When I was working in the field of dental equipment, one of the side projects I worked on was designing an accessory called an periodontics file gauge. Working on this project was suggested by one of the dentists who came to us for repairs. A file gauge is a device used by a dentist to measure the effective length of a file during root canal treatment. This device must be very fast and user-friendly. Because the dentist needs a lot of concentration during surgery.
As far as I have researched, these gauges have two models. One model is on the table and is placed in the dentist's work tray, and the other model is like a ring ruler.
But these ring models require more precision and are time consuming. So I decided to model and print a model of them. This is how it works. The dentist first determines the required length of the file by measuring the depth of the tooth root and making his own specialized decisions. Our gauge also has twenty holes and each hole has a certain depth. Each file has a rubber ring that acts as a stop. The dentist cuts the file to the same depth in the hole and moves the rubber stop. This procedure is very minute. The important thing was that I had to do the design according to the 3D printing strategies. As long as the design is compatible with 3D printing, the final piece will be cleaner and without the need for support. Finally, this is the plan I did
The feature of this gauge is that it does not need support. Another innovation is that it has a ruler that the dentist can use to determine the depth quickly and to some extent. I also designed a hole to fit the whole file inside. But it needs to be accurately graded, which is not possible with 3D printing. So I decided to laser engrave the grade on a steel sheet. So first I designed the laser engraving design as follows.
I ordered laser cutting and engraving from a company. And the result was good. This project is one of the examples of small scale production. The production of such a part by machining methods or making plastic injection molds is very expensive and requires very special marketing and sales.
But another challenge in this project needed to be solved, and that was the standards of materials used in medical equipment. For example, these parts must be autoclaved. Anyway, the produced samples worked very well.
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