insert molding

Insert Molding

Insert molding for the medical sector often is a complex manufacturing process because precision is required at every step of the way in order to produce quality parts.  The insert must be manufactured within a very tight tolerance range because there is always some aspect of the metal insert that is required for the mold shutoff so that plastic only flows where it is supposed to flow.

In the example below, 304 Stainless Steel tubes were custom manufactured by one of our vendor partners.  It's purpose is to provide for a biopsy needle guide during a prostate examination.  The shutoffs on both ends of the part are critical to achieving a consistent and high quality finished part.  The radius of the tube and the overall length of the tube must be within an extremely tight tolerance range in order to prevent flashing of plastic due to any misfit between the tubes and the tool fixturing.  In this example the challenge is double due to the need to insert mold two of these tubes into the assembly.

The second challenge of this particular assembly is that the tubes have a requirement to be parallel to each other within a very tight tolerance.  This is critical so that the end use instrument probe to which this assembly is attached can accurately map the location of where the biopsy sample was taken.