I’ve been 3D printing for a while now and printing failures used to be a big problem with some of the earlier desktop grade 3D printers. Today, the software and hardware platforms are synced well enough that it can properly analyze STL files and make sure they’re ready for the…
A question that comes up on a regular basis by clinicians is… “what is the best 3D printer for in-office clear aligners?” Great question, let’s dive into it!! We live a time and era where there is a race to quantify ‘the best technology available’ in dentistry and many clinicians…
There’s a lot of excitement out there about direct imaging of edentulous patients using intraoral scanning, much of the excitement is for good reasons! Intraoral scanning of edentuous ridges is the closest we can get to for truly mucostatic impressions and is really cool for both patient and clinician/technician. The…
PVS impressions and RPD cases have long been a terrifying combination for me. If it’s not getting PVS stuck in deep undercuts, it’s pouring the models and hearing the dreaded “pop” as one of my abutment teeth fractures off the model!! Thankfully digital technology comes to the rescue [again] for…
Guided surgery for dental implantology is something that I am a big fan of, especially when using it in places where there’s challenging existing structures, immediate placement, creative bone positions, or one needs to be creative with prosthetics. The last one is key for me, as guided surgery has always…
Aerosols are a challenge to manage in a dental office, especially that from a high-speed handpiece or ultrasonic hygiene machine. Some articles have described the challenges of aerosol generation during dental procedures including dental hygiene. We are impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in the regards that the NY Times pointed…
I 3D print a lot… and have been do so for years in my dental office. Why? First… it’s just fun, but, in reality, we are making things that solves and/or serves a need. In Dentistry, clinical necessity is the mother of development [i.e. invention]! We have the need to…
For many of us who have been involved with 3D printing for sometime, we’ve got the methods down. – design, export, import into printer software, mix resins, fill tank, click print, come back later, remove build-platform, remove resin from build-platform, clean platform, wash prints in alcohol, dry, UV cure. Post-processing…