Motion in Dental Applications

The dental market is growing. An aging population and greater demands for cosmetic dentistry are some of the factors driving this growth.

Powered Surgical Tool Reliability: Protecting Against Moisture & Corrosion

Powered reusable surgical tools have gained popularity thanks to their ability to reduce procedure times and improve patient outcomes. An array of sensor, feedback, and control components make these advances possible. These parts are prone to corrosion from saline, steam sterilizations, or other contaminants. In order to ensure reliable performance over several years of surgeries and re-use, device OEMs need to protect their tools against moisture ingress. This blog post will explain how moisture, corrosion, and other harsh conditions can compromise reusable surgical tools and offer mitigation strategies to ensure long service life.

When it comes to motion for handheld and miniature medical device designs, a standard electrical mini motor may seem like a good starting point. But while a miniature motor generates rotary movement, applications like medical pipettes or syringes, and mesotherapy devices often move loads linearly instead of rotationally. For these medical tools as well as some industrial devices, engineers must develop their own system to translate rotary motion into linear motion. Here are some of the basics to understand when considering your linear motion options.

Portescap Design Partnership Among Multiple Stakeholders

Medical device development normally involves the coordination of many stakeholders. Original equipment or device manufacturers (OEMs or ODMs) are increasingly utilizing design and manufacturing partners to develop and launch their products. Additionally, start-up companies typically work with investors and incubators to support their nascent businesses. All of these stakeholders add value to the development process, but they also bring unique needs and goals for the project that an OEM or ODM must accommodate.

Lower Surgical Hand Tool Costs Without Sacrificing Reliability

Surgeons worldwide have come to favor advanced surgical hand tools for their effectiveness and successful patient outcomes. In order to keep costs in check, these sophisticated tools are re-used many times. In between procedures, the tools require steam sterilization, or autoclaving. While Tier-I surgical centers can afford frequent re-use of premium surgical tools, this model is often too expensive for smaller-scale Tier-II and Tier-III operations. However, the right motor can allow designers to create affordable surgical tools with high quality and durability. 

How to Select a Mini Motor Technology for your Surgical Device Design

Powered surgical hand tools are a mainstay of the operating room. For decades surgeons and device makers have relied on sterilizable Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) motors to meet the torque, speed, and reliability requirements of surgical hand tools. With the advance of surgical robotics and robotically assisted surgical devices, more than device makers count on BLDC motors to meet their most demanding requirements.

Precision Motors for Medical Infusion Systems

Overview

Portescap offers a range of motor technologies and accessories that enable innovation for Medical Infusion Systems. Whether it is a DC Coreless solution that utilizes its high efficiency to extend battery life or a stepper linear actuator that applies its mechanical precision for accurate dosing, Portescap marries the desired patient benefits to the infusion system requirements to create the optimum design. The addition of gearboxes and encoders provide flexibility in size, weight, and feedback for the motion solution.

Motor Sterility Management: Protecting vs. Autoclaving

Surgeries must be performed using sterile equipment to prevent infection. While some simple surgical tools can be manufactured inexpensive enough to be economically thrown away after each use, more sophisticated tools such as drills, saws, and shavers must be reusable and therefore sterilized. The motor is a critical part of these tools, and if not protected properly, its electronic components can be susceptible to the moisture and temperature of the steam sterilization process (autoclave).

Motion Considerations for Motorized Multi-function Surgical Power Tools

Orthopedic trauma and implant procedures involve many areas of the body and several types of operations. But despite the diversity of applications, Orthopedic surgeons need to perform three primary functions to accomplish the majority of joint replacements and repairs of broken bones.

1. Sawing:  Remove large portions of bone to be replaced by implant (sagittal, oscillating, or reciprocating versions)\
2. Drilling:  Create small cylindrical holes into which pins and screws are inserted to either secure an implant or secure a cutting jig that then guides the saw cuts
3. Reaming:  Hollow out cavities within the bone to accept implants

These functions are all achieved using Surgical Hand Tools with a high-performance motor powering the drill, saw, or reamer bit. But not all tool OEMs take the same approach to their product line.

Some companies produce a different tool to perform each of these functions. The advantage of this is optimizing performance specifically to that function. However, the downside is that 3 different tools must be purchased and prepared for each surgery, which carries higher costs as well as more items requiring sterilization.

But many surgical hand tool companies instead produce a single tool that can perform all three functions by incorporating modular attachments that include the gearing and couplers required for the sawing, drilling, and reaming. This reduces the number of tools a surgical center must purchase and sterilize between surgeries but requires motors that can handle a wider range of working points. There are also hybrid models in between these two models where more specialized functions (like sternum saws or hip reamers) are handled by a unique tool while all others are handled by a modular tool.

The decision of which approach to take has significant implications on motor selection. Portescap has experience designing motors for all types of tools and can assist in choosing the right model given other design goals. Portescap can also collaborate in the design or manufacturing of the gearing in the modular attachments to develop an optimized complete system.

