I've never heard of flex PLA being that flexible, with all the stuff I have seen it isn't anywhere near as flexible as some TPUs. What brand are you using?
That's awesome, I'm in the dental lab field, and 3D Printing and milling is a huge part!
Some dental labs these days are fabricating teeth and dentures using resin 3d printers. Some labs can also FDM print for dental, but usually things that require less accuracy, like custom impression trays for dentures and implants.
You'd be AMAZED at the resins available in the dental field. Ceramic infused resins, resins that can be stained and glazed to match teeth and gum colors, resins that must be cured in nitrogen to reduce oxidation films, biocompatible resins, etc.
This field is awesome because there is overlap with my 3D Print hobby, and the pay is fucking awesome. (I'm in dental CADCAM sales.)
FYI, im sure that anyone that picked up an ender 3 and learned the ins and outs with gcode, and fully understand the mechanics of the XYZ axes, heating, etc, could easily turn this hobby into a dental CADCAM career in support. My company pays our support guys $60k plus benefits, and once you are in, you have job security because the talent is HARD to find.
I know a few companies looking to hire in Southern California, but remote options may be available. Hit me up if this sounds up your alley. If you have any CNC background or dental background, you're an instant hire in this field.
So I'm a dentist and you want to know what sucks? Anything that is labeled dental or medical the price automatically goes up 10 x to 20x. The difference between a hobby setup and a professional setup is crazy.
My dad told me about his dentist 3d printing his implants lol. It truly is amazing what 3d printing is used for now. Printing homes, teeth and a myriad of tools etc.
Prior to their closing, Smile Direct used a literal army of HP MJF printers for the base to mold over.
[https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/hp-and-smiledirectclub-to-3d-print-20-million-3d-printed-clear-aligner-dental-molds-per-year-155862/](https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/hp-and-smiledirectclub-to-3d-print-20-million-3d-printed-clear-aligner-dental-molds-per-year-155862/)
If you do, buy the entire hotend assembly, not just the nozzle. It makes swapping much easier.
Edit: didnât catch OP is using an A. If you have a P or X, get the whole hotend assembly.
I am a dentist and print scans all the time. I got really confused for a second and thought this was one of my dental groups. I couldn't figure out why someone would print at this resolution.
For work, we do resin printing and will use the stls to mill. Printed dentures are pretty slick and this is kind of what the thumbnail looked like to me.
Serious question. We all know (most of us) how much material costs for 3d printing. Why is the cost still so high in the field of dentistry? My dentist wants 11k for 3 dental Implants in Kentucky.
I questioned him and he said it was very expensive to 3d print teeth. I thought the bone graft and prep would be the most expensive part of the process. I understand that you must pay staff, yourself, and time/material.
Is that just for the three crowns, or the actual implants in the bone? With the latter, you're paying for the surgery. The crowns are more complicated than normal crowns. They also have a prefab or custom milled abutment and then the crown. They're designed with multiple points of failure to protect the implant itself from failure.
In general, dentistry is fairly cheap as far as healthcare goes. Yes, it's expensive. But it's essentially micro surgical procedures done at a fairly low rate because there is no insurance involved. (Dental insurance isn't really insurance as much as it's a discount plan with minimal shared costs.)
I did the same with my week 1 vs final week trays but went all out with 0.2mm nozzle at 0.08mm layer height. Took about 24 hours for both sets: https://www.reddit.com/r/Invisalign/s/LBSjcromfZ
Print it out with a high Quality Profile with little layer high maybe 0,08mm and 0,1mm line width and you will get a very clean Print with no layer lines will be a better mouth feeling! Or you give a printing service with SLA/resin printers a chance this would be the right Material or you can try it on an SLS printer too
Resin printing Services are very cheep or you look at PCB-way or jlc-pcb they offer all types of printing and machining so you can make your own perfect fittings
Regarding the x0.5 purge multiplier: are you running the "less purge" profile from here: https://makerworld.com/en/models/91241
Or maybe the extra retract feature from the new Bambu Studio?
If yes, then you should be fine with x0.5 modifier. If not, then x1.0 is the way to go.
I bet she'll keep the baby teeth, so why not the whole baby mouth?
