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New Partnership: BEGO’s Dental Materials Allow Formlabs Customers to 3D Print Crowns & Bridges

BEGO, headquartered in Germany, has been a leader in the dental field for 130 years—and as pioneers in 3D printing for the last two decades, they now specialize in all types of dental fabrication techniques for prosthodontics and implant dentistry. Today, they have announced a partnership with Formlabs, the US-based designer and manufacturer of 3D printing systems—along with a wide-ranging product line and other strong partnerships around the world.

This alliance, just announced, means that Formlabs dental customers will be able to make on-demand dental products for their patients–using BEGO’s dental materials to 3D print both temporary and permanent crowns and bridges.

Formlabs customers who are already using the Form 3B and Form 2 3D printers will have access to fabricating permanent single crowns, inlays, onlays and veneers, and temporary crowns and bridges. Appreciating many of the benefits of 3D printing, they will be able to save on the bottom line, while making customized products, faster—and better.

“Directly printing temporary crowns and bridges are one of the most sought-after applications from Formlabs customers. By partnering with BEGO and leveraging their 130 years of dental experience, we will be able to not only address this need but take it a step further by offering materials for permanent crowns. We are excited to see how this partnership can continue to advance the dental industry and overcome the major challenges labs and dentists face as digital dentistry becomes a standard for patient care,” said Dávid Lakatos, Chief Product Officer at Formlabs.

Patients will enjoy:

  • Excellent aesthetics
  • Less tendency for dental work to age and discolor
  • Low-plaque accumulation
  • More comfort, thanks to less cold and heat sensitivity

“The ability to use completely digital dental workflows with 3D printed temporary restorations will enable a rapid, low cost, iterative process that improves patient care and case acceptance rates,” states the BEGO team in a press release sent to 3DPrint.com.

Dávid Lakatos, Chief Product Officer at Formlabs with Axel Klarmeyer, Chief Executive Officer of BEGO Dental

The two companies will be in attendance at LMT Lab Day in Chicago from February 21-22, presenting materials for attendees to see and feel, as well as showcasing their new partnership, which is also part of the ‘natural evolution’ of the also recently announced Dental Business Unit and Form 3B, meant to ensure that dentists are able to offer their patients the best in care.

“We could not be happier to partner with Formlabs, especially at this time, where digital dentistry is reaching a breakthrough. It took some time and a lot of effort and commitment of all involved people to be able to offer to the market a fully validated workflow for final restorations. This partnership underlines BEGO’s leading position in the dental 3D printing materials market,” said Axel Klarmeyer, Chief Executive Officer of BEGO Dental.

Find out more about these products here, and please visit BEGO and Formlabs at LMT Lab Day at Formlabs booth (#P-1) and BEGO booth (#H-13).

Both BEGO and Formlabs stay in the news with continue product development and successes from BEGO’s recent launch of the Varseo XL to new resins and other recent acquisitions by Formlabs.

What do you think of this news? Let us know your thoughts! Join the discussion of this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com.

[Source / Images: BEGO]

 

The post New Partnership: BEGO’s Dental Materials Allow Formlabs Customers to 3D Print Crowns & Bridges appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

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3D Printing News Briefs: July 2nd, 2019

We’re talking partnerships and materials in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs. The Alfa Romeo F1 team and Additive Industries are strengthening their technology partnership, while Beam-IT and SLM Solutions are expanding their own cooperation. Metallum3D just opened a new beta testing program for its stainless steel filament, while Zortrax and CRP Technology are both introducing new materials.

Alfa Romeo F1 Team and Additive Industries Strengthen Partnership

At the recent Rapid.Tech-Fabcon industrial 3D printing conference in Germany, Additive Industries announced that its current technology partnership with the F1 team of Alfa Romeo Racing would be growing stronger. The Sauber Engineering company, on behalf of Alfa Romeo Racing, has ordered an additional: 4-laser, multi-module MetalFAB1 Productivity System, bringing the total up to four systems and making it Additive Industries’ largest customer with a high-productivity metal 3D printing capacity.

“Our installed base is growing fast, not only with new customers in our core markets like aerospace and the automotive industry but also through existing customers like Sauber Engineering, who are advancing to become one of the leading companies in industrial 3D printing in Europe, ramping up production,” stated Daan Kersten, the CEO of Additive Industries. “Although most users of metal additive manufacturing are still applying prototyping systems, we see an increasing number of companies concluding they need dedicated systems for series production. Our modular MetalFAB1 family is the only proven system on the market today designed for this use. We are grateful and proud to be technology partner to Sauber Engineering and the F1 team of Alfa Romeo Racing.”

