Hypotube Manufacturer
Advanced Medical Components is a custom hypotube manufacturer for the medical devices industry. We have advanced equipment for high levels of automation and repeatability. We are able to achieve tight tolerances on advanced medical hypotube designs.
Hypotube Grinding
We are able to grind steps, notches and tapers into the outer diameter of hypotubes. The smallest hypotube wall that we have ever been able to hold is about .001″ in thickness. We are always able to try and achieve better, but based on the overall diameter of the hypotube, the support structure of the walls can become compromised.
Hypotube Automation
Advanced Medical Components has an automatic feeder for hypotubes up to 10 feet in length and up to about .040 in diameter. The feeder allows us automatically load hypotubes into the grinding machines, grind the parts and then automatically pull the hypotubes back out. This allows for high quality, high repeatability, minimal handling and low cycle times for our hypotube machining processes. We are not a blank hypotube supplier but we occasionally will have some left over hypotubes from jobs. If you need a real small amount of real small hypotubes, reach out and check what we have in stock.
Nitinol Hypotubes
AMC can fabricate and manufacture cost effective flexible, superelastic, shape memory nitinol (niti) hypotubes for complex medical applications. Due to the cost of raw hypotube and the variety of applications that we manufacture, we may have some small quantity of nitinol hypotubes in inventory or off the shelf. We may be able to sell materials to other manufacturers so don't hesitate to ask. If you have had trouble with existing suppliers who cannot acheive burr free or tight tolerance nitinol needles, call us today!
Hypotube Cutting
Advanced Medical Components is a custom hypotube fabricator. We don’t make raw or custom hypotubes but we fabricate stainless steel or nitinol hypotubes after they have been cut to length. We source hypotubes from a variety of companies. For nitinol hypotubes we typically work with NDC which runs nitinol.com. They have an online store https://shop.nitinol.com/shop/?slug=index.php&cPath=27. For raw stainless steel hypotubes we have purchased from a few different sources.We are always looking for additional sources of raw hypotubes. If you are a hypotube manufacturer or if you have worked with one in the past feel free to pass along the name. Many device designers come to us with designs for custom tubing, which can be difficult to find. One piece of advice for device designers is to look at a standard hypotube gage chart if price is important for your device.
For larger projects we sub-contract with laser cutting companies to laser cut hypotubes. Many hypotube devices include some form of laser cutting. The best results we have encountered for end cutting a hypotube has ben through laser cut hypotubes. If there are any burrs on the hypotubes this can cause difficulties in the manufacturing process, especially in high precision processes. We have some issues with EDM hypotube cutting due to burrs.
For best hypotube cutting results we would suggest finding a high-quality laser cutting company.
Hypotube Sizes
There isn’t an official definition of which hypotube sizes are standard. A hypotube is generally smaller than a tube but that exact cutoff point is not properly defined.
When customers ask us to recommend a hypotube sizes, we go off the standard gauge chart for needles listed on Wikipedia. The reason that we use this is that we aren’t actual tube makers, instead we are tube fabricators. We take hypotubes and grind tapers, threads, knobs, and grooves into the OD of the tube.
There are a lot of hypotube and tube manufacturers that create stock hypotubes with standard sizes. In order to get uncommon sizes is possible but it can prove to be costly.
If you have a hypotube project don’t hesitate to reach out and we will be happy to give you advice on hypotube sizes and how to proceed.
Hypotube Definition
While there is no standard definition of a Hypotube, we use the term to mean a small tube. It is typically made out of stainless steel or nitinol. It can be used in stents or a variety of other medical devices.