Dental 3D Printers: How to Choose.

A dental 3D printer builds a model, a surgical guide, a splint, a tray, or a denture piece from a material the printer is cleared to use. It does not mill a ceramic crown. The mill guide is that machine. The printer is also not useful alone: the resin or filament, the wash, and the cure are part of the system.

How to choose a dental 3D printer

• Name the indication first. Models, surgical guides, night guards, denture bases, and castable patterns are different materials. A printer that is fast at models can be the wrong machine for a denture base.
• The material has to be validated on that printer. Dental resins are cleared as a pair: this resin, this printer, this wash and cure. A cheaper bottle that is not on the list is not a savings.
• How the layer is made. DLP and LCD cure a layer with light. Laser stereolithography draws it. PolyJet jets the material. Filament printers melt a thermoplastic. Those are different machines, not four sizes of one printer.
• Wash and cure. A resin print comes out wet. Someone has to wash it and cure it before it is a model or a guide. If that equipment is not on the quote, the printer is not the whole purchase.
• Office or lab. A countertop printer for models is a different buy from a lab machine that runs several materials a day. Match the printer to the number of cases, not to the most impressive sample on the booth.

How common dental printers differ

Treat the table as product differences, not a score. The indication and the validated material decide it.

SprintRay

The Pro95 is SprintRay’s DLP printer, sold as a dental-office system rather than a generic workshop printer. The buy is the resin menu: models, guides, and splints only count if that resin is validated on the Pro95 and you have the wash and cure. A faster printer with the wrong resin is not faster for the case you needed.

Formlabs

The Form 3 is Formlabs’ laser stereolithography printer. Dental offices use it because the resin catalog covers more than one indication and the wash and cure units are a known second step. Budget those units with the printer. A Form 3 does not mill ceramic, and it does not become a filament denture printer.

VOCO SolFlex

SolFlex is VOCO’s DLP printer. It belongs on a quote when the office wants the printer next to VOCO’s materials and is willing to stay inside that validation list. Ask which indications the model you are shown is cleared to print. A demo of a model is not a clearance for a denture or a guide.

Stratasys

The Objet260 is a PolyJet machine. It can put more than one material in a single build, which is why labs look at it for models that need a different feel in one print. It is not the countertop printer for a practice that wants surgical guides a few times a week. Space, material, and service are lab-scale.

Arfona

The R.Pod prints thermoplastic filament, aimed at denture bases and partial frameworks rather than at a vat of resin. That is a different process: no wash-and-cure cycle, and no substitution for a DLP printer when the case is a surgical guide. Buy it for the denture work. Keep a resin printer if you also need guides and models in resin.

Related guides

• CAD/CAM and lab
• Dental mills
• Intraoral scanners

Printer questions

Can a 3D printer make a zirconia crown?

Not this class of machine. Zirconia is milled and sintered. A resin printer makes the model, the guide, the splint, or a pattern. The mill cuts the ceramic.

Is the resin included?

Assume it is not, and assume the wash and cure are not, until the quote lists them. The resin has to be the one validated for that printer and that indication.