Cambridge University spin-out Diagnostics for the Real World Ltd (DRW) have designed an instrument that speeds up the diagnosing of AIDS on site and within hours rather than days or weeks. When we started working with them on various prototype parts they soon became aware of our knowledge of differing production processes and small scale production we consulted on the project for prototyping and small scale production. We were the primary suppliers of the casework, protective covers and sampling turret, working alongside metal working engineers, electronic control engineers and in-house design engineers.
The brief required a material solution for the turrets that achieved a specified level of insulation between the stainless steel pockets and was compatible with medical grade solvent cleaning. We developed a construction using an epoxy gel coat surface with a foamed epoxy body. This was a production run of final products, not prototypes: about 20 to 30 finished units, several hundred parts in all, produced from CNC machined rigid models.
We made the first working prototypes, then created a bespoke solution to DRW’s manufacturing problem and took it into full production in our own workshop, including an urgent need during Covid. The parts included vacuum castings, among them clear tinted parts, a CNC-machined aluminium chassis and bespoke hard-tool mouldings. The hardest part was producing large, complicated parts again and again to a high degree of accuracy.
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