Beam-IT and SLM Solutions Sign Expanded Agreement

M.Sc.Eng. Martina Riccio, AM Process Leader of Beam-IT and technical team

Italian 3D printing service bureau Beam-IT and metal 3D printing provider SLM Solutions have signed an agreement, which will expand their current long-term cooperation. Together in a joint venture project, the two will work to develop more material parameters – focusing on certain material properties – for the nickel-based alloys IN939 and IN718; this process will help create a less lengthy timeframe in terms of parameter testing. Additionally, Beam-IT has added two new SLM 3D printers to its product portfolio: an SLM 280 and an SLM 500.

 

 

 

“We are pleased to announce our cooperation agreement with SLM Solutions and the two additional machines,” said Michele Antolotti, the General Manager of Beam-IT. “We regularly produce high-quality parts for our customers using selective laser melting because the SLM ® technology works efficiently, quickly and, above all, safely. With the expanded capacity of our new multi-laser systems we can also increase our productivity and react to the increased interest in SLM ® technology from our customers.”

Metallum3D Opens Stainless Steel Filament Beta Testing Program

Virginia-based company Metallum3D announced that it has opened a beta test program for its stainless steel 316L 3D printing filament. This new program will support the company in its development of an affordable and accessible on-demand metal 3D platform for FFF 3D printers. The Filament Beta Test Program is open until July 31st, 2019, and a limited run of 150 0.5 kg spools of Metallum3D’s stainless steel 316L filament will be offered for a discounted price on a first come, first serve basis.

Nelson Zambrana, the CEO of Metallum3D, said, “Our 1.75mm Stainless Steel 316L filament material has a metal content of 91.7% by weight or 61.5% by volume, while maintaining enough flexibility for a minimum bend diameter of 95 mm (3.75 in.). The combination of high metal loading and filament flexibility was a tough material development challenge that took us over a year to solve.”

Zortrax Introducing Biocompatible Resins for Inkspire 3D Printer

Last year, Polish 3D printing solutions provider Zortrax developed the Inkspire, its first resin 3D printer. The Inkspire uses UV LCD technology to create small and precise models for the architecture, jewelry, and medical industries. With this in mind, the company is now introducing its specialized biocompatible resins that have been optimized for the Inkspire to make end use models in dentistry and prosthetics.

The new class IIa biocompatible Raydent Crown & Bridge resin is used for 3D printing temporary crowns and bridges, and is available in in an A2 shade (beige), with high abrasion resistance for permanent smooth surfaces. Class I biocompatible Raydent Surgical Guide resin for precise prosthetic surgical guides  is safe for transient contact with human tissue, and offers translucency and high dimensional accuracy. With these new materials, the Zortrax Inkspire can now be used by prosthetic laboratories for prototyping and final intraoral product fabrication.

CRP Technology Welcomes New Flame Retardant Material

Functional air conditioning piping made with LS technology and Windform FR1

In April, Italy-based CRP Technology introduced its Windform P-LINE material for for high-speed, production-grade 3D printing. Now, it’s officially welcoming another new material to its polyamide composite family – Windform FR1, the first carbon-filled flame-retardant laser sintering material to be rated V-0. The material is from the Windform TOP-LINE family, and passed the FAR 25.853 12-second vertical, the 15-second horizontal flammability tests, and the 45° Bunsen burner test. The lightweight, halogen-free material combines excellent stiffness with superior mechanical properties, and is a great choice for applications in aerospace, automotive, consumer goods, and electronics.

“Only a few days from the launch of a new range of Windform® materials, the P-LINE for HSS technology, I’m very proud to launch a new revolutionary composite material from the Windform® TOP-LINE family of materials for Laser Sintering technology,” said Franco Cevolini, VP and CTO at CRP Technology. “Our aim is to constantly produce technological breakthroughs. With Windform® FR1 we can steer you toward the proper solution for your projects.

“We will not stop here, we will continue our work on renewal and technological expansion in the field of Additive Manufacturing. Stay tuned!”

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TCMIP-SL A New High Resolution and High Speed 3D Printing Process

Each year in the US, about 40 million provisional teeth restorations take place, and the temporary bridges and crowns used in these procedures are necessary to protect a patient’s teeth until the permanent hardware is ready to be attached. These dental interventions aren’t cheap, but using 3D printing to manufacture the bridges and crowns can help to lower the cost.

