Exocad Tutorials

[DAL Claxton]

Hello Everyone!

I wanted to prod you guys and see if there's any particular Exocad tutorials for design that you would like to see, restoration types, or even workflows.

Honestly, I was Russian volunteered to do one for the upcoming LMT, and I figured it would be easier to ask what you'd want to see!

Nothing is off the table, but I'm better at designing C&B cases since I was a fixed tech for years, with removables I only know the tools, and my designs are a bit shaky.

- Josh

 

[CoolHandLuke]

the most common workflow issues i encounter are:

Bar and Overdenture
Merging waxup for printing and doing suckdown/guard
re-importing cases from older exocad without overwriting patient ID's

 

[DAL Claxton]

Just to clarify:

* So you want to design the bar then the denture over it as a split file, or scan it back in?
* Waxup as in Diagnostic, and then a suckdown or bitesplint over the final?

If you open up the .dentalproject file in a text editor (I prefer notepad++) you can change the patient ID in there, most of the ones you currently have should be within a pretty similar range, so you can just bump down a number in the first couple and it should import alright!

Thank you for the ideas, hopefully can take a look at whatever comes in and make a hybrid course. Don't think any one subject would cover the whole hour

 

[CoolHandLuke]

bar-denture split file sounds great

for the suckdown, most of my customers want to merge their waxup design with the model and then print it, however exoca'd process for this tends to try to eliminate boundary overlaps and creates tiny wormholes that eventually destroy the nice design. how would you do this better.

 

[DAL Claxton]

Most printers can handle it if you take the model, with the Anatomic Teeth overlaying it, then saving the scene file as an STL. Not always 100%, but most can manage the print.

Other options: Right click the model and "freeform model" then save each anatomic crown shape as an stl (you can only use savable libraries, so no ZRS) then go to the attachment function in the freeform model and add each one back on additively.

other one - take the saved STL scene of the teeth and model, then drag it into meshmixer and make it solid with high accuracy. Not my favorite going outside Exocad.

Right now Exocad has in Beta with Plovdiv where once you make the model you can right click the background and get "generate waxup model" or something, but it currently only saves the scene with teeth overlaying the model like my first suggestion. They're working on making it water tight however.

I'll have to look at some ideas for bar and denture. Any attachments on that, or just suction fit?
Hopefully some other folk chime in with ideas as well!!!

 

[CoolHandLuke]

push the tips and tricks for making sure that the bar and bar interface are cleanly machinable surfaces without undercuts. this is the part many people have trouble with.

 

[CadCam805]

I want to see Snap On s

 

[2thm8kr]

the most common workflow issues i encounter are:

Bar and Overdenture
Merging waxup for printing and doing suckdown/guard
re-importing cases from older exocad without overwriting patient ID's

Where is the old exocad case located, on a different planet or a separate CAD-Data folder?
Use file explorer and navigate to the exocad case, right click, open with, and make sure you select the CADApp .exe from the most recent version of exocad on your machine. Open the DENTALCAD file that has the most recent saved CAD scene in it. Make your changes or what ever and save the CAD scene again. The changes are made and kept in the same patient folder without renaming/overwriting the original patient ID.


Merging waxup for printing can be tricky. Try a few different recipes.







Make the model first. After merging use expert mode to free form and add the changes as attachments.

Be sure all your stl files you are adding as attachments are clean meshes, no overlapping triangles, etc

 

[zero_zero]

Merging waxup for printing and doing suckdown/guard
re-importing cases from older exocad without overwriting patient ID's

Not sure what are you taking aboot amigo... I never had an issue with overwritten pt. files, just create a new ID for each instance and yer golden

 

[DAL Claxton]

Looks like some Snap-on smile / Waxup Anterior merging shenanigans then. I was thinking about showing using a Wacom tablet for aesthetic anterior design as well. That would work well enough while including a diagnostic Waxup or snap-on smile.

@CoolHandLuke is this more of a CAM issue? You can always make the bar more of a wedge shape or even a "wing" shape for some of the PEEK materials. I would imagine that so long as you have a machine that can mill the undercuts (5axis?) and give it substantial enough room around the bar to allow the axis to tilt then it would mill out cleanly?

 

[CoolHandLuke]

@CoolHandLuke is this more of a CAM issue? You can always make the bar more of a wedge shape or even a "wing" shape for some of the PEEK materials. I would imagine that so long as you have a machine that can mill the undercuts (5axis?) and give it substantial enough room around the bar to allow the axis to tilt then it would mill out cleanly?

DAL, the principle of knowing the limits of your machine and the CAM mostly eludes the designers of dental prosthetics. showing them how to account for milling is never amiss. if more dental techs had basic CNC knowledge about how to design mating parts, we'd have a lot fewer issues to deal with all around.

 

[DAL Claxton]

Ahh, I gotcha. I should be able to cover some general milling guidelines and things to look for. That should work with the snap on in case it's milled out of layered pmma for aesthetics. Having something with that many possible undercuts should be substantial enough for any bar work since those are generally much more open faced and pose fewer problems for most CAM software.

Great list of ideas! Thank you everyone, if you want to keep popping ideas in here, I'm open for future videos covering Exocad, or even just using this thread to work out workflow ideas before moving that to a more structured format/thread.

 

[sidesh0wb0b]

Ahh, I gotcha. I should be able to cover some general milling guidelines and things to look for. That should work with the snap on in case it's milled out of layered pmma for aesthetics. Having something with that many possible undercuts should be substantial enough for any bar work since those are generally much more open faced and pose fewer problems for most CAM software.

Great list of ideas! Thank you everyone, if you want to keep popping ideas in here, I'm open for future videos covering Exocad, or even just using this thread to work out workflow ideas before moving that to a more structured format/thread.

do you have a link to where the vids are stored?

 

[DAL Claxton]

We don't have a location yet, before the start of Corona I had begun recording general videos that we had planned on placing in our website. Obviously that got canned though with everything going on. I'll have to check for a final location, or see if the project would be reactivated. For this video, I think shows done through LMT are recorded? (could be wrong) so I'm sure they would have that available, not sure on LMT's streaming platform though.

I will certainly let you all know once I get a definite answer

 

[sidesh0wb0b]

We don't have a location yet, before the start of Corona I had begun recording general videos that we had planned on placing in our website. Obviously that got canned though with everything going on. I'll have to check for a final location, or see if the project would be reactivated. For this video, I think shows done through LMT are recorded? (could be wrong) so I'm sure they would have that available, not sure on LMT's streaming platform though.

I will certainly let you all know once I get a definite answer

please do, i look forward to perusing them!

 

[VERENGUE]

Hey guys) could someone help me with model creator library, and exoplan library? i need to get library sleeves for surgeon tamplates. thank you so much