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There have been plenty of publications covering the topic of 3D printing in medicine. It’s surely the factor that can streamline the progress and implementation of the newest technologies. By radically shortening the time between planting the idea in our minds and materializing it, we can provide help much faster, so it is in fact more efficient. More time saved translates simply to the shorter period of painful and stressful time of awaiting the surgery or during it. These reasons, together with the talent and creativity, pushed one of our engineers to design, 3D print and assemble a high utility device – a varicose vein closing laser optic fibre winch. Although the name may be slightly confusing, the device itself is based on a simple mechanism that provides steady pace of withdrawing the optic fibre from the varicose blood vessel. Fighting the Illness But let’s get into the root of the problem. One of the most common of today’s diseases is the venous insufficiency that affects about 25 – 50 % of the whole population. The disease is curable, however the side effects of various therapies may result in postsurgical complications and prolonging the recuperation period. One of the key problems, which appeared during the one of the curing methods called ELVT varicose vein removal treatment, is the speed of withdrawing the fibre from the affected vein. During the typical surgery this was performed manually which couldn’t guarantee a constant and steady movement. That was mainly the cause of the improper vein closure and consequences like pain, bruises and problems with walking. 3D Printed Solutions to Common Problems
Thankfully, due to the winch that was 3D printed on the Zortrax M200, the problems can be eliminated. First of all, the device provides the unified speed of pulling the fibre from the vessel which is 1mm/s. Thanks to the fact that the device is automatic, it provides great convenience of use as there is no longer the need of doing it manually which is both tiring and imprecise. The shape of device was thoroughly considered to adjust it to the conditions and requirements of medical equipment. The fibre holder mechanism of the winch was carefully designed to allow releasing the laser fibre without threading the end of it from the device. What is more, the winch consists of modules that can be easily disassembled, so each element can be washed and sterilized after the surgery. Efficient Healthcare Finally within the Reach This simple, yet highly useful device is now an inseparable part of surgeries performed by one of the Polish specialists in the vascular surgery, dr Marcin Feliga. He arguments that “Proper tumescence (pressing the vessel lumen against the fibre) conducted with the use of the winch results in 100% correct closure of the vessel lumen. The winch makes surgical success.’’ That’s a considerable advantage, as the surgeon performs about 30-35 surgeries each month, which gives approximately 360-420 less postsurgical complications per year. Feliga also stresses the broad spectrum of opportunities given by 3D printing. In broader perspective the 3D printed winch serves as a great example of how 3D printing can contribute to better quality healthcare by providing the physicians with the proper tools in the right time. An Everyday Must Have Device The article simply shows the great versatility of a 3D printer. Apart from being a business tool that helps your budget increase by allowing fast prototyping and tooling it is a high utility device that serves people in need. Zortrax M200 3D printer, thanks to its high accuracy and quality of pint, can be used to create useful medical devices really fast and due to a specific purpose. By having this device you can not only get your ideas tangible and create one-of-a-kind device, but also make a valuable contribution to the development of science, industry or medicine – like one of Zortrax engineers did. New Possibilities Utilized The video presented in this post is a short interview with dr Marcin Feliga, that shares the opinion about 3D printing in medicine, just to convince you, that this particular technology and Zortrax M200 3D printer can create better working conditions and plentiful opportunities of future improvement in various fields. The way you decide to choose a 3D printer to serves you best is up to you. Focus on the return of investment thanks to the fast prototyping and time and cost cutting or faster return of somebody’s health. Have them both to see, that having a 3D printer can be a double win. If molding process is necessary for your production, but you are in fact a bit pushed off after realizing how much time and effort and money it will take, you don’t have to give up your plans. Instead, you may want to check out the newest techniques like 3D printing which is one of the most available methods of individual production. A 3D printer is not only a tool for manufacturing goods, its potential also gives you the ability to implement new ideas at the spot and learn from your mistakes. That’s basically the thing which can help your workshop and ideas really develop. In this blog post, we would like to show you an overview and key benefits of using 3D printing in the process of industrial molding. The full step by step process of preparing a master pattern for molding can be found in our free tutorial 3D Printing in Modern Mold Making. Small Input = Great Results The sufficient equipment necessary for preparing molds consists of a Zortrax 3D printer and a set of silicone and resin molding compounds. No special supply base is necessary, only a 3D printer which is the core element responsible for bringing efficiency and innovation to the well-known method of creating molds. Probably most of you are aware of the fact that the technique known as RTV molding isn’t in fact anything new or unknown, but still with a little upgrade we can squeeze out more from it and be impressed with the results. Information concerning time, cost and efficiency parameters compared to traditional molding can be found below. • Replacing machined pattern with a 3D printed one makes the time of mold-making process shrink by 40%. • High printing speed allows fast iteration – get instant results of your work and show it to your stakeholders, even at the earliest stage of your work. • With 3D printing each variation could be created in 1-2 hours and alterations are made on the spot. One can easily change the pattern in Z-Suite and recreate/remaster the previous design. • Accuracy of printing guarantees the proper quality of the castings and complexity of details which gives the molds properties close to end-use parts. It allows creating complex master patterns which would be difficult or impossible to create by other means. • Preparation of the master pattern is quicker and much cheaper compared to traditional methods – time is reduced from 50% up to 80% while costs are lowered to 40%-75%. • The transition from the design stage to the test stage takes 1 day only and each stage of product design takes days instead of weeks thanks to the use of 3D print. • Having a 3D printer makes the whole process less complicated as you don’t have to outsource creating the master pattern or other elements. Process Overview The main factor to speed up the process of molding was based on incorporating a 3D printer as a tool for preparing the parts necessary for casting, mainly the master pattern and the mold box. These elements are then used to create multiple casts of an end-use part. The whole process starts from designing the elements in any CAD program, converting the 2D model into a 3D one by exporting the file to Z-Suite and printing the patterns. The optional choice at this stage is to use various post-processing methods to smooth out the finished products. All the manuals covering the post-processing techniques for 3D prints can be found in our Support Center. The mold form is made by pouring the silicone into the mold box and waiting for it to cure. After the pattern is finished, you can use it to make casts for the resin carefully injected to the pattern with inserted stem. Completely dried and after the cure time, the product is finished and the pattern could be used multiple of times. Safety Comes First The vital thing to stress is the safety of the whole process. Room temperature vulcanization doesn’t require high temperatures, so there is no real danger of being burned by the liquid compounds. The substances used to create molds and the pattern are non-hazardous and produce minimal odor and fumes as the moderate molding temperature doesn’t cause intense vaporizing. A Powerful Combo
The process itself proves that by applying the new approach we can improve the efficiency of molding. Combining these two techniques is mainly responsible for labor reducing and broadening the variety of created casts as 3D printing doesn’t impose many limits on complexity of produced models. The core benefits will influence the user experience directly as testing, implementing and evaluating the results is within one’s reach almost instantly. Producing highly adaptable elements can strongly affect the reception of an end-use product and result in satisfactions on both sides when the changing requirements are finally met. Get the complete tutorial covering all the details concerning utilising 3D printing in soft plastic molding for free. |