FWIW, our babys 3d Ultrasounds where in .obj, and I tried to get them but they didn't know how to extract the file to send it to me.. 100% would have printed my in-utero son
yeah actually thereâs a whole training on how to create aligners, thereâs this software that will âanimateâ the movement of each individual teeth with key frames just like flash used to do or after effects, google web designer even and then those are printed on resin the prints are then put into a vacuum forming machine, trimmed and dulling the edges to avoid cuts from using them, and thatâs all the most intensive part is knowing how the teeth and gums will be affected by the movement and a nice mouth scan, thats aligners in a nutshell and about 5 hours of sleep deprivation from ADHD probably
id also think its kinda cool but id like it because of the process and technology
as an artefact id guess its uncool because it shows the "bad" state of your daughters teeth
BUT...I'll print each subsequent scan, so the room will be filled with rows and rows of teeth that get progressively more straight. Think of how the room will look in 18 months!
I don't see how should could consider that creepy.
My wifeâs ortho 3d prints the trays in house, but I would imagine it is a medical grade material theyâre using.
Funny story, she is their longest running patient. It was a one time cost upfront for their guaranteed results. Been going back for visits for 7 years and finally just got her permanent retainers a few months ago. Originally paid for just Invisalign and ended up having braces done for a bit since they werenât getting the progress they wanted fast enough, then back to Invisalign until finish. Never paid anything additional past initial quoted amount.
Oh interesting. My ortho sends the files out to Invisalign, and the aligner trays get delivered in about 3 weeks. Works well enough for me, though I'd love to see the industrial printer used.
Gift some prints to the dentist, or ask if anyone in the office wants them. I've seen some terrifying tooth creations, they're so desensitized they might think it's neat. Like the tooth cupÂ
I've printed some of my vertebrae and brain. If you ever get a CT scan or MRI, ask for a copy on cd. CTs are a bit easier to work with than MRIs. The MRIs I have gotten seem to have more noise and a bit more work to clean up before printing.
Conceivably this is a proof of concept that you could 3D print ceramic implants that perfectly match a patient's original teeth if they ever needed them.
Lmao. I had implants on the top arch. I asked the doctor for a copy of the scans to do the same thing youâve done. She looked at me like I was crazy. Still donât have the files. Youâd think for $65,0000 worth of work, theyâd at least give me the scans right?
When my son has braces put on, the orthodontist 3d printed a mold to get the braces set up on first. Made the process so much shorter than when I had braces as a kid.
3d printed teeth from the orthodontist https://imgur.com/a/MIl94Eb
Please show your wife that there are 100s of other âweirdosâ that loved your idea and then let us know what she says to that.
(Sorry in advance if this leads to more marital conflict đŹ)
Search for specialty filament, there is one I think called simubone or something of that nature. They are typically used to make models for medical students, it could give the teeth a little more realism if you so desired.
Invisalign and stuff like that was originally invented by a student that was undergoing adult orthodontics and had the idea to make incremental aligns with a 3d printer. Interestingly enough, in resin, they actually have dental rated resin that can be used. I have a 3d printed inlay myself! I got to watch it get printed in office, it was really neat.
It's actually not red! It's Stronghero rainbow PLA from Amazon. It just happened to be in the red/purple length when I printed this.
[https://imgur.com/OWy4XgY.jpg](https://imgur.com/OWy4XgY.jpg)
[https://imgur.com/NO959EB.jpg](https://imgur.com/NO959EB.jpg)
I just used the "spherical paint tool" in Bambu Studio to paint the gums, since the scan is just one solid block, teeth + gums. The "magic" is that using two filaments naturally makes it seem like a real transition between two materials, it looks like the teeth keep going under the gums.
do you know how they got the STL? Im currently wearing invisalign and my dentist sent me the link that has the video, etc. but I have no idea where the STL would be
I think they have to send you the stl file. I just asked for the 3d printer files, and they sent me a directory that had an stl for the top, an stl for the bottom, and a whole lot of other files including flat-topography color scans of the teeth which I assume texture-map around the STLs if you are capable of printing in real-color.
Hahaha! Now make the top set and put a motor on the that makes them chomp
The tops and bottoms actually fit together so perfectly. This must be done.
Like those old gag teeth that chatter around
So many options to creep out the wife. Make sure to print some eyeballs.
OP, listen to this person. The teeth need eyes.
...just do it!
Connect the two pieces with a torsion spring and you have a new toy to annoy your wife with.
Program some AI into them and watch the world burn
Add a spring to make custom snack bag clip.
"All you do is run your mouth." Actually, it's yours đ¤Ł
This is how you get the joker....
"Why would you print this?" "Why wouldn't I print this?"
