Genevac has called on the services of Designedge to design the Rocket evaporator, which can concentrate and dry the contents of up to six 450ml sample flasks in parallel.
The Rocket evaporator can also concentrate the samples directly into small vials without any user intervention, improving productivity and freeing users to concentrate on other tasks.
After exploring several different aesthetic, material and manufacturing process options, Designedge selected the design based on the use of MRIM, a process developed by Midas Pattern Company that entails the manufacture of a composite resin mould tool directly from a CNC machined master model or pattern.
MRIM can produce mouldings with square faces, undercuts, metal inserts, bushes and features that would normally need to be machined.
These can now all be cast into PU mouldings.
MRIM tooling can also be modified at relatively low cost and with little difficulty in comparison with traditional injection mould tooling.
Alasdair Barnett, co-director at Designedge, said: 'This particular project pushed what can be achieved by a single moulding to the limit.
'For instance, the casing has side actions that require undercuts and holes not on the line of draw.
'It required plenty of thought in terms of how to break the tooling down to create a single moulding.
'Moreover, the tolerances required were fairly tight.
'Because the casing is a single moulding it has to pass down over the top of the chassis during assembly, hence the tolerances need to give a 'slide' fit rather than an interference or clearance fit.
'For this reason we decided to include zero draft on certain ribs and fixing bosses.'
