Choosing the right dental resin is vital for the success of 3D-printed dental restorations. Aidite and Formlabs offer distinct resin products, each with specific characteristics.
This article compares Aidite and Formlabs dental resins, assessing factors like curing time, surface finish, and cost-effectiveness to help dental professionals determine the best option for their practice.
What are dental resins?
The specific dental resins are the most unique type of material. They can make prosthetics, restorations, and other detailed models as accurate copies of the real thing. Their designs resemble and are functionally close to their natural counterpart-tooth structure in appearance, giving a lot of aesthetic and functional durability value. With versatility being one of its main properties, it has found importance in numerous procedures, such as crowds, bridges, implants, orthodontic models, and dental surgical guides.
Key Characteristics of Quality Dental Resins
Quality dental resins encompass a wide range of characteristics that have made them very suitable for professional dental applications, including:
- Resistance to wear: The dental resin is designed to withstand wear and tear over time, ensuring the results last a long time.
- Biocompatibility: The resins used in dental applications must be biocompatible, meaning they are safe for direct contact with a patient’s oral tissues and will not cause an adverse reaction.
- Color Stability: Natural color retention will ensure the final product appears aesthetically pleasing and does not discolor over time.
- Ease of Use: The resin must be appropriately integrated with 3D printers and other dental devices to make flows in the dental office or lab smooth and dependable.
Aidite Dental Resins Overview
The Aidite brand manufactures the finest resins for dental use, optimizing them for large-scale applications. Flexible, precise, and easy to use, the resins are ideal for restorative and modeling purposes.
Main Products:
Aidite Dental Gingiva Resin:
This soft tissue replica resin is formulated with high flexibility and excellent color stability, making it ideal for modeling gingiva. It is particularly beneficial in prosthodontic and implantology treatments, where natural gum tissue simulation is essential. Key features include good elasticity, tear resistance, and no irritating odor. The resin is available in various colors, including gum color, pink, skin color, light purple, and bright red, with a shelf life of 2 years.
Aidite Dental Model Resin (Yellow):
This resin is engineered to produce high-precision dental models. Its high hardness allows the 3D-printed model to resist external scratches, and the high glass transition (Tg) temperature ensures no deformation after polymerization. These properties make it suitable for fabricating crowns, bridges, and other dental restorations.
Aidite Dental Model Resin for Thermoforming:
Known as Model T or Thermoforming Dental Resin, this resin is designed for model printing with thermoforming technology. The printed model boasts ultra-high hardness and high-temperature resistance, making it suitable for restorative and orthodontic models. It is available in white color and has a shelf life of 3 years.
Special Features:
- Optimized for Dental Applications: Aidite’s resins are precisely built for dental purposes and can deliver optimal performance for modeling and restorative applications.
- Biocompatibility: Aidite resins have an acceptable biocompatibility standard involving direct contact, and there is no possible risk to the patient’s oral tissue.
- Extensive Color Range: Aidite allows the dental practitioner to achieve a significant color range during the selection process for natural-colored teeth, resulting in perfect results.
Formlabs Dental Resins Overview
This company’s wide range of resin formulations specifically targets specific applications, making its products suitable for any modern dental practice. They perform well in Formlabs’ 3D printer, producing clear, reliable dental models.
Key product lines
Formlabs Dental Model Resin is a precise resin that is more accurate in the dental model. It produces smooth surfaces and small shrinkage, ensuring the final product perfectly fits the wearer’s oral cavity.
Formlabs Surgical Guide Resin: This resin has been designed specifically for surgical guides. Dentists use it to help them plan and execute procedures with maximum accuracy. It provides rigidity and excellent clarity, making placing and aligning implants easy.
Special Features
Versatile Range: Formlabs provides a range of dental resins that can serve a dental practitioner’s prosthodontics, implantology, and surgical planning needs. This broad variety enables the selection of the best resin for any application.
Ecosystem Integration: Formlabs Resins are designed to operate with Formlabs 3D printers, ensuring complete workflow integration. The company also provides education and support within the ecosystem, ensuring that practice potential is fully realized with Formlabs products.
Main Differences Between Aidite and Formlabs Dental Resins
Aidite and Formlabs provide the best dental resins in the market. However, some differences may influence your choice.
Product Range:
Aidite uses its Gingiva Resin to offer a more specialized selection of resins, particularly in soft tissue modeling. This is a go-to material for gum simulation, and it looks realistic.
Formlabs offers many more resins and solutions for surgical guides and crowns, making it more versatile for various dental procedures.
Resin Composition and Biocompatibility:
Both Aidite and Formlabs offer biocompatible resins that are safe for patients. However, Aidite’s gingiva resins’ flexibility gives it an edge for models that are soft tissue reproductions and need a natural look.
Ease of Use and Integration:
The aidite resins integrate relatively easily with several 3D printers and other dental equipment for use with machines.
Formlabs resins integrate very well with Formlabs 3D printers, though this does mean that they don’t integrate nearly as well as any other type of brand.
Color Stability:
Both brands ensure that the resins will not lose their color stability. Thus, your models will look the same even after a long time. In this regard, Aidite’s Model Resin provides good color matching for natural results.
Which Resin Should You Choose?
The decision between Aidite and Formlabs depends on what your practice needs:
Aidite’s gingiva resin is the best option for elastic and stable-colored soft tissue models. It is also apt for practices that require highly precise prosthetics and restorations.
If you require a wider range of dental solutions that can be easily integrated into a Formlabs 3D printing system, Formlabs has a versatile suite of resins for crowns, bridges, surgical guides, and more.
FAQs
What makes Aidite dental resins unique?
Aidite resins have multiple compatibility capabilities, provide higher precision, and are competitively priced. It is thus multi-functional and cost-effective.
Is Formlabs worth the money, as it is the most costly?
Yes, if you print with Formlabs and need specialty resins for surgical or orthodontic applications, the premium price reflects those materials’ quality and highly specialized nature.
Which resin is better for soft tissue simulation?
Aidite Dental Gingiva Resin is the most flexible and has great color stability. Therefore, it’s perfect for very realistic soft tissue simulations.
Do Aidite resins print well in Formlabs printers?
While Aidite resins are generally compatible with most printers, this option must ensure compatibility with Formlabs printers.
What company offers better value for general dental modeling?
Aidite offers excellent value for general dental modeling: accurate and affordable without sacrifice.
Conclusion
Both Aidite and Formlabs have excellent dental resins but for different purposes. Aidite stands out on versatility, compatibility, and affordability: it is the favorite of dental professionals with flexible, low-cost needs. Formlabs does better in application-specific uses, and it does so seamlessly when integrated into their proprietary ecosystem – it’s better suited for heavy users of Formlabs.
Aidite offers better value and wider compatibility for most general dental applications, whereas Formlabs is preferred by those more interested in specialized workflows within its ecosystem.