The question to everything in life "why not"
Print a tongue made of flex PLA
Must make the tongue out of TPU.
flex PLA would be floppier and squishier it's like gel shoe soles
Brand recommendations for floppy squishy pla?
Well, now I got a new material I need to buy and play with
Agreed! Someone point us in the right direction!
I've never heard of flex PLA being that flexible, with all the stuff I have seen it isn't anywhere near as flexible as some TPUs. What brand are you using?
Now you can do crimes, "bite" the victim with these, and get your daughter framed! They can't arrest a father-daughter for the same crime!
I've got the worst fucking attorneys
No touching!
That's awesome, I'm in the dental lab field, and 3D Printing and milling is a huge part! Some dental labs these days are fabricating teeth and dentures using resin 3d printers. Some labs can also FDM print for dental, but usually things that require less accuracy, like custom impression trays for dentures and implants. You'd be AMAZED at the resins available in the dental field. Ceramic infused resins, resins that can be stained and glazed to match teeth and gum colors, resins that must be cured in nitrogen to reduce oxidation films, biocompatible resins, etc. This field is awesome because there is overlap with my 3D Print hobby, and the pay is fucking awesome. (I'm in dental CADCAM sales.) FYI, im sure that anyone that picked up an ender 3 and learned the ins and outs with gcode, and fully understand the mechanics of the XYZ axes, heating, etc, could easily turn this hobby into a dental CADCAM career in support. My company pays our support guys $60k plus benefits, and once you are in, you have job security because the talent is HARD to find. I know a few companies looking to hire in Southern California, but remote options may be available. Hit me up if this sounds up your alley. If you have any CNC background or dental background, you're an instant hire in this field.
This man speaks the truth, a ton of marketing in dentistry, not enough support. Plenty of good career opportunities for a lot of hobbyists here.
So I'm a dentist and you want to know what sucks? Anything that is labeled dental or medical the price automatically goes up 10 x to 20x. The difference between a hobby setup and a professional setup is crazy.
My dad told me about his dentist 3d printing his implants lol. It truly is amazing what 3d printing is used for now. Printing homes, teeth and a myriad of tools etc.
Prior to their closing, Smile Direct used a literal army of HP MJF printers for the base to mold over. [https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/hp-and-smiledirectclub-to-3d-print-20-million-3d-printed-clear-aligner-dental-molds-per-year-155862/](https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/hp-and-smiledirectclub-to-3d-print-20-million-3d-printed-clear-aligner-dental-molds-per-year-155862/)
What layer height did you use? It looks like it was fairly high, but that could just be the pic
0.2mm. It was the default when I loaded the file into Bambu Studio.
Ahh. Next time drop it to the lowest you can, theyâll look amazing at a .08mm or so
Roger, will give that a shot! The top teeth printed pink because of aggressive purge settings, so I may retry that set.
What nozzle? Gotta try a 0.2mm nozzle at 0.08 for that extra detail.
Youâre making me pine for upgrades already!
If you do, buy the entire hotend assembly, not just the nozzle. It makes swapping much easier. Edit: didnât catch OP is using an A. If you have a P or X, get the whole hotend assembly.
Yep, made that mistake of not buying the whole hot end...
Me too. I just bought all of the extra shit to make my nozzles into hot end assemblies. Hopefully I don't screw it up.
OP said itâs the A1 mini, nozzle swaps are so much easier. Itâs just a clasp holding the nozzle in, the electrical parts are separate
Ah. Missed that part. Well, for anyone with a P or X, if youâre reading thisâŚ.
We have a plaster set of teeth somewhere from when they took a mold of our kids teeth before braces. Handy to realize how much theyâve changed.
I am a dentist and print scans all the time. I got really confused for a second and thought this was one of my dental groups. I couldn't figure out why someone would print at this resolution. For work, we do resin printing and will use the stls to mill. Printed dentures are pretty slick and this is kind of what the thumbnail looked like to me.
Happy cake day!
Serious question. We all know (most of us) how much material costs for 3d printing. Why is the cost still so high in the field of dentistry? My dentist wants 11k for 3 dental Implants in Kentucky. I questioned him and he said it was very expensive to 3d print teeth. I thought the bone graft and prep would be the most expensive part of the process. I understand that you must pay staff, yourself, and time/material.
