El Cheapo Ortho: 3D Printer Aligner case for $190 plus materials

Well I am certainly excited for Blue Sky’s Ortho Software but in the mean time this is a cool case that for $190 Exceed Ortho will set up an aligner case or for $295 which includes brackets and wires, will do a vacuform bracket case.  Scanned in CEREC chair side and you can see where this is a problem with the bite later.

Like Invisalign Exceed will plan the case, place attachments where needed or power ridges. Then they send you the STL files to print. Since CEREC chair side only has the buccal bite on one side, it many times lifts up on the opposite.  Now I do all my guide scans or oath scans in CEREC ortho and let an inlab buddy convert.  We caught this is the Exceed software and I jerry rigged a bite in Blue Sky Plan by pouring up some models and mounting them manually then scanning this as a DICOM and converting this in Blue Sky.  Exceed was able to use this to fix the bite.

After approving the plan literally within hours I got the STL models and was printing away. On the base is the number of models.  I used supports so that these numbers would show up.  I bought an Erkoform 3D from Glidewell, but am returning it to get the recommended Ministar from great lakes ortho.  We did models with the 0 model which is the one for attachments.  For this tray you use a .5mm sheet in the vacuform. For trays they recommend .75 but I saw a company that did a study that 1mm was a better thickness.  1.5 for retainers.

Everything else is pretty standard invisalign stuff. They give you a diagram for IPR, you can see how clean the Formlabs printer gets the models. Just playing around with the sample material but the black  models show the 1.5mm material.  Really cool, again waiting on Blue Sky for the ortho stuff but until now you really can’t beat the ease and the price.