CAD-SCAM, help me understand

[Hal2a]

All of these advances in Cad/Cam have been great. For a small fish like myself it has allowed me to swim with the big boys by offering products that I never could have before. The savings in production time has meant more time at home with the family instead of burning the midnight oil.
My concern is where does this technology take us? With the future advances in chairside scanners and in office milling where are we gong to fit in. It might be safe to say that we can say good-bye to single unit posteriors. I think advanced anterior esthitics, implants and large cases will be what saves us.

 

[paulg100]

"Our doctors would not switch over to our all ceram products if they weren't happy with the fits so my system (inlab)"

That system may be OK with the bluecam providing your clients can produce text book preps.

Thats maybe 5% of clinicians i reckon, at least in the UK

Switching to the blue is only half the problem, the huge fat 1mm burs are the other big issue.

Still, its suprising what docs will fit if the price is right.

theres no magic fix with that system, your marginal fits are sub standard compared to pressing and thats a fact, but im glad its working for your business

Otherwise youd be in the nightmare situation im in, where im paying out something like $3 1/2 k a month for a system thats collecting dust.

Thanks to Sirona and Panadent UK my enthusiasm for CAD/CAM is virtually zero right now.

 

[rkm rdt]

Paul, it's almost like a relationship gone sour isn't?

First you're smitten by the magic of it all and then reality sets in...the open margins!

You try to patch things up but in the end there's still a gaping hole! Things are not fitting in and are getting rocky.

You know it's over but you're in denial.You're still paying but your relationship is gathering dust.

Then acceptance sets in but you are still paying.Besides you can still do it by hand

Then you turn sour on any further models no matter how sexy they look.Sure you can do more with them but it's too soon for you.

Besides you are still paying aren't you?

Alas Paul some day the payments will end and you will feel the need to scan the market again but you will be just looking.

Then all of a sudden you will be blindsided by a hot little number at some trade show and before you know it you'll wake up from a demo and be smitten you 'ol Cad you! reggers:

 

[RileyS]

4, we haVe red, the best the market had till the blue came out!!
Jo, ah yes, the zirconia factor.
Rkm, please don't ever stop posting!!!

 

[NicelyMKV]

Jo, when you say your not happy with your fits, do you mean the marginal fits of FCZ and your wax/ resin printed units? I work under a fairly powerful microscope and my cad stuff fits perfect. I would never put something out the door that was any less. I am expecting some wax printed units back tomorrow. I have a 100mm macro lens. I will take some extreme close ups of the fits if you would like?

 

[Jo Chen]

Jo, when you say your not happy with your fits, do you mean the marginal fits of FCZ and your wax/ resin printed units? I work under a fairly powerful microscope and my cad stuff fits perfect. I would never put something out the door that was any less. I am expecting some wax printed units back tomorrow. I have a 100mm macro lens. I will take some extreme close ups of the fits if you would like?

It is the printed units that suck. Would love to see what you get.

 

[smile4me]

4, we haVe red, the best the market had till the blue came out!!
Jo, ah yes, the zirconia factor.
Rkm, please don't ever stop posting!!!

Riley you should have your Sirona rep leave the blue cam with your for 2 weeks as a demo! that's what our rep did with us! there was no way we were going to invest on another scanner with Sirona from the experience we had with the red no freakin way it was out of the question! then he came by and brought over the blue left it with us for 2 weeks we saw the HUGE difference (night and day) and after he took back the blue (demo) we immediately upgraded traded in the red for our $5,000 credit and I tell you we would be soooo lost and so done without it! its the scanner not the mill I know this because we are scanning and sending out for metal copings from argen and they are coming back fine! doesn't hurt to try it out! you will be so amazed! if he never left us the blue cam for a demo we would never had upgraded especially with the experience we had with the red.

 

[RileyS]

unfortunately for sirona, I won't be able to allow my boss to give them any more money. We have gone a different direction. Our mission statements, and business models don't mesh up...at all. But it is nice to hear the success stories once and awhile.