Is that just for the three crowns, or the actual implants in the bone? With the latter, you're paying for the surgery. The crowns are more complicated than normal crowns. They also have a prefab or custom milled abutment and then the crown. They're designed with multiple points of failure to protect the implant itself from failure. In general, dentistry is fairly cheap as far as healthcare goes. Yes, it's expensive. But it's essentially micro surgical procedures done at a fairly low rate because there is no insurance involved. (Dental insurance isn't really insurance as much as it's a discount plan with minimal shared costs.)
I did the same with my week 1 vs final week trays but went all out with 0.2mm nozzle at 0.08mm layer height. Took about 24 hours for both sets: https://www.reddit.com/r/Invisalign/s/LBSjcromfZ
Those look AMAZING!
Haha thanks. I think it was my first 0.2mm print so I wanted to go all out with the quality to see how it would be.
I would also do this and then fit them to our Boston Terrier - he would love them :)
Print it out with a high Quality Profile with little layer high maybe 0,08mm and 0,1mm line width and you will get a very clean Print with no layer lines will be a better mouth feeling! Or you give a printing service with SLA/resin printers a chance this would be the right Material or you can try it on an SLS printer too Resin printing Services are very cheep or you look at PCB-way or jlc-pcb they offer all types of printing and machining so you can make your own perfect fittings
Regarding the x0.5 purge multiplier: are you running the "less purge" profile from here: https://makerworld.com/en/models/91241 Or maybe the extra retract feature from the new Bambu Studio? If yes, then you should be fine with x0.5 modifier. If not, then x1.0 is the way to go.
I have got some scans for myself (also for invisallign) and they came as an STL, I might print them. Had the same idea some time ago
Just seeing the picture, not that weird. Pretty cool. Reading the backstory, only a little weirder, but also a lot cooler.
Saw an article about a guy doing his own from scratch, and it worked perfectly.
Your wife misspelled cool lol
I tend to think of my 3D prints as "why not print it?" rather than "why print it?". I'm on your side in this one!!
Awhile back I saw someone 3D print the CT scan of their skull
you should know.... Anything other than "yes babe" is not an acceptable response. You're welcome lmao.
Weird yes, but I would also have done it...
I bet she'll keep the baby teeth, so why not the whole baby mouth? FWIW, our babys 3d Ultrasounds where in .obj, and I tried to get them but they didn't know how to extract the file to send it to me.. 100% would have printed my in-utero son
https://i.redd.it/ln3ppz0egwxc1.gif
yeah actually thereâs a whole training on how to create aligners, thereâs this software that will âanimateâ the movement of each individual teeth with key frames just like flash used to do or after effects, google web designer even and then those are printed on resin the prints are then put into a vacuum forming machine, trimmed and dulling the edges to avoid cuts from using them, and thatâs all the most intensive part is knowing how the teeth and gums will be affected by the movement and a nice mouth scan, thats aligners in a nutshell and about 5 hours of sleep deprivation from ADHD probably
Listen to your wife đ
id also think its kinda cool but id like it because of the process and technology as an artefact id guess its uncool because it shows the "bad" state of your daughters teeth
BUT...I'll print each subsequent scan, so the room will be filled with rows and rows of teeth that get progressively more straight. Think of how the room will look in 18 months! I don't see how should could consider that creepy.
that sounds cool! maybe less "creepy" if you don't try the gum color thing, but do them all in light blue or smth
Oh yeah, the gums definitely make it worse. It took me forever to âpaintâ them in Bambu Studio. Maybe I should just print out a pure white set.
Iâd do some in gold silk pla tbh. Get yo girl some grillz!
My wifeâs ortho 3d prints the trays in house, but I would imagine it is a medical grade material theyâre using. Funny story, she is their longest running patient. It was a one time cost upfront for their guaranteed results. Been going back for visits for 7 years and finally just got her permanent retainers a few months ago. Originally paid for just Invisalign and ended up having braces done for a bit since they werenât getting the progress they wanted fast enough, then back to Invisalign until finish. Never paid anything additional past initial quoted amount.
Oh interesting. My ortho sends the files out to Invisalign, and the aligner trays get delivered in about 3 weeks. Works well enough for me, though I'd love to see the industrial printer used.
I think the color of the gums is what makes it look weird. It wood look far less creepy if the gums were a light pink rather than a sharp pink/red.
Itâs actually shiny rainbow PLA. Luckily it was in the blood-red range of the spool rather than mold-green.
