Machine tool for a perfect smile

Something is changing. It so far, without hardly room for other alternatives, was common that the dentist should send the dental laboratory a handmade model which was used to enable the technician to adjust the piece to base of limar, without scanning anything. A subsequent step is to scan this mold in 3D, either by the structures or the technician, mecanizador, with a CAD/CAM system, machining on a 5-axis machining center.

And already there is talk, although it is not a process that is really in the market but rather future, another step towards digitization, according to which the models, rather than plaster, are digital, that are based on a scanner. The dentist sends to the mecanizador an STL file to be processed. But, as it has been said, this is still at an early stage.

As in any technological progress, the pressure on the cost is enormous. On the one hand maxims to the productive process accuracy and reliability demands, and on the other hand, dentists need flexibility. In order to reconcile this series of requirements that, in principle, collide each other, the market being used more and more industry standards, from the CAD and CAM to high-tech machines ruled by a CNC. Many of the costly, manual processes from a point of view of time and money, are replaced gradually by process chains that integrate CAD/CAM/CNC. The integration of the virtual world of the planning of the work and the physical world of production capacities is drastically reducing the term, since that is the patient and is prescribed a prosthesis, to the provision of adequate dental prosthesis.

The dental sector is registering an increase in the demand for machines of high technology, which is derived from the transition from a manual prostheses production process to one industrialized based on CAD/CAM. At the same time there is a greater demand for crowns, bridges and implants with high-quality, together with the trend pointing to the use of new materials, such as zirconium oxide.

In other words can ensure that it is a sector which, from the point of view of the machining, is moving towards a more professional. Thus open opportunities for numerous professionals, but also for the manufacturers of machines to see how a single machine can succeed in the sector dental if it can be used for machining a wide range of materials and complex geometries. And, as Gregor Moreno, Tornos technologies Ibéricasales engineer, says "this type of pieces require high precision machines, as it is the case of drugstore (subsidiary of lathes), with a wide experience in watchmaking and medical sectors." "Otherwise it is not possible to achieve the necessary precision in links between implants and the bridge".

But the machines must respond to another type of requirements that continues Gregor Moreno, "materials", as the cobalt chromium, of great hardness or zirconium, generates a chip that we could describe as dust, and when mixed with cutting fluid penetrates through the fairing of the machine and is highly abrasive.

The industrial manufacture of dentures is cheaper, to which must be added that the CNC machining also brings more accurately than traditional methods. Digital Dental models and 5-axis machining machines provide an excellent accuracy and a wide variety of possibilities for the user. The patient can be completely sure that your prosthesis will be perfect.

In the view of Carles Jiménez, commercial director Catalonia area of Maquinser, "the needs of the dental laboratory are exactly the same as those of the industry, they need a reliable, accurate and flexible product and be able to be able to work in unattended mode." "Although at first it is a higher investment, the cost per hour of palletised systems is much smaller and the profitability is assured."

From DMG Iberian, a company that is paying close attention to the dental sector, indicate thereon that applied the same philosophy of automation with machines with system of palletising from 4 up to 200 pallets with the aim of increasing the productivity and the autonomy of the machine and to reduce costs at the same time.

It appears that machinery intended to be successful in this area are those that are compatible with other systems. Machines that can work with open file in STL that go through the whole tooth, from the scanner to the machining. Providers who work with closed systems are seeing how to lower their market shares. So therefore wanted the compatibility of all the elements involved in the process and its coordination. A process that begins with the high resolution 3D scanner, includes machine tools and CAD/CAM software and passes into the furnace of sintering. DMG, for example, can work the material once sintering using ultrasound technology.

Some industry experts believe that only with complete systems dental laboratories can be competitive in international markets and escape the obligation to produce low-cost countries. With this reality in the horizon, some manufacturers of machines working to be able to offer its customers a complete system enabling them to obtain added value.

After obtaining a digital image of the tooth using a scanner, this image will be processed by the CAD software. The technical dental no longer has to make a model of plaster of the dental prosthesis, but rather creates it virtually on the computer, generating a file which is subsequently prepared for your machining on a CNC machine. A CAM software generates a strategy of machining of the dental prosthesis from the CAD data. The software defines what tools and paths must be the tool to produce the dental Crown, bridge or the implant, with absolute accuracy with respect to digital data. Post-processor finally adjusts the machining strategy to control of the machine. "I would add - said Carles Jiménez (Maquinser) - to the industrialization of the process and the use of CAD/CAM/CNC technology, you can work with more accurate machining strategies and use the right tools, managing to make the piece accurately adjusted to the initial model"", and in less time, reducing also the work of adjustment manuals so far occupied long time".

Once prepared the final program, comes into play the machine, which according to its equipment and the degree of automation, takes care of the rest of the work. After machining, the piece prosthetic is cured in an oven of sintering (when necessary) and carried out the lining.

Since the patient goes to the dentist unless it receives a dental prosthesis that fits you perfectly run through just a few days.

When it comes to the mouth of a human being, the work must be meticulous and is, in fact, very demanding from the point of view the details required and the materials used. A mecanizador of this sector may have to make crowns of glass ceramic or silicate of lithium, bridges based on screw implants of titanium or very precise parts from pre-sinterizado zirconium. And manufacturers of machines have been launched to seek specific solutions. For example, new materials such as the vitroceramic, ureol or sintered zirconium can machining thanks to new technologies of DMG Dental 10 Ultrasonic, ultrasound, 42,000 rpm and 30,000 pulses each second head.

Bridges of various elements, complete rows of teeth from chromium cobalt that are subsequently coated ceramic and bolted above also carried an implant.

Ideal for all types of dental structures

Lathes provides solutions for the machining of dental structures. One of the options is the machining center for 5-axis simultaneous drugstore CU1007, with 4 linear guides with a precision of 1/10 rules µm and a surface in very small plant (2.5 m2). The spindle has a maximum speed of 30,000 rpm (45,000 in option). The storage of tools has 30 or 64 tools. The machine has prerreglaje of tools Blum (± 1 µm) system and there is the possibility of robotizar the loading and unloading and, above all, a solution integrated CAD/CAM for the dental sector that allows processing of parts and the preparation of the agenda for its subsequent mechanization. As a result, the 1007 CU is an ideal machine for all types of dental structures. Another option is the center of 5 drugstore CU1005 Zr. Técnicamente similar to the CU1007 axis, this machine features a special stainless steel double fairing to protect all the internal organs of the machine and prevent corrosion caused by the work of zirconium.

Designed for the laboratory

Maquinser DEOS (Dental Engineering Open System), integrates all systems and equipment required for these complicated machining from STL files management, to the CAD-CAM program of 5-axis specific, the post-processing and verified of trajectories and the scanner, the correct choice of tools and circumstances, to final machining.

Matsuura machine 5 0 LX AX, offers all the guarantees necessary for optimally this complicated process. To the rigidity of its construction, add linear engines installed in the 5-axis, giving displacements in rapid of up to 90 m/min with acceleration of 1 G. The head of 43,000 or 60,000 rpm provides the necessary complement to work in high speed tools of small diameters. The machine is designed for laboratory work that it does not exceed the 60 dB, and is easily fact to accept standard palletizing systems and changers of pallet for unreached production processes.