Bovine Information Bolus
This device permits information tracking of various livestock animals. It reflects their date and place of birth, movements, and medical history through a chip which is introduced via a bolus and permanently resides in the animal's second stomach. The chip's information is accessed via either a fixed or portable scanner.
Our Approach
Our customer needed to encapsulate a printed circuit board and maintain a targeted weight for the bolus within 0.2 grams. The printed circuit board and plastic alone would not be heavy enough to meet the targeted weight, so a ballast material had to be used. In addition to strict weight requirements, the bolus had size and shape constraints as well. The molding compound had to be a medical grade plastic which could reside within the animal's body indefinitely and cause no ill effects. This application was a perfect opportunity for SCG to use our engineering resources and retractable pin encapsulation technology to meet our customer's requirements. SCG added a test station to verify chip readability at 100%.
Materials
- Printed Circuit Board: FR4
- Ballast Material: Ferrite
- Molding Material: Dupont Hytrel 8435 with 70% BaSo4
Results
- Achieved tight tolerance targeted weight for bolus by use of ferrite ballast.
- Developed manufacturing solution with minimizes damage to the printed circuit board and verifies that the chip can be scanned 100% effective.
- Provides a solution to help control diseases such as mad cow disease and foot and mouth disease.
- With modification, can be utilized on various types of livestock.