For this lab, my partner and I disassembled an IV pump. Upon first observation of the pump, there were two parts that we saw that we believed could easily be removed. The first was the power cord which came right off. The second was a clamp on the back, but upon further examination it proved to be a tough adversary and we could not remove it immediately. This was because it had a bolt connecting it to the housing of the IV pump. Don’t worry though, we eventually we overcame this challenge but that story will be told later.

Seeing as there were no more obvious parts that we could remove on the outside of the pump, we attacked the housing itself. There were several screws around the outside that were easy to access and we removed them using a Phillips screwdriver. However, there were two screws underneath the handle that we could not access with removing the handle. At first we were baffled, but we quickly realized that the handle was held together by two pins which we popped out. Once the handle was gone, the screws underneath it were easy to unscrew and once they were out we removed the top of the housing.

Once we were inside the housing there was a whole mess of circuit boards and parts. The first piece of business we took care of was unplugging all of the wires connecting the circuit boards so they were no longer together. After that, all we had to do to remove the circuit boards was to unscrew the screw, unclip them from the plastic holders (some of which broke off), and finally pry them out. All of the circuit boards came out relatively easily.

After we removed all of the circuit boards and the LCD screen there were two major components that still needed to be disassembled. One was the clamp on the back that I mentioned previously. The other was the mechanism that regulated the IV. Since all of the parts were out of the housing, we could undo the bolt from the inside and remove the clamp. The IV regulator, however, was much more complicated. We eventually succeeded in disassembling all the parts of the regulator except for the pieces around the metal rod the ran through the middle of it.

                          

The machine was assembled with screws and plastic clips holding the circuit boards together on the inside. The plastic clips seemed to be specifically designed for this device because they were built into the housing but the screws were generic screws.

Most of the parts were specific to this machine. The only parts that were off the shelf were the screws.

Most of the machine was designed to be taken apart. Once we figured out that the handle could be removed it was easy to open up the housing. The one piece that was not meant to be disassembled was the IV regulator, which we were unable to completely disassemble.

I believe that the machine was meant to be fixed in most cases because it was not difficult to disassemble. However, if the IV regulator broke, I believe that it was meant for the customer to have to purchase either a new regulator or an entire new machine.

I think most of the machine could be recycled. Most of the components were made of metal and plastic.

Overall, I learned that when devices are manufactured it is best to use as many widely available parts as possible. That is why the housing and the circuit boards were held together using screws. I also learned that some components are designed to be easily disassembled and fixed while others are designed so that they need to be replaced when they fail. In the IV drip device that we disassembled, everything was easy to disassemble and fix except for the drip regulator, which I presume is the most important component.