Edmonds Dental Prosthetics‘s focus has always been bringing high-quality products to its doctor client base. One way to do this is by utilizing state of the art equipment. This means looking for ways to improve manufacturing processes through digital technology. The latest improvement in this sense is the addition of two Carbon 3D printers.
Selecting the Carbon system was in part the result of shared feedback from TEREC-NA (a consortium of independently owned and regionally located dental laboratories) about equipment and materials.
Traditional 3D printers’ processes involve light-curing resin between the build plate and the resin tray membrane. Next the light-cured part is “lifted” off the membrane and the curing process repeats. This makes each layer visible if the printer is not at its smallest micron setting.
The Carbon printer, on the other hand, seamlessly creates the end product without revealing separate build layers. Carbon’s printer technology builds parts within an oxygen layer. This eliminates the need to “lift” the product from the resin membrane, which speeds up the printing process. This results in printed parts that seem to emerge out of a vat of resin.
“Our mission statement describes the heart of our company. We provide the quality you can trust, from people who care. And we do care about what kind of service we provide”, the company said in a statement. “By investing in Carbon’s technology, we hope it is evident how devoted we are to this mindset. We want our doctors to have expert service without the risk of products breaking or failing due to faulty materials or processes.”
The ability to create high-quality products will increase as Carbon printing is integrated into Edmonds’ production model. Carbon printing will enable more consistent production results for high-quality restorations. The purpose of this investment is to provide dental professionals with the best quality products so they can, in turn, offer the best dental products to their patients. Carbon’s higher productivity also implies lowest costs and – likely – better profit margins once the machines have been fully integrated into the workflow.
Edmonds staff trained to use these printers over two days and learned how to efficiently operate this new technology with proficiency. In the next phase, they will begin testing and be practicing with the printers to ensure they are working with 100% accuracy. Once the training and testing phases are complete, the laboratory will implement Carbon printing into production.
