3D printing solutions enable dental practitioners to realize the benefits of digital dentistry, including improving patient experience, more comfortable device fit, and faster turnaround times. The accuracy, strength, and speed of 3D printers create cost-effective and better-performing oral devices. With dental practitioners becoming more tech-savvy, it is strengthening 3D printing dental trends for digitalization and new business models.
Advanced 3D printing technologies such as LuxCreo’s solutions are upgrading dental offices and advancing current dental trends.
Benefits of 3D Printing Dental Trends for Private Dental Offices
Traditional manufacturing of dental appliances requires skilled labor to create an accurate model that is also time-consuming and expensive. 3D printing technology can eliminate steps and optimize the manufacturing process to fabricate more accurate devices with faster turnaround times and at highly competitive costs. 3D printing dental trends have gained attention in recent years owing to the following key benefits for dental offices:
- Customization: 3D printing technology makes it possible for dental offices to realize volume production for customized dental devices with rapid printing speeds and the same or higher product performance.
- Cost-Effectiveness: 3D printing can eliminate steps and significantly reduce material waste in the manufacturing of dental appliances, reducing labor and improving costs.
- Digitalization for Finished Products and Reproducibility: Unlike traditional dental appliance production that involves time-consuming steps, 3D printing enables a digitalized workflow that streamlines the entire production process and produces finished products that require no polishing. Digitalized dental workflows also allow easy reprinting of dental devices for patients if they get lost or broken.
- Time-Effectiveness: The digital production process enables on-demand printing, reducing manufacturing time for same-day or next-day delivery of dental appliances.
While upgrading dental offices, practitioners may find it challenging to evaluate, assess, and determine the right 3D printing solution. Concerns about ease of use, scalable production, equipment downtime, accurate and precise printing, and the return on investment of advanced 3D dental printing systems can deter dental offices from adopting 3D printing dental trends.
LuxCreo’s innovative 3D printing dental solutions are specifically designed to suit the requirements of both small and large dental offices. Supporting on-demand production with easy scaling, LuxCreo’s solution provides a lower total cost of ownership compared to other alternatives.
3D Printing Dental Trends That Upgrade Your Practice
LuxCreo’s holistic 3D printing dental solutions comprise three areas — software, hardware, and materials – printing almost any dental appliance for orthodontic and dental offices and driving digital dental transformation. Practitioners can easily incorporate 3D printing into their offices with LuxCreo’s digital dental production workflow, taking advantage of the following 3D printing dental trends.
Digital Dental Models
3D intraoral scanners have eliminated the invasive and uncomfortable process of making dental impressions with compound-filled trays by capturing three-dimensional digital images of the patients’ teeth and converting these images into accurate 3D models. LuxCreo’s intuitive software bundle, including LuxFlow Dental, simplifies the creation of accurate 3D printable models for each treatment stage by automatically optimizing the placement and orientation of models on build platforms. By automatically nesting the models, generating support structures, and labeling them, the software simplifies the digital workflow, saves time, and ensures accurate, high throughput printing using LuxCreo’s 3D printers.
Same-Day Delivery of Aligners
The direct printing of clear, digitally polished aligners is one of the major disrupting of 3D printing dental trends. Practitioners can shorten the time to deliver the first aligner or set of aligners through in-house production of clear aligners – improving patient satisfaction. In case of lost or ill-fitting aligners, dental offices can rapidly reprint a replacement aligner for pickup or make adjustments and produce new aligners in a single day. This 3D printing dental trend will transform clear aligner delivery and improve the accuracy and performance of clear aligners.
LuxAlign Dental software provides final, clear, and digitally polished aligner models ready for printing through LuxCreo dental printers. 3D printers such as iLux Pro Dental and Lux 3+ Dental are high-performance and fast desktop 3D printers that can print eight clear aligners in 30 minutes, making it possible for patients to leave with a whole set of aligners in a single visit to the office.
Advanced lab-grade 3D printing systems such as Lux 3+ Dental are designed to provide higher throughput for larger practices serving additional patients. Specialized FDA-approved dental resins with shorter curing times and next-generation digital polishing capability eliminate post-processing labor steps to further speed up the overall production time of clear aligners.
Direct Clear (Transparent) Printing of Finished Dental Devices
LuxCreo simplifies aligner and retainer manufacturing with direct, clear, and digitally polished printing in four simple steps using LuxCreo’s iLux Pro and Lux 3+ Dental 3D printers and DNG resin:
- Upload treatment plan to LuxFlow
- 3D print clear, digitally polished aligners
- Remove clear, polished aligners from the printer and begin wash and cure
- QC, analysis, and packaging
In-House Production of Precision Surgical Guides
Accuracy and high structural strength and stiffness are the most sought-after features of surgical guides. The 3D printing of surgical guides requires an accurately placed surgical guide that fits the patient’s mouth with precisely aligned and accurate drill holes. The final product should have flexural stiffness, strength, and heat resistance to support consistent alignment during the procedure.
LuxCreo’s advanced 3D printing systems are leading the next 3D printing dental trend with highly accurate surgical guide fabrication both chairside and at dental labs. Practitioners can fabricate the entire surgical guide in a single printing run with multiple precise bushing drill hole(s) aligned or off-angle to the print direction simplifying the printing process and ensuring accurate first print success. Dental Surgical Guide (DSG) is an ideal material with industry-leading flexural and tensile strength for further improving the precision and accuracy of the production of surgical guides. Dental offices can deploy 3D printers, software, and materials designed to work together to produce surgical guides while reducing manufacturing time and the associated costs.
The advantages of LuxCreo’s integrated 3D printing system can help dental offices adopt these 3D printing dental trends and transform their businesses. LuxCreo simplifies digital dentistry and patients benefit by receiving faster, more accurate, and better fitting dental appliances with minimal visits.
To learn more about 3D printing digital trends and how LuxCreo’s advanced 3D printing solutions can help upgrade your dental practice, visit our contact page or call 1 (650) 336-0888.
