Portescap’s Athlonix Motors for Enteral Feeding Pumps

A European provider of Infusion Systems needed a compact motion solution able to deliver sufficient torque for an Enteral Feeding Pump. This particular pump needed to deliver fluids in varying levels of viscosity. Enteral feeding pumps are used for patients with swallowing impairments like throat cancer, comas, GI dysfunction or other serious illnesses. This type of feeding is preferred over IV whenever possible, as it helps the patient to avoid future stomach muscle rehabilitation.

Portescap was selected as the motion solution partner for this project based on its keen understanding of the application needs and its ability to customize - both a result of Portescap’s open engineer-to-engineer communication. Portescap engineers recommended the Athlonix™ 22N brush DC motor with the F16 magnetic encoder and the K24 gearhead. This composite solved a host of problems while providing a competitively priced solution.

The Portescap solution made it possible for the pump not only to handle fluids with varying levels of viscosity, but also to deliver the fluid continuously over a great range of speeds from very low to high, so that any fluid could be delivered continuously without any “peak” over time, even for patients who need very low flowrates. This motor+gearhead+encoder solution offered the application the required 2,500+ hours of successful, low-noise operation. This success was made possible by multiple analyses and carefully customized product development between Portescap and the customer.