Force tester ensures eight years of quality

A tensile force tester has been used continuously on the production line for over eight years at Owen Mumford, UK-based designer and manufacturer of blood glucose monitoring and control devices

The system, supplied by Mecmesin , performs a retention test on lancet needles within the company's class 8 (manned) clean room production facility in Oxfordshire, UK.

The single-use lancet, designed for diabetes sufferers to obtain capillary blood samples, comprises a steel needle moulded into a plastic base with a twist-off cap covering the point.

To ensure the needle is not dislodged from its base when the cap is removed prior to use, stringent in-house production specifications dictate the minimum acceptable retention force of the needle within the plastic surround.

Owen Mumford uses a Mecmesin AFG 500 force gauge mounted on an UltraTest stand (now superseded by the MultiTest 1) to assess the retention force of samples at six-hourly intervals, in order to guarantee consistent manufacturing quality.

The plastic base of the lancet is placed beneath a custom-engineered mounting block, with the needle tip exposed vertically.

A lever-operated pin vice is fitted to the tip and a tensile load applied to the needle at a rate of 200mm/min until it is dislodged from the plastic base.

John Potter, systems quality engineer at Owen Mumford, said: "We have been using Mecmesin equipment to perform retention tests on our range of lancet needles for over eight years".

"We find the system easy to use for regular in-process checks, and generally reliable with prompt servicing from Mecmesin when required.".

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