Tests on eight temperature transmitter heads

Baxter Healthcare subject their temperature sensors to the same test regime as their products: their 'Total Confidence' now applies to Status Instruments head mounted transmitters.

Baxter Healthcare, one of the world's leading suppliers of intravenous solution sterilisers, are totally committed to improving their already exemplary record for product performance and reliability.

Their procedures for the control and monitoring of each and every one of their processes follow strict external and even stricter internal guidelines and they have a 'Total Confidence' philosophy for their procedures, which are fully open to external scrutiny.

As part of their continual routine validation process, the company have recently carried out a full review of the panel mount temperature transmitters used to control the sterilisers, to investigate if improvements could be gained from using integral head-mounted transmitters.

The thoroughness of the trials are indicative of the Baxter approach, and they do not change products unless they are absolutely sure that quality and performance will be improved.

Eight different in-head Temperature Transmitters from leading manufacturers were tested along side the existing panel mount devices.

All the units were connected to long lead PT100 sensors and tests were carried out using a stable oil bath at 121C.

During the tests, all the probes were subjected to random electrical noise and stress.

The Baxter in house specifications of +/- 0.1C for temperature transmitters is extremely tough.

The initial trials involved both digital and analogue transmitters, and the Status Instruments 104P analogue device, supplied by their distributor XL Instruments, came out as the most stable, and with the best response time.

Although digital transmitters have significant advantages for certain applications, analogue devices are still widely used for their performance and stability.

Unlike many of their competitors, Status Instruments continue to develop and improve their range of analogue transmitters.

Baxter carried out further bench trials of the 104P before testing five units in-situ.

The transmitters were monitored over a thirty day period and when re-calibrated, they were found to be well within the required tolerance.

At this stage most companies would probably be content with these results, but Baxter decided to carry out a further two months trial.

All the units came through with flying colours.

An added bonus for Baxter is the fact that the 104P uses the same potentiometric adjustment method as the existing panel mount transmitters.

Therefore they do not need to change their existing well-designed calibration procedure protocol.

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