With several "Day in the life" posts, I thought I'd do one. We haven't been called to any hospitals in a while, so those will have to wait. Instead, the other night we went to the warehouse to clear junk. We tackled the collimators, and cleared them out.
Apologies in advance for the pictures. I was tired and busy doing crap, so I just stuck it at 1/60th of a second and let the camera do its thing. Things are dark and noisy, and I just did a lazy enhance with Picasa.
So I don't have to type it,
this is what collimators do. As you'll see in the pics, they look like big lead honeycombs.
For starters...this is the warehouse:
This is when we were leaving, since I forgot to take it when we arrived. It wouldn't be much different since we got there late as it was. Not much to look at anyway.
This is the inside of the warehouse, taken from the back wall. Gah, wish I had a wide angle. Anyway, its full of old hospital equipment, most of it not ours. PS, thats my brother wearing that ugly ass plaid coat he wears all the damn time I HATE THAT COAT.
These black square thingys are collimators. Collimators for a 1000/2000 style system. They are hanging from collimator racks. Thats where hospitals will store several sets to change them around. Lots of styles...various densities in the lead for resolution, fan beams (magnify), even pinhole which I will get to in a sec. So hospitals can have several sets and they sit on racks.
This is the top side of the collimator. This is how you'd see it sitting on the camera itself. This one is sitting on a...
...collimator server! Collimators are mostly lead, so they are heavy as fuck. You have to move them around on these things to change them out.
We wanted to save some things off some collimators, such as the outer part (the part you see). This acts as a collision detector. If anything bumps it, the stops the camera from moving so you dont break anything (including the patient). Here I pulled the outer part that we're saving away and took a peek inside. Thats the lead bit with a thin plastic cover on it.
Same thing, detector removed, plastic peeled.
This is the lead. Its what makes a collimator work. Why does it have "OIHO" on it, you ask? It doesnt. Its upside down. OHIO, as in Ohio Imaging who are responsible for making most of this crap.
More lead.
Once we took out parts, we dont need the rest. We set them out for the scrap dealers to come by and take. They love us...lots of lead, aluminum, and steel. We threw some printers away, but we knew the scap dealers didnt take them. So who? Or better yet, who cares? We just dont want people making money off our junk. In theory, someone could save the collimators and try resell them. They can sell for quite a lot if you have a set (and someone needs them). Only one solution...
Smash them.
Sure only one hit in the middle would have been good enough to ruin them, but damn it felt good so we did it a lot.
Me next to the "carnage" with my 1 week old beard.
Only thing left to do is put em on the dock. Like I said, they are way too heavy to lift. You cant take them off the cart and lay them down, you'll seriously hurt yourself. So we just shoved em off the cart.
Previous collimators acted as a nice landing pad. When the new ones would land on their corners it would punch through the other collimators laying there.
This is a collimator cabinet. These are used to hold the collimators for the 3000 systems. 3000s have 3 heads, but each one is smaller than the heads on a 2000. This makes the collimators smaller and lighter, so they can be carried and changed by hand. Except for the one seen in this picture. Double thick and really heavy, they have carts made to move them. We didnt use it, but it took 2 of us to move each one (6 total). We had 3 cabinets, so I'm guessing 18 regular sized ones?
End of the night, heres the junk we pushed out onto the dock. To the left are 3 collimator racks laying down, in the middle are piles of collimators, in the back are the 3 cabinets, and on the right side is a 3000 collimator server, an old 2000 server, and a rack with collimators on it thats sitting upside-down. Long story.
Another shot. If you look in the back of this one you see a cone shaped thingy. Thats a pinhole collimator.
Detail of the pinhole. It operates pretty much the same way a pinhole camera does. The collimator was heavier than the rest with that huge lead cone on it.
Our corner is looking pretty empty now. Just the 3 systems to take apart. Thats a 1000 in the corner there.
Thats it. Not very exciting, I know. More exciting than a real "day in the life" for me...it'd be a pic of me on the computer. Next time we get called to a site I'll take pics and make another post.
