Visiled headlight $3,000 - $5,000 - Seriously

I received an ad from Visiled regarding a surgical headlight. The qoted prince is 3-5k. Rechargeable. 2 LED's. What could they possibly be using to justify the price? I haven't seen or used one, I should add.

I could use a narrow angle headlamp for small work but this is ridiculous.

The high price is most likely due to the fact that they are selling, or at least trying to sell this product to the medical field. That is ridiculous..

Pete

rjfsec said:

I received an ad from Visiled regarding a surgical headlight. The qoted prince is 3-5k. Rechargeable. 2 LED's. What could they possibly be using to justify the price? I haven't seen or used one, I should add.

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The design, testing and quality control as well as the limited sales would contribute to a high cost.
The liability they are likely to incur if one fails and a lawsuit develops is probably the majority of the cost. If one fails and they are named in the suit, as they absolutley would be, the cost to them will be high even if they win and very high if they loose.

There's always the specter of a lawsuit, true. I'm a surgeon and our malpractice insurance premiums are some of the highest in medical field. Think about it. If you're the patient and something happens, you sue the doctor. Maybe the hospital as well. Worst thing that can happen to a light, it goes out. That can happen anyway, fuses, bulbs burning out, people tripping on the power cord even. So you wait and get another. Or use the overhead lights. There's always an alternative, it's just that a headlight is *so* convenient.

I suspect they're just trying to soak the hospital for the price of these things.

On the website, the actual lux output is not specified, though they state that the Xenon lamps are around 40,000 lux. Somehow the LED headlamp is rated as "Brightness equal to or greater than the industry average"

Right.

Is this evidence of why people think HMO costs are high??
This should be filed in the same drawer as the $600.00 toilet seat the US millitary bought back in 1983. In 1999, the same toilet seat was costing $1800.00.

Wow ... just wow. I gotta say that they are also competing against Welch Allyn headlamps with similar technology. WA has a 1 and 5 W headlight priced at $230 and $500 approximate street price. I have made my own 3 W headlamp for about $30 in parts and it works pretty well ... now I just need to make it battery powered .

(sorry about the digression)
One problem with power output greater than 2.5 watts or so is that you start to need a huge heatsink or need to use active cooling to avoid getting burned.

Does anyone know a source for 20mm size fans and smaller?

Digikey has this 17mm 5 volt fan in stock.
17 mm micro fan

This 25mm 5 volt fan looks good also.
25 mm fan

Pretty much everything in a hospital operating room has to be approved by the FDA, too. Which isn't the cheapest process around.

There could be a couple of things going on. For one, instruments in the operating theater must often be made so there is absolutely no chance of sparking, even within the device, because of flammable agents given during anesthesia. The other thing that comes to mind is color rendition. typical "white" LEDs may not have the full spectrum needed for accurate color rendition, and color rendition would be extremely important in surgery. There might be some rigid standard that requires a very specific LED not used in any other application. -- speculation of course...

Nubo said:

There could be a couple of things going on. For one, instruments in the operating theater must often be made so there is absolutely no chance of sparking, even within the device, because of flammable agents given during anesthesia. The other thing that comes to mind is color rendition. typical "white" LEDs may not have the full spectrum needed for accurate color rendition, and color rendition would be extremely important in surgery. There might be some rigid standard that requires a very specific LED not used in any other application. -- speculation of course...

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Pelican and UK light have hazardous environment certification - and they don't charge 3-5K. Colour rendition, just buy LEDs binned nicely or sort them yourselves, look at HDS's GT lights. 3-5k is a massive markup. As soon as you put the word "medical" on anything, the price goes up vastly. "medical" penlights, "medical" plessors (tendon hammers), you name it...

glad to have my 1k medical 2B pencil

do they really think we are nuts? 3k to 5k of some "awesome" headlamp ?

how about just bringing alot some huge lux v spot light? won't that be better [in case you are wondering, it will run off the dc,or else the battery life will be too funky]

Another thing that must be considered is that this light has to withstand some harsh cleaning. I don't know if would have to be sterile (although I suspect it might be since it is within the "sterile field") but it would have to be kept very clean. The cleaning agents used in a hospital are usually powerful and can be destructive to some materials. That may have something to do with the high cost, but this does look excessive.

Headlamps used by surgeons are not normally sterile. And flammable anesthetic agents are not used in ORs any more. In fact, in most surgeries an electrocautery device is in use which produces a visible arc of electricity.


I think the price is just indicative of what almost any piece of hardware used 'medically' costs these days. There is very little resemblance to actual cost of production. Its important that these companies make enough money to pay lawsuit winners and their lawyers, and still have a little bit left over as profits.