I recently went to the dentist. Oh, yes, what a fun, fun time! Unlike most people I find dentistry utterly fascinating. Just kidding. My dentist is a nice person, but it is impossible for me to like her. She knows I hate going to see her. I know this. I try to be nice, but I do find myself wondering if she secretly enjoys tinkering with my oral nerves. Besides imagining slights and malfeasance, my other habits include multiple attempts to delay her examination. This time, I started talking about 3D printing and dentistry. I could describe the general process of scanning instead of taking dental impressions, and printing teeth and crowns out for implants, but only in a general way. I did mention the Projet 1200, but I couldn’t name any dental scanners. I had about three minutes of material tops.
While rubbing my Novocain filled face, I found out that Sirona is the world’s largest manufacturer of dental technology, and they have a product called the Sirona Cerac intraoral scanner.
Recently, they verified the ProJet 1200 micro-SLA 3D printer “within the inLab Dental Lab processes.” InLab CAD/CAM is a software set that can do some pretty amazing things, and it has been around for 10 years already.
Check it out here, it’s pretty fascinating:
Now if you haven’t heard of the ProJet 1200, it is a relatively inexpensive, great micro-SLA printer that was released into the wild by 3D Systems at Euromold 2013. It’s a pretty small printer, has a 43 x 27 x 150mm (1.69 x 1.06 x 5.9 inches) print volume, and is marketed for and used by jewelers, electronic components makers and dentists (for dental wax ups). The Projet 1200 prints 30 micron layers at a 585 dpi and uses 3D Systems proprietary VisiJetFTX Green material, which is, according to 3D Systems, “a durable and rigid material that is tailored for plastic prototyping and casting patterns making it ideal for jewelers, dental labs, and designers of very small detail products such as collectibles and electronic component parts.”
If my dentist (or any other) were so inclined, she could use the Sirona Cerac intraoral scanner to replace processes such as dental impressions, which used to be made from wax, plaster or zinc oxide, and just 3D scan my oral terrain, send that digital information to the lab, and have it processed for whatever horrifying procedure she wants to try out on me. If you’ve ever had a plaster mold taken, it’s certainly not the worst thing that can happen to you in a dental chair, but I’ll take the scanner because it does not touch my teeth, thank you very much.
According to Lindy Sikes from Sikes Dental Studio, “The ProJet 1200 is the last piece of the digital dental puzzle that has eliminated hand waxing from our lab.” If I need a coping, a bridge, veneers or pressed ceramic work done, I will bring her attention to this, for a long while, right before I have to sit in that weird chair that makes you feel as though you’ve been abducted by extraterrestrials who communicate by way of horrifying elevator music.
Recently, Sirona held an inLab Summit on October 31-November 1 in Charlotte, NC, and November 7-8 in Carlsbad, CA. 3D Systems and Sirona demonstrated the integration of the ProJet 1200 with the inLab Dental Lab CAD/CAM system for the dental professionals at the show.
