As the COVID-19 pandemic pushes healthcare services to their limits, the Tornos SwissNano is helping a US-based subcontract machine shop, Petron Automation, to supercharge its production of a complex, tight-tolerance component for much-needed ventilators.

Many manufacturers of small, challenging medical device components turn to Petron Automation for the quality required in the risk-averse medical sector. By the same token, Petron Automation has turned to Tornos for precise manufacturing solutions, including four SwissNano 4, two EvoDeco 32, two EvoDeco 16, two MultiSwiss 6×32 and three Deco 13 models.
“In early March, we were at the end of our first-quarter 2020 order for a specific ventilator part for an important customer, who told us we were going to have a huge uptake in these components.”
At this point, Petron Automation had been producing 5000 ventilator armatures per week for that customer, which asked the business to ramp up to 20,000. The SwissNano sliding-headstock lathe helped the business double its production capacity for the armature within a week. Machined from bars of 430FR stainless steel, the part carries critical tolerances ±0.0088 mm.
Paul Thornberg, VP of business development at Petron, says: “It’s got some tight tolerances and we must maintain very sharp edges with maximum edge breaks of 0.0127 mm and surface finish under Ra10 μm. We are producing 2000 pieces per machine, 10 hours per day, holding those tolerances.
“The reliability of our SwissNano machines allows us to run these parts lights out with very little tolerance deviation,” he continues. “One of our SwissNanos ran for 23.9 hours on 13-14 May, and the other ran for 23.4 hours on the same day. That’s a testament to the capability of these machines.”
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