Medical Disposable
- plastic part design
- rapid prototyping
- mold sourcing
Product Spotlight
Island Medical had both a part cost goal and a well defined performance spec when it came to Piton to develop it's next generation disposable medical device. Utilizing solid modeling software and stereolithography, Piton was able to evolve a 4-part concept into a single molded part. In addition to reducing mold costs and total part cost, the single part design elimated assembly labor and potential quality control issues. The part is approximately 1"dia x 4" long.
Through a series of quick-turn SLA prototypes, performance testing was done that confirmed the design intent. Although the production plan (100K/yr) was for polypropylene the SLA polymer was a reasonable approximation for the performance characteristics of interest.
Although consulting of mold builders was done during the initial design, it was after the design was firmed-up that Piton queried four injection molding companies to compare mold and molding costs. A spreadsheet was created that allowed the client to analyze trade offs of single verses multiple cavity tools, and injection molding run quantities. Ultimately it was decided to build a 2 cavity base but start with just one cavity. The second cavity insert would be added after production was underway.