How The Other Half Mills: Trios and VHF chairside CADCAM system

So I think you all know that I am a big CEREC fan, but I was given the opportunity from Patterson to test out the new complete VHF Z4/Trios Chairside system, and well, color me impressed!  Those of us who like to embrace tech outside our comfort zone have heard the judgmental tone of opinionated CADCAM users, “Oh, I don’t want to have to export a file, then fight with a mill.” Or “You will be caught between Brand X scanner support vs Brand Y mill support.” Or even “Closed is good, you can’t screw it up.”  Well, read on and I can safely tell you that this system works with the easy of any chairside system you have used.  You never leave Trios Chairside Design Studio, from scanning to design to the mill preview, it is very “closed”, although you have the option of milling any STL you want, even titanium abutments!  This patient had biting pain on #13, large mesial distal crack, so we opted for a full contour Emax crown. Designed in the Trios Chairside Design Studio, with all the functions and tools you are used to.  I particularly liked the “contacts” feature, that allows you to broaden a contact and shave it back without messing with the crown contour.

From the mill preview, just like other systems, you can choose the sprue location.  Although it looks pretty thick here, VHF cuts the sprue down for you.  If you are not familiar with VHF, they are a German company that has been in the lab business forever.  The Z4 is a 4 axis wet mill and has some pretty cool features.  You can see in the upper left a “bur block”.  One nice feature about the VHF is that is automatically switches out burs, including some really tiny ones and carbides for milling titanium abutments, which I will show later.  Also the block mandrel is universal, so you don’t have to buy different blocks for different systems.  This fit was just what you expect, no adjusting on contacts or occlusion. Another cool feature is the water, you do not need oil and not even distilled water, just drinking water.

VHF has a similar touch process to other CADCAM systems and this was milled in 13 minutes on high detail mode.  A couple other cool options:  Price and Service.  A complete system with Design Studio, a Trios 3 pod, laptop and mill retails for only $81,000.  With that, and no service club fee, you get the full backing of Patterson’s on site support and the PTC.  More cases to follow, but so far I am really impressed!!