push push
Blower on, off, on off
Normal!
I just about fell off the bed. I set the humidifier on 5. For the first time in 3-years the humidifier drained the plastic reservoir tank overnight.
I woke up this morning and pressed the button OFF/ON OFF/ON. Menu, lights everything works like new.
I've used DeOxit D100 on fully assembled switches before and despite shaft nuts and washers it somehow penetrated past the hardware and fixed an intermittent or permanent fault within a switch. Had someone argued the impossibility of this happening, I would have lost my butt betting (and losing) Past an assembled switch? -- gimme a freakin break!
But the hundreds of tries with a deteriorating function switch is something I did myself. The machine had continued to lose functions over three airline flights same route over the last several years. No amount of dial twiddling, tapping, pulling or anything else did the slightest good. The humidifier was permanently stuck on 3. The number whose pilot light was dimmest on the face plate.
Yeah I have "Corrected" assembled push button switches with D100 before for friends. Stuff that was seeming irreparable. Past switch mounting hardware right down the shaft. Repaired PC motherboard edge connectors that responded to no other cleaning, even rubber erasers and floods of CRC contact cleaners.
But an assembled BiPAP machine? A combination pushbutton rotary switch? Fixed ALL of the problems? 15-drops of DeOxit D100? After months (actually years) of enduring a steady freakin cascade of switch function errors and failures? Dribbling down an assembled shaft? Yeah, Elvis just walked on past me right over there.
I will be damned.