Most permanent dental bridges and crowns are made with materials like ceramics, metals, or other strong composites, and take around two weeks to create, though this can also be reduced by using 3D printing. However, no matter which manufacturing method you use, dental patients need temporary restorations, typically made of plastic, while waiting for their permanent devices to be ready to protect their teeth and keep them from shifting around. These are either made with shells that fit the original teeth, or built from scratch with molds, and will need to be trimmed a few times in the patient’s mouth before they’re cemented. Even with the trimming, these temporary restorations can break due to daily use, and a new one must be fabricated, which just seems to me like a colossal waste of time, money, and effort.

Not to worry – digital design technologies, like 3D printing, are currently being employed to make this practice easier and less time-consuming. A group of researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) recently published a paper, titled “3D Printing Temporary Crown and Bridge by Temperature Controlled Mask Image Projection Stereolithography,” in the Procedia Manufacturing journal that discusses using an SLA 3D printing method to manufacture these temporary teeth restorations.

The schematic diagram of 3D printing a temporary crown with the TCMIP-SL process.

The abstract reads, “Traditionally, the fabrication of temporary teeth restorations must go through multiple processes such as moulding, curing and post finishing, which requires extensive expertise of dentists. In addition, the handmade temporary restorations are usually unable to precisely fit the patient’s teeth due to limited formability of material. To address the problem, a three-dimensional (3D) printing technology named temperature controlled mask image projection based stereolithography (TCMIP-SL) is presented for dental materials in this paper, with aim to build customized temporary crown and bridge quickly for its use in dental offices. We first studied the photo-polymerization performance of commercial materials that are commonly used in dental industry. Then we discussed the temperature effect on curing performance and rheology of dental composite material. Based on the studies, we further developed our TCMIP-SL process by integrating a material coating system with controllable heating, so that the coated thin film of dental composite material can be selectively cured using high resolution patterned light beam. Several test cases are performed to demonstrate the TCMIP-SL process can 3D print high viscous temporary crown material with fast speed and high resolution.”

The hardware design of the temporary crown and bridge 3D printer.

Mask image projection-based stereolithography (MIP-SL) processes use a set of horizontal planes to slice a 3D object, and each slice is converted into a 2D mask image. Then, a 2D patterned light beam, which is controlled by a digital micromirror device (DMD), is projected on the surface of a photocurable material, which is then cured layer by layer to build the 3D object – in this case, a temporary dental crown or bridge. This process is great for 3D printing macroscale model with hundreds of layers, and composite materials like multifunctional ceramic have been successfully fabricated with MIP-SL.

Unfortunately, the technology requires a special blade to achieve a thin, uniform coating of highly viscous materials, which can majorly affect the efficiency of the process.

Schematic diagram of continuous thin layer film recoating.

“Polymer based composite provisional dental materials, which provide exceptional strength, flexibility, and abrasion resistance, are widely used to fabricate temporary restorations in dental industry; however, the flowability of most dental composite materials is poor due to its high viscosity and may bring difficulty to 3D printing processes,” the researchers wrote.

Temperature can affect the viscosity of polymer-based composite materials, as the viscosity will decrease when the temperature rises.

“In the paper, we extend our previous work on the ceramic-based MIP-SL process to the temperature controlled MIP-SL,” the researchers explained in the paper.

“To optimize the process parameters, we studied the rheology of photo-curable polymer based composite material at different temperatures. Based on the result, we further investigated the curing performance of photo-curable polymer based composite materials under a large range of temperature in order to identify the appropriate temperature setting. Furthermore, a new rotary movement design was implemented in the TCMIP-SL process to continuously spread viscous composite material into uniform thin layer.”

The TCMIP-SL 3D printed temporary lateral molar shell.

The team’s TCMIP-SL technology is able to 3D print temporary dental bridges and crowns at a high resolution and speed.

“The TCMIP-SL process shows significant strength over the existing 3D provisional restoration fabrication methods that are used for dentists,” the researchers concluded. “We believe the developed TCMIP-SL process has prodigious potential and extensive foreground in variety of fields ranging from high viscous multi-functional ceramic fabrication to composite material fabrication.”

Co-authors of the paper are Xiangjia Li, Benshuai Xie, Jie Jin, Yang Chai, and Yong Chen.

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