3D printing technology has come a long way and you can find this technology being used in a number of different market spaces. It's printing food, body parts, entire houses, and a lot more.
Through the years the technology has become a lot cheaper and you can now buy yourself a 3D printer for a few hundred dollars, depending on the quality that you want; it can go up to several thousand for a printer as well.
If you happen to have a quality 3D printer, or even access to one, you might be able to use it to make yourself a pair of braces, like one recent undergraduate decided to do.
When it comes to a regular dentist visit, it can sometimes easily cost several hundred dollars, or even thousands depending on the services required, for those who don't have the proper insurance to cover it.
And when you have to pay cash, a great deal of people don't have the adequate savings ready in order to be able to deal with that sort of unexpected cost. So many folks will just opt to go without getting the procedure done.
One undergraduate at New Jersey Institute of Technology recently decided that he didn't want to spend thousands of dollars on braces for himself. So he turned to his 3D printer in order to help him find a solution.
Amos Dudley says that he spent about $60 on the materials and he was successful in being able to print his own braces using a 3D printer that he had access to at his university.
The process of creating the braces wasn't easy and he had to do a lot of research of orthodontic procedures he says, he also had to create a mold of his teeth using alginate powder; he eventually was able to create a variety of models using inexpensive plastic.
He originally got the idea for it when he came across a photo of a name brand clear-alignment treatment that was basically a clear pair of braces meant to help straighten and align the teeth.
After seeing the model of it, he thought that it looked like something a 3D printer could possibly create. So he went to work.
He says that they really worked for him and he is pleased with the results. He also saved himself thousands of dollars by opting to see if he could create his own using a 3D printer. For more details on the exact process of how he went about creating his braces, he's detailed the steps on his blog (link below).
Pics:
Amos Dudley
Wikipedia
Sources:
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-3d-print-plastic-braces-for-60-2017-5/#and-after-about-four-months-11
http://amosdudley.com/weblog/Ortho
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