Boston Scientific Scimed, Inc.

Scimed Life Systems, Inc.

Brandon J Worcester

Michael William Sterud

Henry John Pepin

Matthew Charles Heidner

George N Omae

Michael Kuhn

A catheter can be formed from an elongate shaft and a distal tip. The catheter can be formed by flaring a proximal end of the distal tip to form a flared proximal end and positioning the distal tip such that the flared proximal end of the distal tip overlaps a distal end of the outer layer. Heat and pressure are applied to melt and flow together a portion of the outer layer proximate the distal end of the shaft and the overlapped portion of the flared proximal end of the distal tip, thereby forming a joint between the elongate shaft and the distal tip.

Methods of forming catheters with soft distal tips

For weld bonding polymeric components, a bond monitoring device is utilized to sense emissivity from a bonding site to preferably determine the temperature of the material at the surface of the bonding site, in order to provide feedback information to a current generator that controls the thermal energy that is transferred to the bonding site. The bond monitoring device preferably comprises an infrared detector or pyrometer that determines the temperature at the surface of the bonding site by sensing the infrared radiation, which information is used to control current generation. The current generation device preferably comprises a radio-frequency current generator, which RF current is controllably used to create a magnetic field within a magnetic flux concentrator. When used with an mandrel of magnetically permeable material that is positioned close to the magnetic flux concentrator, the mandrel can generate resistive heat based directly on the supply of RF current. The present invention is particularly applicable to weld bonding of tubular type components, such as may be used to make up a medical catheter lumen, because a heatable mandrel can be inserted within a plurality of components having at least adjacently positioned portions that are to be weld bonded together. By carefully monitoring such a weld bonding site and controlling the current generation and thus the heat created by the mandrel, an effective weld bond can be consistently created even where small polymeric components are weld bonded.

Apparatus and method for closed-loop control of RF generator for welding polymeric catheter components

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Maple Grove, MN, United States of America

Brandon J Worcester