There has been a lot of discussion recently about companies involved in
medical RP and I would like
to describe some work that Lone Peak has conducted in this area.
ABS Plastic Medical Prototypes:
We have taken MRI scan data, converted it using in-house proprietary
software (and no it is not Materialize), produced the .STL file and built
the RP part in ABS plastic on our FDM.
We have taken a series of mostly wrist files and produced some really nice
parts. We have demonstrated the turn-around time to a group of
radiologists. Basically, they FTPed the files on Friday, we did the scan
conversion on Saturday, we built the part on Sunday, and delivered it to
the radiologists on Monday.
Alumina Ceramic Medical Prototypes:
We have taken, laser, CAT, and MRI scan data and built ceramic prototype
bones using our LOM system. Somes of the "bones" are part of an evaluation
for a long term research program. We are currently building an entire hand
(bones only) in alumina ceramic at 50% scale. We build the prototype bones
out of our own alumina ceramic LOM material and we use our own software to
do the scan conversion. We have the capbility to work with a variety of
"bioceramc" materials and probably will be demonstrating some of these
compositions with our LOM.
Issues for this type of RP service:
I agree with the comment that was made about this kind of service
requiring that the service bureau have staff with medical background.
Insurance liability issues are a real concern also. Has anyone priced
liability for the medical side of RP? I have, and it is pretty expensive.
Another problem facing medical RP relates to the RP processes. I don't
feel that there is only one RP technique that I would use for medical RP.
I feel that one needs a variety of processes to truly serve a future
medical RP market.
Alair Griffin
Engineer
Lone Peak Engineering, Inc.
alair@lonepeak.com
Lone Peak Engineering, Inc.
12660 S. Fort St.
Draper, UT 84020
801-553-1732 TEL
801-553-1734 FAX
lpe@lonepeak.com
http://www.aros.net/~lonepeak/lpe
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jun 05 2001 - 22:37:37 EEST