From 20 to 22 November, WITTMANN BATTENFELD will demonstrate its expertise in the field of medical technology, and here especially in the area of micro technology, in hall 08b, booth F03 at the Compamed in Düsseldorf, the international trade fair for components, upstream products and raw materials for manufacturing medical supplies.
With its electric machine models from the PowerSeries, the all-electric EcoPower and the MicroPower, specially designed for injection moulding small and micro parts, WITTMANN BATTENFELD offers machinery which is of special interest for medical technology in particular. After all, these machines meet the highest standards in terms of cost-efficiency, process stability, speed and cleanness.
At this year’s Compamed in Düsseldorf, WITTMANN BATTENFELD is exhibiting two micro injection moulding applications to demonstrate its competence in medical technology. One application will be on display at the WITTMANN BATTENFELD booth in hall 08b/F03, the other at the booth of Microsystems UK in hall 08a/F19.
An opto-electronical application will be shown in hall 08b/F03, where a barrel holder made of POM will be produced by a MicroPower 15/10 with a mold supplied by Wittner. This component is a focusing device used mainly in cameras to hold the lenses in place or to focus them, and in medical measuring devices, also for focusing optical measuring systems, for example for optical analysis of liquids.
The specialty of this component is that the internal thread is produced with the help of a threaded core operated directly via the ejector of the injection moulding machine. This means that the threaded core is unscrewed directly inside the mould, before it is removed by a WITTMANN W8VS2 robot specially designed for this machine model, then presented to a camera integrated in the production line and the machine’s control system for quality inspection, and finally deposited in a collecting box separated according to cavities. Another special feature is the production processunder cleanroom conditions achieved by means of a Laminar FlowBox inside the machine.
In hall 08a/F19, Microsystems UK will demonstrate the production of the functional components of a lab-on-a-chip application, also on a MicroPower 15/10, using a mold from its own production. Here, two different parts with micro structures will be injection-molded from highly transparent ABS, inspected by a camera integrated in the machine and then deposited by a WITTMANN W8VS2 robot in a stacking station. Special features of these parts are the fine micro structures, which assist the transport of liquids within the 'lab on a chip' component, and the excellent quality of the lens for subsequent optical analysis of the liquids to be examined. In this application, too, the entire manufacturing process takes place under clean-room conditions.
The MicroPower stands out by its extreme cost-efficiency, process reliability and speed, all factors that are vital for manufacturers of medical technology components. In this new machine generation, the injection aggregate is of special interest. This innovative two-step injection unit, consisting of a screw and a plunger, with a shot volume ranging from 0.05 to 4 cm3, injects thermally homogeneous melt, with the result of premium-quality parts from absolutely stable production with short cycle times. The modular machine system consists of a basic platform that can be extended up to a complete production cell. The machine’s clean room-compatible design and the cleanroom module, which provides clean air class 6 according to ISO 14644-1, are ideal for medical applications.