Contact an engineer today!

Portescap is working closely with our customers to continue to provide miniature motors and precision motion control solutions for medical devices and clinical diagnostics which are essential to the fight against Covid-19. Portescap has been a leading expert in miniature motors and precision motion control solutions for medical devices and clinical diagnostics for many decades and we’re proud to be able to play an important role during this crucial time.  Brushless DC motors and brush DC motors are vital for life-saving medical devices.   

Our new Surgical Motor video highlights Portescap's innovative strengths and expertise in Surgical Motors Solutions. Press play and learn more about Portescap's mini motors technology, why you should work with us, and our approach to design and collaboration. The Surgical Motors Team also highlights our customization process and maps out our typical lead times. Call us today to experience how we can work with you hand-in-hand to find the optimal motor solution for your application!

Spring has officially – finally – arrived. Birds are hatching, flowers are blooming, and Portescap is engineering. (Ok, we’re always engineering...) We’ve just hatched the latest addition to our award-winning* Ultra EC product line: the 30ECT. This news is noteworthy because the 30ECT is the largest diameter motor available within this product line.

 

Portescap’s miniature motors are often used by medical tool and device manufacturers and OEMs, in highly demanding end applications. An in-house testing process is sometimes required to further validate and confirm the design process. We’d like to give you a glimpse into Portescap’s motor testing capabilities for brushless slotted DC motors.

Read: Part I  |  Part III

[continued...]

Now we shall consider the motor speed against an application. We need a motor such that higher limit of its permissible speed should be higher than the operating point of the application. Maximum permissible limit corresponds to upper limit of operating range diagram. This speed limit can be found in our catalogue.

Read: Part II  |  Part III

 

Portescap offers miniature motor technologies to solve the motion needs of end markets. Our typical markets can range from motors for medical devices to various industrial applications. We serve our customers through innovative product technologies encompassing brushless miniature DC motors, brush DC & can stack motors, disc magnet motors and stepper linear actuators, to optimize their application performance.

Miniature Motors for Biopsy Systems and Radiation Treatment

Precision electric motors are spinning the way to improved developments in cancer management.

“Oncology” is the field of study and treatment of tumors. By advancing treatments in biopsy, imaging, and radiation, miniature electric motors are helping to improve the detection and treatment of cancer. As oncology techniques continue to become less invasive, more accurate and effective, the use of miniature electric motors by medical OEMs will remain a driving force in evolution of cancer management.

 

Health care safety is now a top priority and concern among health care practitioners and consumers. In today’s medical devices marketplace, the demand for reliable and safe medical devices and equipment comes not only from the clinical end user, but also from informed patient consumers.

For those involved in the development and manufacture of medical devices and equipment, the demand for safety and quality brings with it new and exciting challenges. How does one build equipment and devices that meet the hundreds of stringent needs of the clinical end user and health care consumer? How does one decide with whom to partner in this far-reaching world of device and equipment manufacturing?

Care givers constantly need products that assist them in achieving the best possible clinical outcomes for their patients. Where do we get motion control solutions, i.e. motors for medical OEMs capable of navigating the demands of the health care industry?

Portescap has recently introduced the P532 Series Disc Magnet Step Motor with encoder to deliver best-in-class motor acceleration and power rate and thus outperform the standard Brushless DC motor in a wide range of applications.

Stepper motors typically run at 2,000 RPM or less in an open loop, while brushless motors that can run at much higher speeds are typically used in closed loop applications. In the last few years, trend is to use a stepper motor in closed loop with a torque higher than a brushless motor system, because of its higher pole count. What we are typically looking at is the middle range of revolutions per minute [RPM] as a sweet spot for disc magnet motors. The sweet spot opens up in applications in the few thousand RPM range, where a closed loop disc magnet motor system can be more cost-effective than a brushless solution.

 

The medical sector today mandates mechanical ventilation in cases where a patient's spontaneous ventilation is inadequate to maintain life. This is done to prevent an imminent collapse of other physiological functions, or ineffective gas exchange in the lungs. Mechanical ventilation therapies in hospitals and in the field have contributed to dramatic improvement in life expectancy of patients during and after surgeries, or patients suffering from accidental disruption of lungs, or even patients suffering from acute chronic pulmonary diseases. More recently, home care applications previously considered as luxury or comfort therapies are showing an interest in race to extend people’s life. For instance, low end mechanical ventilators devices known as CPAP are used at night to treat sleep apnea, a disorder once considered to be a simple discomfort and which is now recognized as a source of major medical complications such as increased blood pressure, diabetes, etc.

What is a “linear actuator”? It is actually a simple stepper motor with a built-in leadscrew to directly convert rotary motion in form of discrete steps, into linear motion. Achieving linear motion internal to the motor eliminates the cost of designing a separate transmission mechanism in the system.