Nye Medical News - February 2017
Improving Motion Control in Medical Devices
In medical equipment, viscous damping greases or gels can smooth operation, eliminate noise, and reduce the impact of environmental factors. Damping products provide appropriate viscous drag on moving parts in order to control motion and minimize free-motion problems. This stress resistance can also prevent backlash, stick-slip, coasting, or undesirable vibration. A special class of medical applications that utilize viscous damping gels, includes a wide range of disposable and reusable devices such as pumps, hand-held injectors or inhalers, for drug or implant delivery.
Connector Solutions for Medical Applications
As microelectronics proliferate in the MedTech industry, medical devices become more effective, efficient, and interoperable while shrinking in size. At the same time, risk management and compliance with global quality standards grows in importance. Thus, electrical connectors, switches, cables and contacts are more numerous but smaller and more complex. Additionally, hospital and field deployment environments offer challenges due to exposure to moisture, dust, corrosive reagents and sterilizing conditions.
Enabling Smart Technology
Nye was contacted by iWalk, now known as BionX™ Medical Technologies Inc., a leader in the field of prosthetic devices. The company was working on designing powered “smart” prostheses, in particular an ankle prosthetic. Their design used a small precision ball screw to continually adjust the angle of the prosthetic foot relative to the lower leg. The ball screw is actuated by a battery powered electric motor. iWalk needed our help in maximizing the life of the ball screw while keeping the battery size small. Download our case study to learn how our lubricant helped minimize the amount of energy needed to actuate the ball screw, while prolonging the operation time of the battery. Printed by permission of BionX™ Medical Technologies Inc.
