Braided Shaft & Lamination Solutions

Braided Shaft & Lamination Solutions

Braided catheters are used in a variety of medical applications including small diameter cardiovascular and neurovascular interventions or larger diameter structural heart and endoscopic procedures.

Braid reinforced tubing can improve functional properties such as strength, stiffness, burst pressure resistance, torque transmission and kink resistance. Design considerations such as braid pattern, pick count (ppi), material, wire dimension, wire size/shape and durometer of plastics can have significant impact on catheter performance.

Industry Leading Braiding & Coiling Equipment Supplier

SteegerUSA is the leading supplier for braiding and coiling equipment for medical device manufacturing. SteegerUSA IMC-motion controlled machines enable operators to automatically configure pick count, segment length and speed. This enables our customer to produce product with designed flexibility, stiffness, kink resistance, improved torque response, and radial / hoop strength.

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Expertise in Multi-durometer Tubing Lamination

Machine Solutions offers horizontal and vertical operating equipment for catheter lamination. Catheter lamination or “Reflow”  is the process where the inner and outer jacket materials are melted together to build a composite catheter shaft. Machine Solutions offers a suite of lamination products to meet the needs of any manufacturing process. Horizontal laminators are typically used for shorter catheters and can run a single product at a time. Vertical laminators take less floor space and allow for up to 10 catheters to be processed simultaneously.

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Automated Mandrel Extraction

Automate and simplify mandrel removal. Machine Solutions offers several solutions depending on mandrel materials and lengths. Including multiple part removal systems.  Contact us today to discuss your specific needs.

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Automated medical tubing cutter

Tube cutting is a process designed for cutting multiple plastic tubes with small wall thickness. Machine Solutions offers simple cutting fixtures and fully automated depooling machines. Contact us today to find a medical tube cutting solution to meet your needs.

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Thermal Expander

The Beahm Design’s Thermal Expander is a system for thermoforming plastic tubings by means of heated air nozzle while pressurizing the I.D to expanding the tubing to the desired shape. Depending on the material, the tube may be constrained within a capture tube or mold to control diameter and/or specific geometries.

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3 Key Insights to Create World Class Braided Shafts

Typical Catheter Braid Patterns

SteegerUSA braiders are capable of creating a variety of braid patterns. Each pattern provides specific mechanical properties to the finished device.

  • Full Load Braid Pattern (one single wire under two, then over two wire) provides flexibility, pushability and maximum torque transmission.
  • Diamond Braid Pattern (two wires side by side alternately pass under two wires, then over two wires) provides maximum torqueability and kink resistance
  • One Over One Braid Pattern, aka half-load, is the primary braided catheter pattern used for medical device manufacturing. This pattern is easiest to remove from core without increasing braid thickness.

Steeger USA Braiding R&D Lab

SteegerUSA’s R&D Lab provides access to top-of-the-line braiding, coiling, stranding and lamination equipment for short term contract manufacturing or feasibility studies. Our state-of-the-art lab allows you to develop and test processes for your full-scale manufacturing.

Steeger has the following capabilities in our R&D Lab:

  • Create Samples
  • Run Trials
  • Research and Development
  • Long Term Consulting
  • Short Production Ramp Up
  • Contract Source Identification

Expand Your Braiding Capability Range

Customers are looking to increase product OD, run a half-load braid pattern for additional track-ability or other functional changes to differentiate them for their competitors, as well as flex manufacturing capacity with a machine that may not be fully utilized. In order to support our customer’s development of this unique carrier count, Steeger USA wanted to inform our customers that the machine frame (pulling device, drive system, etc.) from the horizontal 24 or 32 carrier machines can also accept an 8, 12 or 16 carrier head with minimal modification and less than an hour of changeover time from their maintenance teams.

Medical Braider With Reduced Noise Output

SteegerUSA has developed an upgrade for various design parameters which can impact catheter performance. Braid pattern, braided density, wire thickness, are among several factors which effect there performance of a catheter.

Vertical Lamination Temperature Stability & Repeatability Test Data

Machine Solutions conducted performance testing on our catheter lamination system (VL series platform) to verify optimum consistency, stability and repeatability outputs of the equipment design. After the recommended 10-minute warm up period, testing results confirmed that lane to lane, run to run and machine to machine consistency of ±3˚F.

Medical Catheter Coiling Machine

Steeger USA coiling machines are ideal for reel to reel coiling applications. Steeger offers a retrofit package that allows our customers to easily use their 16 carrier horizontal or vertical braider as a coiler. This provides customers with access to a coiler for R&D projects without the cost to invest in a production coiler.

Automated Tube Cutter

For assembly of the multi-durometer tubing it is beneficial to use an automated tubing cutter to create tubing sections of discrete lengths and clean edges. These tubing sections will be assembled over the braided tubing, covered with heat shrink and tacked into place using a thermal air hot box.

Post Lamination Support Tools

Once the lamination process is complete an operator will skive off the heat shrink and remove the core material from the braided assembly. Machine Solutions offers several process tools to automate these traditionally manual processes.

The mandrel removal tool extracts the mandrel from the product shaft I.D. by drawing the mandrel out at a controlled speed eliminating the painstaking task of mandrel removal.  Mandrels can then be reused.

Our mandrel stretchers facilitate the removal of malleable core mandrels such as copper, PTFE and acetals by stretching them to reduce their diameter.  This machine selection is appropriate when the mandrel is to be discarded after use.

Heat Shrink Removal Tools are often used to peel and remove heat shrink from mandrels and tubing assemblies. Our heat shrink removal solutions are used to minimize operator processing time and increase overall performance of products.

3 Key Insights to Create World Class Braided Shafts

Creating braided shafts? Listen to this webinar and our esteemed SteegerUSA experts to learn about crucial factors that lead to successful braiding.

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