FDM Helps Acist Medical Pursue Perfection

Medical Device Firm Creates Complex Production Parts

Acist (Advanced Contrast Imaging System Technology) is a medical-device company that specializes in developing contrast injection systems in the fields of cardiology and radiology. Acist’s devices infuse dye into the vascular system, letting physicians visualize anatomies.

Headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minn., Acist has a clinical presence in more than 40 countries. It fulfills its mission of pursuing “the perfect image” by researching and producing new medical technologies that lend greater ease and control.

Providing the Best Solutions

Acist uses Stratasys’ FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) technology to maximize efficiency beyond rapid prototyping alone. According to Dave Scott, manufacturing engineering manager at Acist:

“We haven’t picked a single path for FDM. We like to use it everywhere. We use it for fixtures, functional testing, industrial design and end-use parts. We want to use as many FDM parts as possible in our machines that are going to market. FDM allows for putting greater complexity, form and function into one part as opposed to traditional methods.”

Incorporating Feedback

Acist stays in communication with its machine’s operators, because some improvements aren’t conceived until a machine is used in the hospital. For example, operators pointed out the need for multiple types of transducers to be connected to the same machine along with the ability to switch rapidly from one transducer to another. Acist quickly designed a part in CAD software to solve this problem, and printed it with a Dimension 3D Printer as a functional part to be shipped and used on machines worldwide. Acist emphasizes that the part, easy to create and print with FDM, would have been very challenging to mold using traditional methods.