 

[smile4me]

"Our doctors would not switch over to our all ceram products if they weren't happy with the fits so my system (inlab)"

That system may be OK with the bluecam providing your clients can produce text book preps.

Thats maybe 5% of clinicians i reckon, at least in the UK

Switching to the blue is only half the problem, the huge fat 1mm burs are the other big issue.

Still, its suprising what docs will fit if the price is right.

theres no magic fix with that system, your marginal fits are sub standard compared to pressing and thats a fact, but im glad its working for your business

Otherwise youd be in the nightmare situation im in, where im paying out something like $3 1/2 k a month for a system thats collecting dust.

Thanks to Sirona and Panadent UK my enthusiasm for CAD/CAM is virtually zero right now.

Paul we get horrible preps from a few doctors I will take some pics and post them for you guys to see! 95% of what comes in the door gets scanned now the only thing we don't scan are our implant crowns those are still being hand waxed. I know how you feel about the investment and collecting dust we have another scanner that we paid $50,000 for and we only used it a few times in the last 3 mos for custom abutments and my payment on that is $900 a month! but I'm going to make it work for us make the best out of it and start marketing a custom abutment n crown special. We will be seeing a rise in custom abutment request now that the Straumann surgical reps will be getting paid on them as of the 1st of the year!

 

[shane williams]

I've only been a lab-tech for 7 years. But in those 7 years I've seen a drastic change in the industry. I'm relativly young(30) so I'm considerd "the computer age" and kinda perfect for the CAD/CAM revolution. I can honestly say that I love it!! Sure it gets frustrating at times, but that goes for everything in this buisness. I don't feel like technology is eliminating experenced technicians, but instead it gives them another tool to be creative. It's not the lab owners I feel that are pushing for the tec, but the Dr.'s! They're the ones who are wanting zirconia, full zirconia, Ti, etc... and labs are having to find ways to keep the Dr.'s staying with them.

I see what people are saying, it's expensive, monthly costs, etc. Would I say buy a CAD system only for zirconia, no. You need to be able to market tec in a way to fully utilize to it's maximum ability. "Jo" I feel personally that printing units is a waste of time. We have an EnvisionTec printer, and now a Roland DWX-50 milling machine. In the 3 days that I've been able to mill wax, rather than print; It's night and day difference. Better fits, margins looks better, not so bulky too.

We're in about the same 60% mill/print 40% hand wax. Some cases just can't be scanned, or they can but not in a timely manner so we hand wax them. We need to look at CAD/CAM as a tool to give us the technician the best possible solution. I'm more productive now milling than I could ever be simply hand waxing. I can scan and design full contour gold/e-max crowns in 10 min, mill it in 10 min. The beauty of it is while it's milling, I'm doing other things like implants or veneers. And they fit perfect, no adjusting just invest and done! Thats how I look at tecnology.

 

[DMC]

It is the printed units that suck. Would love to see what you get.

My Printer is pretty accurate.

16um in Z slices, and 32um X-Y.

This is a true measurement. The Objet and others are full of BS.

We use Xerox Solid Ink printhead.....656dpi. It is really that accurate, because it has 448 physical jet orifaces that are in a fixed, known position. The Z Slices are also precisely measured and almost impossible to be off.

There are no optics to get skewed. I can show you that your data points are probably 2x less resolution that a 3D Systems printer.

I still don't know what printer you have?

 

[RileyS]

Scott, I've had 5 printed crowns done from you now and each of them have come back absolutely perfect. My boss even is considering buying. But I remember a post of yours saying it can take up to 3 months to dial the machine in and that is scary. From the sounds of printing most people don't love their equipment except for you and you are clearly a rip it apart, re-engineer, and modify it guy. is this technology really ready for our highly detailed profession?
We've also done a lot of milled pmma that had 90% perfect margins but fits are less than desireable depending on prep. Seems best to go with one machine to do many materails rather than a printer, unless it's someone like yourself.
All that being said, i'm still dying to get into printing if i can get ur results.

