Pentagon Plastics has extensive medical moulding experience, having provided a number of medical products to the market since the 1970s.
Seventies’ child: Paul Edwards, Pentagon Plastics. The company has been working in the medical moulding sector since the 1970s
The early years of the business saw Pentagon take over the moulding for a medical company based in Ireland where it supplied face masks, catheter tips, tiemann tips and bespoke respiratory products. These products were moulded in various grades of PVC and K'Resin Styrene-Butadiene-Copolymers (SBC).
Now the main focus of the company’s medical moulding sees them supply to a range of customers in the stoma care sector. Having assisted the development it continues to supply volume production of urostomy, colostomy, ileostomy and wound care products which includes full coupling and drainable systems. These products have provided the team with a depth of knowledge in moulding ethylene-vinyl-acetate (EVA), polyethylenes, acetals and thermoplastic elastomers (TPE).
As a technical moulder of bespoke customer products Pentagon has also manufactured cases and covers for medical devices which are often moulded in ABS or polycarbonate and sometimes even a blend of both.
Pentagon Plastics is involved at the early concept stage to assist in the development of a medical product. By working with its customer’s designer it can help ensure that a product or concept is compatible with the moulding process and can be manufactured to meet costing guidelines. This can be done easily with face-to-face meetings as well as transferring data electronically.
Pentagon is able to support customers by drawing on its experience and knowledge of the medical industry, assisting them from concept, through all stages of tooling and the supply of final production. It will continue to assist customers after the development process and for the life of a component in production.
The company describes its offering to the medical and technical moulding sector as unique as it provides a bespoke range of development tooling. The manufactured Insert Systems fit within the company’s universal range of bolsters to assist the development stage of a product and keep initial tooling costs to a minimum. The Modular Inserts have some restrictions such as limited temperature control and restricted ability to produce undercuts, but offer the benefit of producing your finished component or part of a product to check key features such as fine detail areas. This tooling solution can also be utilised for early low volume production before investing in the full production tooling to meet higher volume demand.
Full development mould tooling solutions can be manufactured in Pentagon’s on-site toolroom to further enhance the service. Some of the advantages of a full mould tool are that they provide dedicated temperature control, the option of full side action movement and enhanced gating (feed point) options. This will often mean that multi-cavity tools are constructed to secure an improved component price or meet heightened product demand.
The material selection process is a vital step in any product development and drawing on the company’s years of experience within the medical moulding sector, Pentagon Plastics says it is well equipped to assist in this area, working closely with a network of approved suppliers who offer technical advice to assist the selection of thermoplastic material. Having moulded the majority of medical grade thermoplastics its setters are able to optimise the production process with great skill.
To further enhance the product development stages the company operates a 3D printer and can provide SLA, SLS, and vacuum casting prototyping solutions as a managed service.
While the product ranges supplied by Pentagon don’t require cleanroom moulding the company does provide strict clean working practices on all of the production that passes through its mould shop. This together with its experience of manufacturing and servicing medical mould tooling means it can offer a full service to those requiring non-cleanroom medical moulding.