Conair auxiliaries target medical extruders

Conair has developed a specially designed suite of extrusion equipment aimed at the demands of the medical market.

"Medical extruders have told us that their key to success lies in controlling process variables," says Bob Bessemer, Conair sales manager, Medical Extrusion. "This equipment not only gives them control of their process, so that they can make higher-quality tubing, it also gives them set-up and operation features that make their process more efficient so they can make more money."

Elements include:

Advanced servo-drive and control technology in the MedLine puller/cutter targets production of tapered and "bump" tubing. The outside and inside diameters (OD and ID) are adjusted to expand the tube to create a wider-diameter bump at a point where a catheter would be attached to other medical equipment. The tubing is then cut to produce a nearly finished catheter tube. Nominal outside diameter is between 0.020 and 0.070

inch, with wall thickness of 0.006 inch or less.

A new convertible puller/cutter - part of the Medline family of downstream extrusion products from the Conair Group - is actually two machines in one. A conventional belted puller section, which is used for most tubing applications, is mounted at right angles to a pinch-roll puller of the sort used to control extremely small-diameter tubing.

To switch from one set up to another in a matter of minutes, an operator simply pulls a release pin, rotates the unit 90 degrees and switches control wires from one puller section to the other. Operator-interface readouts and control calibration change automatically to match whichever drive system is being used. This new Medline puller/cutter system is ideal for lab use and for production situations where it's necessary to switch frequently from one configuration to the other.

MedVac flood-cooling tanks from Conair have been specially designed to meet the needs of medical tubing manufacturers. Available in five models, the tanks can be used to make any size or configuration of tubing, from multi-lumen microbore heart and brain catheters to large-gage medical tubing. The units include design elements that meet the stringent control, sanitary and operator-convenience requirements of precision medical extruders.

In an exhibit of the technology at NPE2012 (Orlando, FL; April 1-5) Conair also showed a micro-scale planetary cutter that can precision cut rigid and semi-rigid medical tubing as small as 0.080-inch (2.03 mm) in outside diameter (OD) automatically at line speeds of up to 100 ft/minute (30.5 m/minute).