The Medical Design and Manufacturing West exposition and conference brings together the latest advances, leading suppliers, and technical experts in the field, offering engineers a one-stop look at what’s going on in medical design.  This year’s show features four special-focus business pavilions: Precision Tec, MEDPAK, and new for 2007, Quality, and Laser Tec. In addition, you’ll find products from every market segment, including assembly and manufacturing, clean room and sterilization, and contract manufacturing. As you’re walking around the show floor, check out medical electronics, motors, pumps, and motion control. You’ll also find products in packaging, laboring, bar coding, plastics/disposables, and testing and inspection.

Last year’s show generated over $600 million in sales for the 2,045 exhibitors, with about 45,000 OEMs in attendance.  At the conclusion of the event, more than 80% of the exhibitors signed up for the February 2007 exposition.

The LaserTec pavilion, which is new this year, will feature demonstrations on how lasers are used in precision welding, fine cutting, and drilling.  Attendees will also learn how lasers are used in marking processes, and the ways companies incorporate this technology in their manufacturing to increase productivity, quality, and profits.

The Quality Pavilion will feature an array of testing equipment and inspection products and services, including optical and laser inspection equipment, materials and quality assurance test equipment and services, and product reliability technology.  Attendees will also see surface measurement, data acquisition and collection devices, validation software, and ISO certification software. Both the LaserTec and Quality Pavilion, located in Hall E, open early at 9:30 AM.

Here’s a look at some of the items that will be featured at the show.

Custom stainless steel tubing

Eagle Stainless Tube & Fabrication, Inc., offers precision, cut-to-length, stainless steel tubing using custom fabricated components.  The company cuts and deburrs any diameter tubing in quantities from 1 piece to over 100,000 pieces and from lengths of 0.040 in. and longer with tolerances ±0.005.  It is ISO 9001:2000 and AS 9100 certified.
Eagle Stainless Tube & Fabrication Inc.  www.eagletube.com      Booth #2987

Protect devices
      

Caplugs can vinyl coat metal for custom-designed parts.  Any metal part can be dipped into a variety of types and colors.  By molding a vinyl grip directly to a product, the product becomes more durable.  In medical supply, vinyl coating is used for grips on canes and wheelchair rims.  Foam, textured, and UV stable parts can be coated in vinyl materials.  Caplugs also offers plastic sleeves to protect the delicate valves of oxygen cylinders.  They easily slip over the valve and lock into place.  Once the sleeve is applied, it can only be removed using the tear-tab.  
Caplugs      www.caplugs.com     Booth #756     Booth #3251

Small motor with encoder

Size 11 hybrid linear actuators are available with encoder feedback for high and low volume motion control applications. The compact optical incremental encoder has two channel quadrature TTL squarewave outputs. An optional index (3rd channel) output is also available for many resolutions. Encoder resolutions range from 200 to 1,024 cycles per revolution (CPR) or 800 to 4,096 pulses per revolution (PPR).  Operating temperatures are -40° to +100° C. The internal monolithic electronic module converts the real-time position, speed, and direction into TTL compatible outputs.  The encoder module has a lensed LED light source and monolithic photodetector array with signal shaping electronics to produce the two channel bounceless TTL outputs.  

These hybrid linear actuators are available in a variety of resolutions from 0.000125 in. (0.003175 mm) to 0.002 in. (0.0508 mm) per step and deliver thrusts to 25 lb.
Haydon Switch and Instrument Co.   www.hsi-inc.com    Booth #4229

Intelligence and power in small space

Compact drives offer controllers, sensors and motors in an aluminum casing, which, when combined with Maxon products, produce robust, space-saving and high power density drive solutions. The new MCD EPOS is a dynamic, maintenance-free positioning drive with a fieldbus connection and a maximum 60 W output.

The drive is controlled, configured and diagnosed through CANbus or serial interface (RS232). Several optically coupled inputs and outputs mean that sensors and events can be evaluated directly in the drive. For use in automation, robotics, or laboratory applications.
Maxon Precision Motors       www.maxonmotorusa.com        Booth #2846

Teflon Tubing

NewAge Industries offers straight, thin wall, coiled, corrugated, convoluted, or overbraided Teflon tubing.  Made from PTFE, FEP, and PFA fluoropolymers, this tubing is heat and chemical resistance and offers non-stick properties. Applications include laboratory, medical, automotive, chemical and petrochemical transfer, adhesive delivery, corrosives, pharmaceutical processing, and others.

Rigid, straight FEP tubing works well in fluid transfer and sampling applications. Thin wall FEP tubing, offered in AWG and inch sizes, meets wire insulation and protective covering needs. Coiled FEP tubing can be used for robotics, paint spray, and dispensing systems.  It can expand and retract repeatedly without adverse effect to the heat-set coil. Corrugated FEP tubing allows a nearly zero bend radius. Convoluted FEP tubing is flexible and easy to clean. Stainless steel overbraiding for PTFE tubing protects the core, reduces kinking, and provides working pressures as high as 3000 psi.

The company’s PTFE, FEP, and PFA tubing is resistant to corrosion, heat to 500°F (260° C) continuously, and to cold temperatures as low as -400° F (-240° C). It offers a low coefficient of friction, low permeability, and non-flammability. While PTFE is milky white in color, FEP and PFA provide clarity for applications where visual inspection of the flow is desired.
New Age Industries    www.newageindustries.com

Multi-sensor measurement

The bridge-design SmartScope® Flash™ 500 multi-sensor dimensional measurement system features an expansive 500 x 450 x 200 mm XYZ measurement volume with an optional 300 mm extended Z-axis.  It offers fast stages for maximum productivity, and it can be equipped with a new through-the-lens (TTL) laser, adding non-contact surface contouring to its strong touch probe, video, and micro-probe measuring ability. The patented AccuCentric® 12x motorized zoom auto-calibrates at every magnification change. OGP metrology software uses point-and-click tools and provides complete 3D functionality.
Optical Gaging Products, Inc.      www.ogpnet.com                         Booth #3135

Silicone parts & seals

Silicone parts and seals handle a wide variety of medical applications. With fast prototypes available, the range of silicone seals and parts include standard and metric O-rings, MicroSeals(tm), gaskets, face seals, housing seals, filter seals, and more. Custom silicone parts and seals are available with temperature ranges from -94° F to 400° F and durometer range of 10-80 Shore A. FDA, ISO 10993 and USP Class 6 grades are also available.
Apple Rubber Products     www.applerubber.com      Booth #1657

Miniature part source

Tech-Etch specializes in the manufacture of small, light-gauge metal parts through photo chemical etching, a process that produces intricate components with close tolerances. The company can fabricate encoders, masks, filters, lead frames, springs, strain gauges, needles, shutter blades, and many other parts. Metals that can be etched include Nitinol, Titanium, Tungsten, Molybdenum, Copper Alloys, Beryllium Copper, Stainless Steels, Aluminum, Elgiloy, Niobium, Nickel Alloys, Silver, and Spring Steels, in addition to Polyimide Film.

Many of these materials have characteristics that are attractive to the medical industry. Parts range in thickness from .0005 in. and up. Formed parts are made by combining photo etching for blanking with universal tooling for forming. This method produces burr-free parts with intricate and complex shapes. Laminating, plating, heat treating, and assembly are available in house.
Tech-Etch      www.tech-etch.com     Booth #1281

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