I’m just an XRay tech. But I would expect at least one whole day, for a pair of engineers to get it running again and re-certified. $20-50K for their time, plus missed revenue from the lost day. Best case could total $100K easy. Way more, if the damage is more than cosmetic.
True. I don’t know how much that is. But liquid helium shouldn’t be “medical grade” really. It’s just a coolant for the superconducting magnets, same as any industrial use.
In my experience the only thing that makes a material professional grade is a paper trail. If something goes wrong and you get sued you want to be able to absolutely prove you didn’t cheap out on any of the materials. It adds a lot of cost to keep batches separate and making sure none of the paperwork gets mixed up. Especially if multiple companies are involved in creating and distributing the material. I work in an ISO compliant shop and we have a lot of folders moving around with different orders, it can be a nightmare keeping everything straight when things are busy.
It isn’t, but as Thetimefarm above says, the paper trail is what matters. Medical grade liquid helium for MRI machines is a thing. That paper trail is what adds a few zeros to the cost.
As a side note, this is similar to why Fluke multimeters are so expensive:
tl;dw: companies have reams of documents for their certification procedures of equipment, and calibration of the equipment to certify the equipment, and they’re based around the specifics of Fluke mutimeters. They aren’t more accurate or even much fancier than a nice hobbyist meter. Those companies must buy Fluke or completely redo all their procedures with accompanying documentation and certifying by professional engineers. If you’re not such a company, don’t bother spending all that extra money on Fluke.
Medical grade or grade-4.0 is less pure than research grade or grade-6. That’s 99% vs 99.9999%.
Medical grade might be used for inhalation by patients and traces of other air is perfectly acceptable. MRI cryocoolers need more purity to keep the magnet cold.
Yeah, it’s weird. Like yes, all these people put in a lot of effort to make sure that when people could die from equipment failure, we make sure that equipment is very, very good. Adding zeros to the price is the cost of that.
Yeah, I think I remember something like 10-20k to refill the cooling on an MRI, and that is just topping it off as some is slowly lost. The helium is just used to cool it. Helium is helium, so no such thing as medical vs not. The cost to repair this thing is going to be absurd. They are making better machines now have little to no loss, but I don’t think those are super prevalent yet.
even if it was quenched the right way: downtime, helium, restarting the entire thing would also cost pretty penny, and maybe replacement of damaged magnet too if that’s what they did
Holy shit, they pulled the emergency release on one of those MRI machines. I think that adds a zero or two to the cost of bringing back online.
I’m just an XRay tech. But I would expect at least one whole day, for a pair of engineers to get it running again and re-certified. $20-50K for their time, plus missed revenue from the lost day. Best case could total $100K easy. Way more, if the damage is more than cosmetic.
You’re not counting the materials costs. I doubt that medical grade helium is cheap.
True. I don’t know how much that is. But liquid helium shouldn’t be “medical grade” really. It’s just a coolant for the superconducting magnets, same as any industrial use.
In my experience the only thing that makes a material professional grade is a paper trail. If something goes wrong and you get sued you want to be able to absolutely prove you didn’t cheap out on any of the materials. It adds a lot of cost to keep batches separate and making sure none of the paperwork gets mixed up. Especially if multiple companies are involved in creating and distributing the material. I work in an ISO compliant shop and we have a lot of folders moving around with different orders, it can be a nightmare keeping everything straight when things are busy.
“Medical grade” is less pure than what MRIs (research grade).
Medical grade or grade-4.0 is 99% pure and is meant for inhalation. “Research grade” or grade-6 is 99.9999% pure.
https://www.westairgases.com/blog/exploring-the-most-essential-and-underappreciated-uses-for-helium
I presume that it has to be certified and probably heavily filtered. It’s not going to be the same as what goes into party balloons.
Liquid helium is -269 °C. There is no risk of confusing it with what’s in balloons.
And its a medical setting which means that the products you use will be certified and calibrated in just the right way.
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It isn’t, but as Thetimefarm above says, the paper trail is what matters. Medical grade liquid helium for MRI machines is a thing. That paper trail is what adds a few zeros to the cost.
As a side note, this is similar to why Fluke multimeters are so expensive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay9wFQAW19Y
tl;dw: companies have reams of documents for their certification procedures of equipment, and calibration of the equipment to certify the equipment, and they’re based around the specifics of Fluke mutimeters. They aren’t more accurate or even much fancier than a nice hobbyist meter. Those companies must buy Fluke or completely redo all their procedures with accompanying documentation and certifying by professional engineers. If you’re not such a company, don’t bother spending all that extra money on Fluke.
Medical grade or grade-4.0 is less pure than research grade or grade-6. That’s 99% vs 99.9999%.
Medical grade might be used for inhalation by patients and traces of other air is perfectly acceptable. MRI cryocoolers need more purity to keep the magnet cold.
https://www.westairgases.com/blog/exploring-the-most-essential-and-underappreciated-uses-for-helium
Amazingly people hate this concept, and it’s strange. We all got downvoted for pointing this out.
Yeah, it’s weird. Like yes, all these people put in a lot of effort to make sure that when people could die from equipment failure, we make sure that equipment is very, very good. Adding zeros to the price is the cost of that.
Yeah, I think I remember something like 10-20k to refill the cooling on an MRI, and that is just topping it off as some is slowly lost. The helium is just used to cool it. Helium is helium, so no such thing as medical vs not. The cost to repair this thing is going to be absurd. They are making better machines now have little to no loss, but I don’t think those are super prevalent yet.
More than a day. Ramping can take multiple days, then it has to be conpletely recalibrated and shimmed.
Probably need a new magnet, quenching can melt those puppies. Lot of energy stored in that field.
Yeah, quenching the machine makes bringing it back online $200k+ depending on the system
Yeah, that liquid helium and the MRI down time are super expensive
even if it was quenched the right way: downtime, helium, restarting the entire thing would also cost pretty penny, and maybe replacement of damaged magnet too if that’s what they did