Project of the week is a Medical Clip Stake Holder made of Blue SUSTAPEEK MG. This part will eventually be injection molded once tested and proven. This part is roughly 4-3/4 x 1-1/16" x 3/8, this part was 3D machined and had to be very smooth since it was going to be clinically used and tested. This material is very expensive especially when things are going wrong. The long split in the middle of the part in picture 2, 3, and 4 was the hardest operation to perform. This area kept collapsing after the slitting operation, which according to print was a no go. We can't explain what this product was or how we managed to successfully machine this medical part, but what a challenge it was to make only 12 prototypes.
End Mills, Ball Mills, Corner Round Mills and Chamfer Mills were solid carbide from Microcut with standard High-Speed Drill and Slitting Saws. We used Mic6 aluminum plate for fixturing in order to hold down and machine 12pcs per side and per cycle. Part tolerance except for the side slit was +/- 0.010 and the machine finish with chamfer edges had to be tumbled smooth to eliminate machining marks for this part. Now the issue with the slit on the side feature was not a small task, because of the length to thickness ratio. This area was collapsing beyond the expectable tolerance of +0.005/-0.000; we kept getting inconsistent measurements of +0.000/-0.002 to 0.004 of collapse. This was a challenging project to start the week of 09/04/06, it did take several scrapped parts before we got the slit into tolerance. We would like to thank our customer for allowing us to share this medical device project with people who value the manufacturing talent that is out there... If you have similar projects like this and would like to receive a quote from us, please reach out to us for further information.