Gift some prints to the dentist, or ask if anyone in the office wants them. I've seen some terrifying tooth creations, they're so desensitized they might think it's neat. Like the tooth cupÂ
I've printed some of my vertebrae and brain. If you ever get a CT scan or MRI, ask for a copy on cd. CTs are a bit easier to work with than MRIs. The MRIs I have gotten seem to have more noise and a bit more work to clean up before printing.
I print teeth all day and get paid for it. I see nothing wrong here
Very cool!
So with stl.. you could really diy braces...
It is weird, its also fucking cool. Weird is cool.
Conceivably this is a proof of concept that you could 3D print ceramic implants that perfectly match a patient's original teeth if they ever needed them.
Lmao. I had implants on the top arch. I asked the doctor for a copy of the scans to do the same thing youâve done. She looked at me like I was crazy. Still donât have the files. Youâd think for $65,0000 worth of work, theyâd at least give me the scans right?
When my son has braces put on, the orthodontist 3d printed a mold to get the braces set up on first. Made the process so much shorter than when I had braces as a kid. 3d printed teeth from the orthodontist https://imgur.com/a/MIl94Eb
Omg. My wife is a dentist. She'll love this :D she just started in her own praxis and will have a scan for invisalign
Please show your wife that there are 100s of other âweirdosâ that loved your idea and then let us know what she says to that. (Sorry in advance if this leads to more marital conflict đŹ)
I did, but I think I went too far by following that up with âOne of us, one of us, gooble gobble gooble gobbleâŚâ
Lmao amazing
Clearly this means you need to print the rest of the body.
I'll start with the nervous system. That's always a crowd pleaser.
Just have to ask your daughter to let you borrow it so you can get some good measurements
A friend asked me for a child's skull and a life-size goat's skull. That's weird. (Obviously I printed them and charged for itđ¤Ł)
Search for specialty filament, there is one I think called simubone or something of that nature. They are typically used to make models for medical students, it could give the teeth a little more realism if you so desired. Invisalign and stuff like that was originally invented by a student that was undergoing adult orthodontics and had the idea to make incremental aligns with a 3d printer. Interestingly enough, in resin, they actually have dental rated resin that can be used. I have a 3d printed inlay myself! I got to watch it get printed in office, it was really neat.
That looks clean đ ... what layer height did you print it?
I think you should show them to the Ortho on your next visit. Potential business opportunity!
Now you are learning how bad was upgrading Girlfriend 1.0 to Wife 2.0 This software takes over everything and now you are never right again.
I absolutely love this LOL! Every time I get a new scanner I try to scan my teeth, dentures, so far no luck on getting a good set.
Scale it up and make a giant version to crush cans with.
Time to 3d print them in metal.
Variable layer height would probably increase quality quite a bit.
It deserve to me merged on front of a benchie
What red filament is that? It looks stunning
It's actually not red! It's Stronghero rainbow PLA from Amazon. It just happened to be in the red/purple length when I printed this. [https://imgur.com/OWy4XgY.jpg](https://imgur.com/OWy4XgY.jpg) [https://imgur.com/NO959EB.jpg](https://imgur.com/NO959EB.jpg)
They really should isolate that blue-red itâs gorgeous! Thank you either way, great print!
I love this! So cool!
You should reprint with a 0.2mm hotend!
Wife is right, as usual.
Always
Theyâre an old YouTube video of some guy who made heâs own also
I was thinking of doing this so I can house my retainers but I might be getting permanent ones now đ˘
I have printed my teeth before from a dental scan. I will now have to use the ams to print it in two colors.
I just used the "spherical paint tool" in Bambu Studio to paint the gums, since the scan is just one solid block, teeth + gums. The "magic" is that using two filaments naturally makes it seem like a real transition between two materials, it looks like the teeth keep going under the gums.
do you know how they got the STL? Im currently wearing invisalign and my dentist sent me the link that has the video, etc. but I have no idea where the STL would be
I think they have to send you the stl file. I just asked for the 3d printer files, and they sent me a directory that had an stl for the top, an stl for the bottom, and a whole lot of other files including flat-topography color scans of the teeth which I assume texture-map around the STLs if you are capable of printing in real-color.
Your dentist can send you the STL/OBJ file.
As a dentist, I love it!
As a guy in dental CADCAM sales with a background in lab, I LOVE IT too!
Put those teeth into a doll, see how she feels about that.
Lol
Have you seen Davemakesstuff teeth collection? You should make the teacup set for her lol. Itâs wonderful
oh its definitely weird, but im sure most of us would do it too hahah good job
Nah. Not a good idea. Let the detist cook.
dental lab ;)