Precision Engineeering company The Engineering Quest has invested in advanced Sodick ALC400G micro-wire EDM machine to meet demand for micro-machined medical components.
Will Sharpe from The Engineering Quest explained the background. “Over 20 years ago, our customer handcrafted the NHS surgical instruments for eye surgery with a production output of just one or two a day. However, a change in legislation required the instruments to be disposable and not re-used, which immediately ramped up production demand. The customer needed a solution, and we offered a wire EDM solution that could increase production to 250 instruments a week.”
With several EDM machines at its Milton Keynes facility, Engineering Quest has comfortably met the production demand for over 400 instrument variants, which can be ordered in batches of 10 to 1000.
“The instruments are used in eye surgery, so many of these are for the back of the eye. They've got to be very small, very clean and relatively cheap, but we've got to make sure that we can keep up with the demand that has really exploded over the last two years. The parts are now exported worldwide, throughout Japan, Asia, Africa, and the US,” said Will.
The Sodick ALC400G incorporates advanced features that directly address The Engineering Quest's manufacturing challenges. The machine utilises rigid linear motor drives across the X, Y, U, and V axes, combined with absolute linear scales to ensure positioning accuracy backed by Sodick's 10-year positioning guarantee. Central to the machine's capability is its micro wire functionality, which accommodates wire diameters as fine as 0.03 millimetres. This proved crucial in the purchasing decision, as no other machine in its class could meet the micron tolerance demands of the company.
Mark Palmer from Quest added: "These are intricate components for microsurgery for the eyes. So you need something really, really small and really intricate to produce these instruments. You have that accuracy with this machine because it has 0.03mm wire, allowing us to undertake micron precision work that customers require." This ultra-fine wire capability creates incredibly small and detailed features that would be impossible to achieve through conventional machining methods.
Rather than purchasing a standard machine, The Engineering Quest collaborated closely with Sodick to develop a customised solution specifically tailored to its medical device manufacturing needs.
Will Sharpe said: "Sodi-Tech were really, really helpful. Right from the outset, we went to them with the challenges and the drawings already in place. We spent considerable time researching and discussing what we required, the finer details, and they were very receptive to everything we asked.”
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