Stratasys Announces Two New Dental Wax Based 3D Printers, CrownWorx and FrameWorx

While the consumer and manufacturing based 3D printing markets expand rapidly, Stratasys is not only increasing the scale of their business, but also the scope.  They are doing this by branching out and creating new printers for niche markets. One of these niche markets happens to be the dental industry. Every year millions of people go in for dental procedures which require uncomfortable plaster molds of one’s mouth. Stratasys recently has introduced a number of wax based 3D printers, capable of eliminating the need for plaster casting. Instead, these printers allow a dentist or orthodontist to scan a patients mouth, create a 3D model via software, and print out a wax-up of that patient’s mouth.

Yesterday Stratasys introduced two 3D printers, which use a wax deposition modeling (WDM) technology to print out extremely accurate wax-ups, layer by layer, via a jetting system. The machines, which Stratasys claims are the highest precision wax printers on the market today, are called CrownWorx and FrameWorx.

Stratasys CrownWorx
This 3D printer is manufactured to produce wax-ups of crowns, bridges, and copings. It jets out tiny droplets of Stratasys’ Truecast material to create complex, precise, wax-ups. The large build plate can easily produce up to 40 restorations per day, and run at night, or on weekends, unattended. The resolution that can be achieved for each wax-up is very high at 5,000 x 5,000 x 8,000 dpi.

Stratasys FrameWorx
This 3D printer is produced for one main purpose, and that is to create partial denture wax-ups. Like the Crownworx, this printer uses Stratasys’ Truecast material, but also uses a second TrueSupport material which will offer support during the 3D printing process of delicate wax-ups, like that of partial dentures. The resolution is the same as that of the CrownWorx, and it too can run unattended.

“These wax 3D printers and new materials are an ideal fit for small labs interested in upgrading dental casting technology,” says Stratasys Director of Global Dental, Avi Cohen. “We believe dental labs adopting these 3D printers will benefit from the automated and digitized workflows, enabling them to cut costs while producing more restorations. These systems complement our broad system portfolio, which includes large dental 3D printers.”

The cost of each new printer has not yet been announced. However the company aims to make them affordable for even the smallest of dental labs. More details on these two new 3D printers can be found at the CrownWorx, and FrameWorx forum thread at 3DPB.com. Check out the video release below provided by Stratasys detailing their WDM based printers.