Medical Battery Packs
Health care providers, as well as hospital patients, are becoming more and more dependent on portable medical devices. Leading manufacturers of portable medical instruments look to Micro Power Electronics to keep their life-saving equipment running at peak performance. Safety and reliability of the medical batteries for these devices is ensured by careful design. It is necessary to look carefully at the demands the portable medical device places on the custom battery pack during real world use, and quantify how those demands will affect the battery pack's capacity, cycle life, reliability, safety and durability. Whether the medical device is used for life-sustaining or life-saving operation, Micro Power can meet the stringent requirements demanded by medical OEMs.
Micro Power has experience designing medical batteries and battery chargers for:
- Defibrillators (AED)
- Ultrasound devices
- Patient monitoring equipment
- Multi-parameter monitors
- Critical care monitors
- Infusion pumps
- Endoscopes
- Portable X-ray
- Intra-Aortic Balloon Pumps (IABP)
- Ventilators
- Surgical Instruments
Safety features:
The SecuraPACK™ brand offers OEM customers a high-performance, solution with a customized, but most importantly, safe battery system that is resistant to dangerous malfunctions. Micro Power's medical custom battery pack technology and specialized manufacturing processes to produce the safest and most reliable primary or rechargeable li-ion battery packs. The following features and processes accompany SecuraPACK designs:
- Safest, high quality Li-ion cells from tier one cell suppliers
- Testing incoming cells for electrical performance
- Thermal Protection Circuit (TPC) to prevent over-heating
- Protection circuit that prevents over-voltage, over-current, and under-voltage
- Support for the release of vented gasses
- Electrical tests include continuous charge, over-discharge, overcharge, & short-circuit tests
- Mechanical tests include shock, vibration, altitude, thermal exposure, & mould stress.
For the most demanding medical requirements, Micro Power offers additional safety precautions such as:
- Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) of the battery system design or manufacturing process
- Redundant protection circuit to ensure device operation
- Authentication of the battery pack to eliminate the use of aftermarket alternatives
- Cell balancing for packs with high number of cells in series
- Plastics with fire resistant additives
Rechargeable Medical Battery Packs:
Micro Power offers custom rechargeable medical batteries based on all commercially available chemistries. As OEMs strive to differentiate in competitive markets, Micro Power has increasingly addressed our customer's needs with the highest performance Li-ion chemistry. Today, Micro Power has designed well over one thousand Li-ion battery packs. Choosing the optimal cell can contribute to the success or failure of a product in the field and requires extensive knowledge of the performance profile of the cells under consideration. The first step in ensuring a proper battery choice is to fully describe the "real world usage profile" of the device. Then, a choice can be made among the leading cell chemistries. Three cell chemistries, Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH), Li-ion and Li-polymer, currently dominate.
- NiMH batteries have an average energy density of 200 Wh/L, and deliver 500 duty cycles
- Li-ion battery characteristics include 1000 duty cycles per lifetime, higher load currents, and an average energy density of 500 Wh/L
- Li-polymer cells have similar specifications to Li-ion, but they feature a semi-rigid and thin form factor
Primary Medical Battery Packs:
Micro Power designs and manufactures non-rechargeable battery packs based on Li-primary chemistry for our medical customer's disposable power solution needs. The Li-primary cells offer higher voltage than traditional alkaline cells, in addition to extremely long shelf life and superb performance in extreme temperature environments. With a negligible self-discharge rate, the li-primary cell is optimal for maintaining a high state of readiness. Micro Power's Li-primary battery packs can deliver full performance after being stored for five or even 7 years. Several different chemistries are available, such as lithium manganese dioxide, lithium sulfur dioxide and lithium thionyl chloride. A wide operating temperature range is offered by these chemistries, in addition to the long shelf life yielding products that are ideal for outdoor, emergency use.
SMART Batteries:
Micro Power's advanced SMART medical battery packs communicate status to the portable device via an integrated circuit in the battery pack. This information might include: type, model number, manufacturer, characteristics, discharge rate, predicted remaining capacity, almost-discharged alarm, temperature and voltage. Micro Power Electronics has partnered with Texas Instruments to provide the most advanced fuel gauging with Impedance Track™ technology. Impedance Track™ calculates changes in impedance caused by battery age, temperature and cycle patterns to predict remaining run-time within 99% accuracy throughout the entire life of the battery. It maximizes system run-time by enabling use of the full chemical capacity available in the battery pack. Communication is delivered to the portable device via a communication bus (such as SMBus, I2C, or HDQ), and delivered to the user with LEDs.
Mechanical Options for Medical Batteries:
Like its host device, medical battery packs are designed with mechanics that are adapted for the specific environment in which it will be used. Micro Power provides custom battery packs that are assembled in plastic shrink wrap and fully enclosed in the portable device. For user replaceable batteries, the best choice is a battery pack with a hard plastic enclosure. Micro Power provides enclosures that meet the needs of the most demanding environments while augmenting your product's aesthetics and industrial design. Typical plastic choices include PolyCarbonate (PC), Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), PC/ABS blends, Nylon, or Acrylic. Plastic enclosures will be sealed with ultrasonic welding for ease of manufacture and cost savings, but Micro Power also offers the option of glue or screws for the most robust seals. The electrical connector is selected to be the most compatible with your device such as Molex, Tyco, Mill-Max pogo-pins or Samtec PCB headers. A custom battery pack offers the best physical integration with your portable device, in addition to the highest electrical performance.
Sterilization of Medical Battery Packs:
Micro Power is proud to offer medical battery packs, specially designed for the surgical tool market that can withstand various sterilization techniques without disabling performance degradation. Micro Power can design battery packs to withstand the most common sterilization techniques including autoclave for rechargeable batteries and gamma sterilization for disposable batteries. These medical batteries allow a portable surgical tool manufacturer to offer the run time and power to complete major orthopedic surgeries.
Micro Power Offers Medical Instrument Manufacturers the Highest Quality Standards:
- ISO 13485 and 9001: 2000 certified status
- Extensive experience in the design of medical batteries and battery chargers for the healthcare industry
- Maintaining one of the lowest Defects Per Million (DPM) rates in the entire portable power industry (less than 600 DPM)
- Risk mitigation of a potentially faulty manufacturing process can be achieved Process Failure
- Mode and Effect Analysis (PFMEA) of the manufacturing process
- Risk mitigation in the design process is achieved with Design Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (DFMEA)
- Identification and traceability is established by the manufacturing order and is maintained for each product order, recording, assembly, inspection, and test steps
- Traceability enables Micro Power to track and pinpoint the affected product (unfinished or finished product) within and outside our manufacturing facility
- Build in quality with next step inspection, final production tests & sign-offs on each production run
- Generateration and maintainance of Design History Files (DHF), and Device History Records (DHR). DHFs include any records which describe the design history of a device — design review notes, verification plan and results, validation plan and results, FMEA results. DHRs include documentation affiliated with production — test reports, test data, signed build documents, Certificate of Compliance (CoC), and quality assurance checklist
