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Comment by Exmoor | Hacker News Reader

One would assume (or hope) that medical device components are also QA'd to at least the standard of automotive components.

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One of the most common additional requirements on automotive parts is extended range, often below -20 C and above 70 C. That is often not relevant for medical products which operate only inside, near room temperatures.

And then there's also the vibration issue. I don't think most medical devices need to stand up to continuous vibrations like you'd have in an auto engine. If they are not soldered well, eventually things can loosen up and fall off, or minimally just break contact. I think the car industry is closer to the aero/space industry than medical industry.

It took 20 years but the circuitboard on my Nissan's dash had deteriorated enough to warrant resoldering. Now that is done, it is as good as new. It's remarkable how dash clusters look inside, absolutely pristine behind the plastic lens in spite of their environment.

Aero has a few unique issues that make car parts unusable. One is the lower bound of the temperature range, it's not unusual to see -55 celcius for an aircraft. And pressure, air is really thin at the 41,000ft most large aircraft are certified for.

Walked into an ice rink.

They measured kids temperature. 107 degrees.

After much confusion as to why the healthy looking child, and that no I wasn’t rushing her to the ER, they finally figured out that for head scanners don’t work right at 20 degrees.

The solution of course was to have someone sit on it when not in use.

A week later no more temperature scans.

Would you kindly confirm your story involves an outdoor rink? (My mind conjures a miserably cold indoor rink and I’m shuddering; the story as told is unnecessarily confusing because the ice rink detail is immaterial, the important detail is using the device outdoors in cold weather)

Indoor rink. An unusually cold one.

Was great fun with I was wearing T-shirt and shorts and they insisted I go to the rink to be checked. Then had to stand several minutes waiting.

Kid got dropped at door until they changed policy.

Yikes. Sounds like rink management has multiple problems.

well they are completely different standards. you wouldn't expect a medical device inside a human body to operate at 130C

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