The future of model preparation in dentistry
clearly is 3D printing.
My name is Matt Roberts, I run CMR laboratory
in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
We are a high-end cosmetic laboratory with a bent
towards digital design and digital technology.
We've had a heavy switch to digitally aided
technologies.
In the last ten years we started using different
CAD programs which of course then
quickly led to getting something to produce it with.
But printers were like a hundred and fifty
thousand dollars and you needed to order three
of them so one of them was always working
and the other two were always in the shop
getting fixed.
We started with a form two printer that cost
thirty five hundred instead of going to a
thirty-five thousand dollar printer simply
because I couldn't see a lot of difference
in what one did vs the other did.
We're seeing very accurate models coming out
of our diagnostic wax up a process.
The inclusion comes together very nicely with
the imposing model.
I'm not seeing any gaps or spaces in there
that would be unexplained and it's about a
thirty percent labor savings over doing it
with the wax.
You can print beautiful sharp embrasures in-between
teeth.
The models that are coming out of the form
two or really great.
We have had really good response from our
clients, and I don't think I've had a negative
comment back yet from anyone.
Everybody's excited about it.
We have multiple applications that we would like to be using
printing technology in the future.
The new model materials look really nice.
I'm seeing nice fits of the restoration onto
the dies to check the accuracy.
We started with one printer and we quickly
found that we we're running that capacity.
At the price point we can have more of them
around and have another one ready to start
printing when that one's full and still in
process.
We immediately picked up a second printer.
We now have four of them sitting here.
We will have different materials and different
printers for different applications as well.
We can be designing the case within an hour
of when it was scanned and have the final
restorations already being manufactured parallel
to the models being manufactured.
I think the next frontier for us is our model
department and taking and retraining the people
to do this digitally and working with a form
two printer to print removable die models do
all of our model work that way too.
