Choosing a 3D Printer for Your Dental Practice or Lab – Part 1


Posted November 13, 2020 by ddentalprints

For more details on our products and services, please feel free to visit us at: 3d printed dental model, orthodontic laboratory, dental lab, digital dentistry, Clear retainer package.

 
How to Evaluate 3D Printing Solutions
Stereolithography (SLA)
In stereolithography, a vat of liquid resin is selectively exposed to a laser beam across the print area, solidifying resin in specific areas. Stereolithography is highly accurate and has the best surface finish of the three technologies. SLA printers offer large build volumes and a wide range of materials for various applications. Switching materials is as easy as swapping the resin tank and cartridge. The combination of small footprint, simple workflow, and low price make desktop SLA printers well-suited for both dental labs and practices.

Digital Light Processing (DLP)
Digital light processing operates with the same chemical process as SLA, but uses a digital projector as a light source to solidify the resin, rather than a laser. DLP printers have a small footprint, simple workflow, and wide range of material options, but at a substantially higher cost than desktop SLA printers. DLP parts also tend to show voxel lines—layers formed by small rectangular bricks due to digital screen—and have a generally lower quality surface finish.
Ease of Use and Reliability
How easy a 3D printer is to use, and how reliable it will be in production are also important considerations. After all, your team is going to have to learn how to use the equipment and maintain it on a daily basis. Try to get a sense of the learning curve that will come with a new 3D printer by watching videos online, visiting a trade show, contacting sales, or asking colleagues about their experience.
Think carefully about the equipment’s setup requirements. Some newer printers are designed intuitively enough to start printing straight out of the box. Other more complicated machines require a service technician to be present during setup.
Pay close attention to the types of everyday interactions and maintenance the printer will need once it is up and running. Automatic resin dispensing, available on select SLA machines and material jetting printers, can make a big difference in keeping a clean, low-maintenance production environment, and also allows for quick switching between materials.
Early 3D printers had an infamous reputation for spending half of their life in service, with many failed prints even when they were online. Fortunately, the latest generation of printers are pushing beyond this. For example, users of the Form 2 3D printer reported a success rate of over 95 percent on millions of prints across tens of thousands of machines. Dig deep into published reliability information, and make sure that a manufacturer has appropriate warranties and service offerings to ensure you’ll be taken care of if service is needed.

Dental 3D Printing Technologies
Today, three 3D printing technologies are common in dental: stereolithography (SLA), digital light processing (DLP), and material jetting. Each technology can deliver the precision and accuracy needed for dental applications, but quality can vary among different machines and systems. Spend the time to understand each technology, but remember that it’s more important to evaluate specific equipment and judge based on part quality, ease of use, reliability, and cost.
Material Jetting
Material jetting (PolyJet and MultiJet Modeling) 3D printers work similarly to inkjet printing, but instead of jetting drops of ink onto paper, they jet layers of liquid resin onto a build tray and cure them instantly using light. Material jetting technologies were the most common in the dental industry a few years ago, but expansion was limited by their high cost and the large size of the machines. They require extensive post-processing and the surface finish of parts produced with this technology is generally inferior to SLA or DLP. Material jetting systems have high throughput, but can only be used for a limited range of applications due to the costly, proprietary materials.

Accuracy and Precision
Guaranteeing high-quality final parts is the most important concern for a dental practice or lab. The three best measures to take to protect yourself from buying inaccurate equipment are:
• Be skeptical: don’t trust what companies say.
• Judge accuracy benchmarked on final 3D printed models, not on technical specifications.
• Order sample parts and judge accuracy and precision for yourself.
Manufacturers may try to confuse prospective customers with misleading statements and technical specifications. Most commonly, they masquerade layer height, laser spot size, or pixel size as “accuracy,” even though these specifications do not have a direct impact on accuracy of final parts. While most companies refer to a single number for accuracy (e.g., 50 microns or 75 microns), these are typically marketing gimmicks, and most commonly represent the limit of resolution of the printer.
Fundamentally, a printer’s accuracy and precision are defined by how well calibrated all of its systems are, so a system can only be judged on its final printed parts. Desktop optical scanning allows for the comparison of the organic shapes of printed dental prosthetics to the STL that was sent to the machine. Scans of printed models are scored in terms of the percent of points within a given distance from the nominal point on the STL (e.g., 80 percent of points within ±50 microns).
For more details on our products and services, please feel free to visit us at: 3d printed dental model, orthodontic laboratory, dental lab, digital dentistry, Clear retainer package.
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Issued By ddentalprintsllc
Country United States
Categories Business
Last Updated November 13, 2020