Complete metal printing solution from Xact Metal for dental laboratories

Digitalization in the dental industry is gaining momentum. Not just the use of 3D printers for that plastic models is growing, including 3D metal printing of crowns, bridges and frames. Xact Metal has developed a complete workflow for the dental industry around the XM200G metal printer from the American manufacturer.

The workflow for dental applications has been developed to be used in combination with the XM200G metal printer with a construction volume of 150 by 150 mm. In addition to the machine with the correct parameter settings, the workflow consists of a Materialize Pre-Print Dental Module; a special dental cobalt alloy and a special alloy for perfectly fitting frames. Xact Metal wants to offer a new benchmark for the dental industry in terms of both price and performance.

3D metal printer

The dental laboratories will have access to a complete set of hardware, software and materials, tailored to the requirements of the dental industry. The XM200G is a compact 3D metal printer, available with a 100, 200 or 400W fiber laser, fast and accurate galvano mirrors and high-quality optics. The machine can be supplied with either a single or double laser. The parameters developed for dental applications allow printing with a 50 µm laser spot in layers of 20 µm or faster with a layer height of 30 µm and a spot size of 100 µm. The construction volume of 150 by 150 mm is sufficiently large for efficient production per build job.

Software from Materialize

Preparing the build job is done in Materialize's Pre-Print Dental Module. This allows the dental lab to do all the necessary preparation, including nesting for maximum efficiency. Models of crowns, bridges and other dental products can be quickly prepared for 3D printing with the software. This Materialize software, specially developed for the dental sector, is fully integrated into Materialize Magics Print for Xact Metal. This is where, among other things, the support structure is generated and slicing takes place.

Two dental alloys

To produce dental applications with the XM200G, two powders from the German BEGO Medical are available, a trusted name in the dental industry. You can choose between Mediloy S-Co and Wironium RP. The first material is a cobalt-based dental alloy of type 5. The metal powder is suitable for printing dental restorations such as crowns and bridges (including metal ceramics), partial denture frames, implant prostheses and other orthodontic applications. Wironium is a special alloy for removable partial dentures. The non-porous microstructure provides ideal fatigue strength of the brackets and guarantees an above-average fit of the partial denture frames.

Dental laboratories that want to take the step towards 3D metal printing can also count on the support of the AM experts from Seido Systems.