Today was another of one of the classic 6 AM days (I
actually thought about getting up early as I had the energy, but then all of a
sudden, BAM it was 5 minutes to 7 (well I guess it worked out)). Anyways
breakfast was pretty good and we had this epic cheesy bread with B&R, other
cheese and eggs and salami and banana coffee smoothie thing. We arrived at work
actually decently early today (at like 8:20 AM) and started pretty much right
away. Dan took the tape off the IV stand and we got the other neb from the
emergency room to take another look at it.
What the flow from the neb looks like
One of the first projects was to
work on the nebulizer from yesterday and today. We opened them up and looked at
the motor (which seemed fine), so we just put it back together (after cleaning
the diaphragm a bit). I then thought about checking the other air side of the
external airport and inlet (which happened to have a filter that looked
horrible) (so the obvious choice was to clean the filter). This involved taking
one of the syringes we bought and filling it with water (without the needle
(although we later used the needle)) and pushing the water through the filter
to try and remove the dirt (this seemed to work a tad bit and definitely helped
clean the filter). This wasn’t the most effective strategy in the world (but we
didn’t have any alternative (and no new filters)).
Working on cleaning the filter (got to practice my best liberating air from syringes technique)
The inside of the neb (so annoying to put back together)
After we eventually finished
this process quite a time later (we had to wait for the filters to dry) then we
could finally re-install them. We at one point were displaced from our workshop
temporarily as there was a SILAIS worker walking around with what looked like
an M60 (except that it spat out white smoke instead of bullets (this smoking
gun still looked absolutely beast)). Anyways he was walking around all the
houses in the area and buildings and smoking them out (to apparently kill or
drive away the mosquitos (as this is to stop the spread of Dengue (as this has
been a huge problem with trucks coming from Honduras, so they have been
fumigating the trucks with this smoke))). It was a pretty legit exercise.
Smokin' out the mosquitoes
Guy doing the smokin' (with M60 with beast smoke mode enabled)
After
leaving the nebulizer filters to dry, Dan and took apart this one air
compressor from the pediatric ward (that we’d gotten to fix) and opened up the
inside (and exposed the commutator which isn’t great for motor performance, but
we wanted to oil the bearings). When we looked at the bearing, we immediately
realized why the compressor (O2 concentrator wasn’t working); the
bearing was rusted solid (basically this small ring of rust had formed around
the inner edge of the bearing and the shaft protruding from the bearing was
immobile). So much for that having a chance at turning! Anyways we decided it
wasn’t worth working on that and instead turned to another older model we found
in the shed (which showed promise as it not only turned on, but actually worked
passably without much maintenance). So I started working on cleaning the older
model (which was caked in dust). When I got to the reed valves, the scene
looked especially grim; with tons of tiny beads of corrosion sitting all around
the rubber diaphragm (O.o).
Look at all the corrosion (O.o)
It was okay though, because Dan had cleaned the
reed valves and top piece for another compressor that refused to function
despite extensive cleaning (so I just swapped the top and reed valves part over
on the compressors (which happened to conveniently be the same model) and
continued on my cleaning). I had to clean all sorts of gunk and caked dust and
spider webs out of the air intake and fan areas and I took off the fan and
oiled all the bearings and got that shaft spinning quite well (not as good as
if there were a Bones Swiss bearing inside, but it was much much better than
how it had rolled before).
The piston needing some oiling
Replacing the power cord on the compressor (blue twist terminals FTW!)
After that I pretty much packed up the motor
(although I kept forgetting parts and had to take the housing off several times
(once for some parts behind a fan and another time for not tightening bolts on
the iron core and with the windings around it)). I also replaced the power cord
on the motor with a shortened one from another and added in my favorite twist
terminals to make the necessary power connections before closing the motor up.
After all of that work it was around lunch time (as Dan and I had been working
in parallel on two different compressors (as two had cropped up (the dead one
and another that showed promise from the pediatric ward (the pediatric ward was
interesting and had an oxygen concentrator, a pulse oximeter, an aspirator, a
nebulizer, a hot plate and the air compressor/more manual oxygen concentrator))
and we both tested our compressors. Dan’s happened to not function exactly as
he had expected (with not even running), but that was due to the compressor
just needing to be opened up and closed again (simple and it worked really well
after that). Mine worked decently from the first time without needing to open
it up again (as I had already done that several times prior to testing).
Anyways we went out to find some lunch, but we ran into Barney and the Engineer
who were getting ready to head to the normal lunch spot. We decided to join
them for lunch, but first they were loading the non-functioning ultrasound into
the back of this dude’s truck (the master of electronics and software). Barney
is paying them to put in a new power supply I think (which costs like $6K or
something wicked expensive similar (O.o) (that’s why Barney makes the big
dollars in repairs)). Lunch was pretty filling and was this chopped up meat (in
tiny tiny chunks) with B&R and semi-soft plantains and this pink drank that
had particulates (looked like the oatmeal stuff) (think it might have been pink
Tang).
After
lunch was pretty chill. Basically went back and put the necessary air fittings
on the compressors (pressure gauge, regulator and rubber tube adaptor in a
prefitted piece). I then tested my compressor again and I was getting close to
30 psi (max positive pressure) out of that bad boy (pretty good for a
compressor that’s smaller than the volume enclosed by my open laptop (imagine
lines up from the keyboard and form a rectangular box (compressor is like maybe
12” x 9” x 10”))). I tried to get all the feet back on one of the compressors,
but the screw was not level so I tried (with Popo’s help to screw it a bit more
into the base, which only ended up breaking the screw head off (-.- // rage
(now I have to drill it out and put a new bolt in))). After that Dan worked a
bit more on getting the filters cleaned for the two nebulizers (nebuliers more
like it because they don’t put out the correct flow). Also during this time I
was bored, so I opened up the pulse oximeter and looked inside (we kept getting
an error 2 message and something was rattling around inside). I found the
inside contents quite intriguing (the source of the rattling was the speaker
inside that had broken free of the hot glue (factory hot glue mind you) that
previously held the speaker in a recessed ridge. After whipping up some epoxy
that shiznit was sitting in place drying.
All the circuitry! (inside the pulse oximeter)
We then decided to go meet with
SILAIS, which we did with the help of Popo (who is a terrific person to help us
out with meeting folks). We met this one dude in SILAIS that took us into this
control/meeting room for to meet the head of SILAIS for San Carlos. He also got
us some work at the head of health services or something in the area (quite
close to hostel for tomorrow morning). After that Dan and I went back and
worked more on the nebulizers and also finished up inventory of the x-ray areas
and looked at the O2 tanks (which we’re thinking of adding some
chains around (and pouring some concrete to make a level surface) for our
secondary project).
Those tanks (on the slope with the caps we just put on today) (thinking on concreting a platform then putting in posts to secure a chain)
After that we packed up the tools and got one neb back to
the nurse from the pediatric ward. I had also been working on cleaning a filter
by poking it with the syringe needle and pushing the water through. After that pretty
much just packed up tools and left for the day (we’ll be heading to the centro
de salud tomorrow at 8 AM). After clocking out at 4:40 PM I headed to the
bakery (bought two of those good breads from yesterday and this after chilling
at home a bit and then recharged my phone. Pretty boring from there on (dinner
was avocados B&R and tortillas and this brown slightly grainy thing to
drink). Might go out a bit tonight, but probably not. Need to get some more
sleep. Peace!
Those good pastries!
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