 

[paulg100]

"Paul we get horrible preps from a few doctors I will take some pics and post them for you guys to see!"

That would be great thanks!

Please post the images of the unit out of the mill though, not after some one has spent 20 minutes trying to manually fit em down

thanks

 

[DMC]

I feel that after playing with them for Years now, I can help provide Remote assistance to keep a printer running for other people. I recommend being charged by the hour. Not a yearly contract.

Otherwise, you pay $9-$10k a year for service from someone??
Or, you spend hundreds of hours training to fix yourself.

That involves a week at 3D University in SC also.

You have to really like the printer to go through all that.

I get calls all the time about broken printers and the owners are ready to sell machine....bitch....but they never sell. LOL

They are great! (When they work.) LOL

 

[Mark Jackson]

I get calls all the time about broken printers and the owners are ready to sell machine....bitch....but they never sell. LOL

They are great! (When they work.) LOL

This is EXACTLY why I have five wax mills and no printers. For $6000, I can mill wax units all day long, day after day after day, and never wear out the burs, or stress the machine and I can remelt the chips and make a new puck for a penny a piece.

Sometimes, technology for technolgies sake is just plain stupid.

 

[Sune]

Dental Lab Products - December 2011

Just a little reading on the subject..

 

[mrcadcam]

Finally someone posts something about milling WAX. We make our own discs in house, recycle the waste back into production and the fits are perfect. Cost us about $0.02 in material.

Jo you said you have wieland/isel machines, thats what we use as well. If you can devote a machine for a little bit, grind out copings out of wax and look at your results. Youll pitch your printers out the door by end of the day.

Printers are only feasible for models, but prices still need to come down alot more to make sense.

 

[Labwa]

has anyone had here had a crack at milling models?

 

[DMC]

Finally someone posts something about milling WAX. We make our own discs in house, recycle the waste back into production and the fits are perfect. Cost us about $0.02 in material.

Jo you said you have wieland/isel machines, thats what we use as well. If you can devote a machine for a little bit, grind out copings out of wax and look at your results. Youll pitch your printers out the door by end of the day.

Printers are only feasible for models, but prices still need to come down alot more to make sense.

I sell prints for $2.95 all day long and make profit.
Can I send you some files to mill in wax for that price?

I disagree with both of you. I have owned a Roland, and many other mills. I have owned Four different Rapid-Prototypers. Which ones have you owned?

Setting up a printer is 100x quicker and easier than trying to nest/sprue/arrange and calculate teeth to be milled CNC. Then you have an hour of de-spruing to catch up to me while I do something else.

Recycling wax....using the Cheapest mills on the market? Mark you are a funny guy with quite a flip/flop attitude in your work ethics.

 

[mrcadcam]

I sell prints for $2.95 all day long and make profit.
Can I send you some files to mill in wax for that price?

I disagree with both of you. I have owned a Roland, and many other mills. I have owned Four different Rapid-Prototypers. Which ones have you owned?

Setting up a printer is 100x quicker and easier than trying to nest/sprue/arrange and calculate teeth to be milled CNC. Then you have an hour of de-spruing to catch up to me while I do something else.

Recycling wax....using the Cheapest mills on the market? Mark you are a funny guy with quite a flip/flop attitude in your work ethics.

You send the design file ill mill it for $1.95 how about that........like i said my overhead is $0.02 a coping/crown. My burrs are $19 and i get about 30,000 copings out of them

And an hour of despruing? how you figure an hour.......we use a dremel to drill sprues of the disc and use a rubber wheel to take the sprue off the coping. Avg. 30 copings/crowns a disc, 5 seconds a coping......2.5 min wasted. You print 1 coping takes you at least 35min to 1 hour to print, takes me less than 6 min.
Where do you recoup your time when you print 200-300 at a time? Printers are good for mass quantity, but there is no give with a printer. If Your coping/crown prints wrong you have to wait another 35min to 1 to get another one done.......me 6 min.

Whats wrong with recycling wax? We have only been using wax in our industry since it started.