glycerine checks for temp probes

[scswain]

Please help I have a tech who says that we must heat the glycern and then cool the glycern to do a proper check is this true??????

[L106]

I've never heard of this.

[scswain]

thanks me either

[janet]

If I understand what you are asking I think that is basically how I do our "High/Low" temp checks.....put the container of glycerin (with the probe in it) in ice cold water until the alarm sounds then warm it all up again until it goes off on the high end. This reproduces what would happen for a unit - right!?!

[L106]

Whoops! Looks like I probably misunderstood scswain when I first read the post. (I guess the term "heat" instead of "warm-up" got me on the wrong track.)

Of course Janet is correct. A recommended procedure for testing the blood storage alarms can be found in the AABB "Technical Manual", 15th edition, starting on page 823.

[Franklyn]

This is commonly called a "fire and ice" test and there are a few ways of doing it but the basic description is correct. You warm the probe until the unit alarms and cool it till it alarms. If you are just doing a static temperature check (not an alarm system) you can calibrate it at a single point in the range for which that probe is used. So, for example, you can calibrate a probe in a 1 - 6 degree refrigerator at 4 degrees and be just fine.