3D printers in your lab?

[Avi Cohen]

Glidewell Laboratories has revolutionized its processes by using 3D printers for printing all of their digital stone models. What’s been your experience with 3D printers? Have you tried them yet in your lab? If not why not?

 

[orthodent]

I am not of the dental world but of the orthodontic world. It seems we are a bit behind the curve on most of this and would like to see if ortho labs are able to utilize this tech profitably. It all depends on the scan the doctor takes I am assuming, and us printing it out, but are the models printed able to be worked on with retainer acrylic processing? And is the scan accurate enough for the needed palatal coverage.

 

[Mark Jackson]

Glidewell Laboratories has revolutionized its processes by using 3D printers for printing all of their digital stone models. What’s been your experience with 3D printers? Have you tried them yet in your lab? If not why not?

Unless they did it over this past weekend, this is not true.

Glidewell has Objet printers which they are using for a few projects, including some ortho products and to generate models for their customers with intraoral scanners. As you may know, Glidewell has been developing their own intraoral scanner and it combines some of the best features of the current models. Like many of us, Glidewell knows trhat everything will be digital in the not too distant future, but for the moment, 3D printed models are expensive and slow.

While I am a big fan of additive technology, I am less than thrilled with the current state of the art in 3D printing.

 

[neila]

You are correct Mark, I was there in the last year and they are not close to switching over to printers for all there models, I do not blieve they see this as an option with current technology. We have an objet printer that we utelize mainly in our ortho dept. It is definately the best solution for model printing out there at the moment INMHO.
Neil Appelbaum CDT

Protec Dental Laboratories Ltd.
38 East 1st Avenue, Vancouver
British Columbia, Canada V5T1A1
Direct: 604.873.5344
Toll Free: 800.663.5488 ext 106
Fax: 604.873.852
[email protected]
Protec Dental Lab

 

[Avi Cohen]

Good to meet you, Mark. Put Glidewell aside for a moment, I'll let them speak for themselves. I'm more interested in hearing your reservations with 3D printing. I know here at Objet we’ve developed Objet VeroDent - a new material specifically designed for the needs of the dental market. It’s less expensive and and quite competitive with traditional stone models and production times have shortened substantially. Is there something else that needs to be improved?

 

[Avi Cohen]

You are correct Mark, I was there in the last year and they are not close to switching over to printers for all there models, I do not blieve they see this as an option with current technology. We have an objet printer that we utelize mainly in our ortho dept. It is definately the best solution for model printing out there at the moment INMHO.
Neil Appelbaum CDT

Protec Dental Laboratories Ltd.
38 East 1st Avenue, Vancouver
British Columbia, Canada V5T1A1
Direct: 604.873.5344
Toll Free: 800.663.5488 ext 106
Fax: 604.873.852
[email protected]
Protec Dental Lab

Glad to hear its working out for you, Neal!

 

[paulg100]

try and get a look at the sirona or 3m models, There not that great its just a limit of the SLA process at this time.

Aside from the cost of the equipment and the slow speeds, the detail that these units can manage is just not good enough. Forget about replicating the micro texture of a single central from an SLA model.

its another case of getting caught up in the cad/cam buzz, spend a fortune on equipment and take a step back in quality, much like the state of milling glass with cam is at currently.

Like alot of cad/cam stuff still, its getting there but it aint there yet.

 

[orthodent]

We have an objet printer that we utelize mainly in our ortho dept. It is definately the best solution for model printing out there at the moment INMHO.
Neil Appelbaum CDT

Hey Neil,
What applications are you using your scanner and printer for in the ortho department?

 

[Mark Jackson]

Good to meet you, Mark. Put Glidewell aside for a moment, I'll let them speak for themselves. I'm more interested in hearing your reservations with 3D printing. I know here at Objet we’ve developed Objet VeroDent - a new material specifically designed for the needs of the dental market. It’s less expensive and and quite competitive with traditional stone models and production times have shortened substantially. Is there something else that needs to be improved?

I guess I've not been keeping up to date. Frankly, I haven't been really impressed with the print resolution, but it may just be the nature of the parts I'm working with (surgical guides, models). The other thing has been the build times. Three hours was about the fastest I've seen, but you sound like you've improved that? At a cost of $15 per model, that seems too steep as well.

Avi, I'd be open to learn nore. I may be working with old information. I'd be happy to talk with you sometime if I'm way off the mark here.

 

[Avi Cohen]

Wow, Mark, our technology certainly has moved beyond those figures. I'll tell you what. Why don't I send you a sample model so you can see what we do and then we'll have a common reference point for a phone call? Just shoot me your mailing address.

Avi

 

[Mark Jackson]

Wow, Mark, our technology certainly has moved beyond those figures. I'll tell you what. Why don't I send you a sample model so you can see what we do and then we'll have a common reference point for a phone call? Just shoot me your mailing address.

