A dozen cheap junk-box parts... Assembled, they go for $500.00

All of this kind of stuff is priced very, very high. Take a look at the cost of stuff for the visually impaired sometime. It must be a combination of the limited market and the government and insurance company subsidies.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

"Spehro Pefhany" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

No only when subsidies are given, my brother sells beepers which I made for him:

And believe it or not, it isn't even profitable, it just covers the costs and a beer perhaps.

"Frank Bemelman" wrote

Ouch Frank, that really seems expensive. I know it's low volume (10 units), but could you give us some kind of breakdown of the costs. I would understand if you charged him $1000.00 to do the design and write code for the chip (assuming it's some kind of micro) and it's costing ~$65.00/unit for the case, board, parts, and assembly. Or is there some hidden "medical device" cost involved?

michael

In article , snipped-for-privacy@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat mentioned...

Probably nowhere near as bad as the stuff NASA buys.

There have been numerous expose's on TV about the abuses of the medical industry. Right now there's a series on ABC about the U.S. health care system. They said that the number of bean counters far outnumber the Doctors, nurses, etc. I pass by St. Joseph Hospital when I go to work. They've got several high rise buildings full of support services. This 'organization' used to be run by a bunch of nuns. Now it's a huge money machine.

Likely the commercial vendors of "medical equipment" are paying

BTW: What is a "Tamed Card" and who is "Tommy Wonder"? Does this "beeper" do something more than just beep?

Isn't there some sort of transducer involved here? Is the transducer a commercial product or custom made for artifical-layrnx use? That may be a significant part of the cost.

What kind of transducer do these things use? Is it included?

"Anthony Fremont" schreef in bericht news:HzQmb.16541$ snipped-for-privacy@twister.austin.rr.com...

How long does it take to discuss what is wanted, to find a suitable plastic case, a button, a battery clip, components, design an circuit with auto-power off, to write a piece of software that does bi-bi-bi-beep four times, to do a pcb layout that fits exactly, to have them produced, to order the parts, and to assemble them, and to make a 2nd revision of software to tune the speed of the series of beep ?

"Richard Crowley" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com...

Try Google. The beeper only makes a series of short beeps. Like an alarm that goes off.

Yes Herbert, it's an absolute disgrace.

Same thing with hearing aids.

I made one for my Mother for the cost of a few beers.

On 26 Oct 2003 15:21:05 GMT, john@Neopha.44in88.net (John Todd) Gave us:

That would likely be a piezoelectric wafer type transducer.

That's weird. Liability has an enormous impact on some items, but I don't see how that would apply to an artificial larynx. Perhaps it's a small market which invites little competition.

Other products, however, never reach the market because of liability concerns. A close friend told me of a SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) warning system that had potential but was still-born due to the liability issue. As he put it, if the system saved 99 infants but then failed to save

Another issue is FDA (or similar) approval. Another friend developed a unique algorithm for predicting the onset of a heart attack for cardiac patients but never did get to the market place. It can be a long and arduous process which will bankrupt indviduals and small companies.

Many electronic designers and smaller companies shy away from certain markets because of litigation and/or government approvals. Of course, that's both a good thing and a bad thing. Just my thoughts.

save

And that's a shame. Personally, if I were to design something that had the potential to save lives, I would consider it my responsibility to make it available. If it saved one life and failed to save another (both lives would have been lost anyway), I would feel that was adequate compensation for any lawsuit levied against me by gold-digging relatives.

But then, engineers are usually trying to help the world in some way. Not like insurance and investment beancounters, who consider the life of someone they don't know to be insignificant compared to a 3% bonus on their next paycheck.

Who says they aren't liable? If a person died, and the relatives discovered that a company was developing a device that could have prevented the death, yet for financial reasons was forced to halt development...whose fault it is now?

An answer to the liability problem is thus: Company XYZ makes device under contract for company A1 which sells it under its own brand name. Company A1 is basically a sales arm and most of the profits go to company XYZ as part of the pricing structure. Big ass BA1 sues A1 due to failure of on in a million for gigabucks, and A1 files bankruptcy and willingly folds. Same people in A1 create A2 and run the same model until BA2 comes along, etc & etc. XYZ can front the money for A1, A2,,,,An forever due to holding most of the profits, and BA1, BA2,,,BAn go cut fish on a few paltry thousand that An is worth. In short, set up a corporate structure that teaches these b*stards to eat their own sh*. Approval for minor crap as mentioned? Forget it..advertise in selected national magazines and on the net - direct sales....

My friend's uncle had a heart attack Saturday, and triple bypass surgery Sunday. He should be fine. In the same family there was another old guy who had the same condition and treatment, but waited months for the surgery. He was in England, and he died.

Their largest inefficiency by far is avoiding lawsuits, but that problem originates in a different industry.

Thank you for your survey of a statistically significant sample of cardiac patients in the UK and US. I expect to see it published in The Lancet in the near future. You didn't mention that you are a cardiac surgeon and that you had access to their notes, but I think we can take that as read.

Tim

Perhaps you should also survey the mecidal providers just south of the Canadian border to see how much of their practice consists of patients unwilling to be THAT "patient".

------------- "THAT" patient is the one who got immediate surgery and was actually only conscious for the last few days of his life, because he died despite the "success" of the surgery! The efficacy of bypass surgery is highly questionable.

-Steve

I read in sci.electronics.design that R. Steve Walz wrote (in ) about 'A dozen cheap junk-box parts... Assembled, they go for $500.00', on Sun, 2 Nov 2003:

Sir Ranulf Fiennes is asking some tough questions about it at present. Seven marathons in seven days, four months after a double bypass.