Best Printer!

mona-z

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Hi everyone,

We are in the stage of taking a decision for a good printer for our small lab with the best accuracy in the market... Any suggestions here will be highly appreciated! and thanks in advance
 
mona-z

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Thanks mirco, I was checking the Formlabs 2 and they mentioned that the resin is very expensive so do you have any idea how much one printed model would cost? Is it a close system??
 
CoolHandLuke

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the hardware of Formlabs is open source, the software is open source, but the printer materials (light cure resin) are closed and proprietary.

effectively means you can build a duiplicate formlabs printer for close to nothing, but you'll never get a print out of it unless you develop your own resin from chemical scratch.

at 150$/liter you are looking at a production model cost (at 50grams avg model wt) about 7.50$

interestingly, an objet 260vs produces models at about the same price. a printer valued in the 6 figures.

food for thought.
 
mona-z

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the hardware of Formlabs is open source, the software is open source, but the printer materials (light cure resin) are closed and proprietary.

effectively means you can build a duiplicate formlabs printer for close to nothing, but you'll never get a print out of it unless you develop your own resin from chemical scratch.

at 150$/liter you are looking at a production model cost (at 50grams avg model wt) about 7.50$

interestingly, an objet 260vs produces models at about the same price. a printer valued in the 6 figures.

food for thought.

So it has two cons, expensive and slow. Is there anything cheaper but great quality as well? K9 creator, Rapid shape, stratasys... There are many in the market actually that makes it hard to decide!
 
CoolHandLuke

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quality is a subjective analysis. Dental quality Doubly so.

some people complain that printed implant models have wiggle in their implants. these are people with no fundamental understanding about cadcam.

and these people are allowed to give Professional opinions.

there are many gauges of quality for a dental model; resolution, feature size, layer thickness, and required supports, are just numbers. there are ways to countermine or work within these parameters and create great stuff. at the same time 'giving zero spacer clearance for implant parts' just makes it ridiculous to fit the part in post-print. as printer axes are x-y PLUS and MINUS some microns naturally it will never fit. things need microns of wiggle to fit in there and reducing it to zero tolerance isnt helping the situation nor yet giving you an accurate demonstration of the printer's ability.

there isnt a Best printer. theres just 'printers that you would have an easy time making items that would be ok 89% of the time'

formlabs is cheap but you get what you pay for. you won't get much for the price of admission there.

but you'll get an education. and that might be worth the investment. because Objet and 3dsystems sure as hell arent going to show you stuff nor help you rip apart their toys. but an open source community just might.

and if you are looking for something more reliable, easier to operate, and more willing to hold your hand so you dont make mistakes - brother please let us know what you find because it simply doesnt exist.
 
mona-z

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quality is a subjective analysis. Dental quality Doubly so.

some people complain that printed implant models have wiggle in their implants. these are people with no fundamental understanding about cadcam.

and these people are allowed to give Professional opinions.

there are many gauges of quality for a dental model; resolution, feature size, layer thickness, and required supports, are just numbers. there are ways to countermine or work within these parameters and create great stuff. at the same time 'giving zero spacer clearance for implant parts' just makes it ridiculous to fit the part in post-print. as printer axes are x-y PLUS and MINUS some microns naturally it will never fit. things need microns of wiggle to fit in there and reducing it to zero tolerance isnt helping the situation nor yet giving you an accurate demonstration of the printer's ability.

there isnt a Best printer. theres just 'printers that you would have an easy time making items that would be ok 89% of the time'

formlabs is cheap but you get what you pay for. you won't get much for the price of admission there.

but you'll get an education. and that might be worth the investment. because Objet and 3dsystems sure as hell arent going to show you stuff nor help you rip apart their toys. but an open source community just might.

and if you are looking for something more reliable, easier to operate, and more willing to hold your hand so you dont make mistakes - brother please let us know what you find because it simply doesnt exist.

We hardly do any implant work actually. Im buying this printer to print my mock ups as we do lot of smile designs and to print models and crowns/bridges and Inlays/Onlays and veneers to press later on, as we are receiving many cases from trios.. I understand there are many parameters to consider of course, but there must be something in the market that's been tested and good enough for my kind of production and i would love to see some kind of comparison about them ...
 
CoolHandLuke

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yeah, well my everyday pressable/castables come out of a DP3500. objet has developed a wax printer specifically for dental castables which they released 2 years ago. still a 40k printer.

its good enough for me, but many dont agree.

what most of us can agree on however, is dont go for the asiga, envisiontec, or printers in that kind of technology.
 
LuthorCorp

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the hardware of Formlabs is open source, the software is open source, but the printer materials (light cure resin) are closed and proprietary.

effectively means you can build a duiplicate formlabs printer for close to nothing, but you'll never get a print out of it unless you develop your own resin from chemical scratch.

at 150$/liter you are looking at a production model cost (at 50grams avg model wt) about 7.50$

interestingly, an objet 260vs produces models at about the same price. a printer valued in the 6 figures.

food for thought.

We have 2 eden 260vs on DS version, and our average model cost is about 5$ or less with proper model hollowing. The accuracy is better on these systems 16 micron layers, but we are looking to get a formlabs 2 also because of the material range and still quite accurate 25 microns.
 
KentPWalton

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We have 2 eden 260vs on DS version, and our average model cost is about 5$ or less with proper model hollowing. The accuracy is better on these systems 16 micron layers, but we are looking to get a formlabs 2 also because of the material range and still quite accurate 25 microns.

You're not including the cost it takes to post process. Going to be a lot more than $5 per model.
 
Macron Dental Lab

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Best printer is the one some other lab maintains and deals with all of the head aches and you just send them the model files for printing.
jejeje that is the way to gooo, the easy way.
 
mona-z

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Best printer is the one some other lab maintains and deals with all of the head aches and you just send them the model files for printing.

Thats if you can get good price/service/quality/speed.. from them. Otherwise i would rather do it myself..
 
KentPWalton

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Thats if you can get good price/service/quality/speed.. from them. Otherwise i would rather do it myself..

Pick one of those...printers are finicky and the material is usually expensive.

Models isn't a money maker at all...it's the price of doing business to do business.
 
CoolHandLuke

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Rebrand of which brand?
DWS lineup looks to be several brands rolled into one. at least very similar to ones already in production in other areas.

their 020/028 look very similar to Solidator which is a German printer at a similar price.

same technology as used in Formlabs and Old World Labs. both are companies that started in Open Source hardware and now have patents and proprietary parts.

these are companies that advertize accuracy as in the nanometer range, and hope you stop thinking when you hear the word nanometer because if you analyze the figures they give you 500nm becomes 50um. yay facts.
 

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