Avi

PCDL
9591 Central Avenue
Montclair, CA
91763

I have been sending my files to Glidewell for printing. Will be curious what is different from the ones I'm getting now. I look forward to it Avi

 

[DMC]

Avi, I am interested in your printer.
I have owned four rapid-proto units in the past few years.

I fix 3D Systems printers. I tried to sell them, but sales were terrible last year, as you may know.

How many jets does your modeler have? I'm sure you know a 3D Systems printer uses a Phazer printhead from Xerox that has 224 support and 224 part jets running at once.

Piezo gizmos that blow out the material. Vacuum keeps material from falling/dripping due to gravity.

Describe to me your printhead please. It is a comsumable that does not last very long? Similar to the old Sanders printers, (Solidscape) in that a pintel needle closes/opens an oriface? Moving parts in the printhead, or piezo? ?? How many jets?

These 3D Systems printheads seem to last a very very long time. The rest of the machine requires constant service, easy and cheap if you can do it yourself... but frequent adjustments. I leave the covers off my mine so I can look inside everyday to check on stuff. The longer I have a printer, the better it runs. It may take months to work out the bugs in a new printer from 3D Systems, but then I would say they are reliable after that. The material changing system is the main problem. Once set-up right, it usually runs for years and years needing minor things.

What about an Objet? How fast can I get parts?? Do you have a parts warehouse in the US?? Can I fix my own printer? I would insist on it. Not a big fan of service agreements. How many service techs does your company have in the US? Do you need more on the East Coast?

 

[DMC]

Unless they did it over this past weekend, this is not true.

Glidewell has Objet printers which they are using for a few projects, including some ortho products and to generate models for their customers with intraoral scanners. As you may know, Glidewell has been developing their own intraoral scanner and it combines some of the best features of the current models. Like many of us, Glidewell knows trhat everything will be digital in the not too distant future, but for the moment, 3D printed models are expensive and slow.

While I am a big fan of additive technology, I am less than thrilled with the current state of the art in 3D printing.

Mark, he did not say that all models are printed at Glidwell. What he said was that all DIGITAL models are made this way. Meaning they are not milling models, or using SLA technology for digital models. Of course they still have stone models. What he said is probably true, right? Or, do you know of Glidwell using SLA or milling for models?

 

[DMC]

Earth to Avi...come in Avi.

Over.

( I think we lost him? )

 

[Avi Cohen]

Sorry about that...was on the dark side of the moon. Our printing heads have around 900 nozzles. Also our system is based on Piezo jet. Monkey Mafia would you like to see a model as well? Shoot me your contact details, name and title and I'll get one over to you.

AC

 

[DMC]

I will send a file to Mark in MA.
I spoke with him last week already.

For Dental models, I think we will run out of memory before we run out of physical space on a build plate. The 3M model files, for example, are very large. 5x more data density than other scanner output. How many million triangles can your printer's software handle? Do you know the data capacity? I believe we can go up to around 30,000,000 triangles on a Projet before the software crashes.

Scott

 

[Avi Cohen]

This is true, but there is no real need to overkill the number of triangles that 3D printing system cannot produce anyway.

Our dental customers use polygon reduction for level of 15 microns. This way we can fill a building envelope of Objet Eden500V with 70 full arches in one print job.

I’ll be more than happy to demonstrate this for you and show you a model printed in this resolution. This way you’ll see that there is no perceptible change in the end model.

 

[Avi Cohen]

PCDL
9591 Central Avenue
Montclair, CA
91763

I have been sending my files to Glidewell for printing. Will be curious what is different from the ones I'm getting now. I look forward to it Avi

Hi Mark – We shipped out your model via Fedex. Let me know when would be a good time to call.

 

[sepyoukey]

projet 6000

Anybody used the Projet 6000 yet to print models?

 

[BobCDT]

Hi Avi,
I own a milling center, CAP. We look at the Buisness model of printing models every 4-6 months. To date we have not seen an ROI that really works adequitely. In addition, we look at model manufactur as a lower value product for our cstomers. However, we do think it could be of benefit for CAP to be able to provide this service.
Again, on the negative side, automated models will be looked at as the problem when cases don't fit correctly. This risk is something you need to help us manage. We can not manufacturer models that are out of tolerance. If you read some of Scott's posts, he writes that he is constantly tweaking his equipment to keep the product accurate. It would be great is this could be automated.
Back to the ROI. We will probably get involved when we can produce a model and die kit for about $8 materials, machine time and parts at 80% capacity. Lastly, RM models will need improved surface quality compared to what we get from 3D Lava COS model kits. Better surface quality and accuracy. Surface detail is important and layer stepping on the margins is not acceptable.
Bob