The 3D Printing Guide Dentists Actually Need
I recently joined Dr. Luken de Arbeloa on the DSD Quarterback Dentist podcast to talk about 3D printing. And I mean really talk about it.
Not the marketing version. Not the sales rep version. The version where you actually understand what to buy, what to print with it, and what happens if you get the post-processing wrong.
Luken runs a digital lab in Spain that ships devices worldwide, and I operate a 10-printer setup across our practice and lab in Wellington, New Zealand. Between us, we've made pretty much every mistake you can make with a 3D printer. So here's what we know.
The Three Questions to Ask Before You Buy Anything
Here's the thing most dentists get wrong. They walk into a trade show, see a printer, and think about the printer. That's backwards.
Before you think about hardware, ask yourself these three questions.
One: What do you want to print?
This is the most important question. Not all printers give you access to all materials. And materials are what dictate what you can actually produce.
If you want to print crowns and your printer doesn't support a quality crown resin, the investment is a failure. If you just want to study models and surgical guides, then honestly, any printer on the market will work for you.
The main things you'll be printing in clinical practice are models, surgical guides, splints and night guards, dentures, and restorations, including crowns, veneers, inlays, and full-arch temporaries. Retainers and aligners are making noise, too, but those first five are the core.
Two: What is your budget?
For clinicians, the realistic range is around $1,000 to $15,000. You can get a Formlabs for around $5,000. A SprintRay Midas runs about $10,000. An Asiga MAX is around $12,000. A Pro2 is in a similar range. These are the real options you're choosing between.
Three: What training and support does the rep offer?
This is the question you ask the sales rep, not yourself. If I buy this from you, is it like Alibaba, and it just arrives at my door? Or is there someone to come in and train my staff?
Support matters more than most people realize. Luken's first experience with a 3D printer was with a Form2. He had an issue, contacted Formlabs via chat, and had it resolved in five minutes. That experience made him a loyal customer. Compare that to a friend of his in Colombia who had a cheap open-brand printer for six months and still couldn't get it working properly.
You're paying for more than the machine. You're paying for the ecosystem around it.
The Printers Worth Knowing About
Accuracy is no longer the differentiator. Research has shown that even a $1,000 printer can print geometrically accurate dental devices. So what actually separates them?
Asiga is the gold standard for labs. Over 500 compatible materials, exceptional print finish, and that openness are why labs love it. The tradeoff is cost, and it's generally slower than some competitors. For full-arch implant cases where screw channel precision is critical, I find my technicians reach for the Asiga more than anything else.
Formlabs is my all-rounder recommendation. Less than half the cost of Asiga. Reliable, excellent software, very easy to use. Historically, it was a closed system, meaning you could only use their own resins. That just changed at IDS 2025. They announced they're opening the printer entirely, and more importantly, they announced compatibility with Pac-Dent Titan, OnX, and Lucitone by Dentsply Sirona. That is massive news for a company that built its reputation on a closed ecosystem.
SprintRay is everywhere in the chairside conversation for good reason. The Midas is a genuinely different idea: capsule-based like a Nespresso machine, no build platform, small footprint, and it can print a restoration in around 10 minutes. If you want same-day crown workflows, this is the category leader right now. Their Pro2 is their general printer for everything else.
Budget options like Phrozen and the Shining 3D printer are genuinely capable machines. They work. They just don't come with the same level of workflow support, training infrastructure, and software polish as the top three.
Clinic vs. Lab - Where Does Each Printer Belong?
This is something people don't think about enough.
To me, the only printer that belongs exclusively in a clinical setting right now is the SprintRay Midas. It only prints restorations, and that focus tells you everything about its purpose. It's a chairside tool.
Every other printer deserves its own dedicated space within the practice, essentially your own mini lab. Because if you're printing models, surgical guides, splints, and dentures, you need a workflow space to support that.
Build platform size matters here, too. Clinics don't need massive platforms because you're printing a handful of things per day. Labs want the larger platforms so they can load up 20 or 30 models, run overnight, and come back to a full production run.
And one more thing: it is not illegal to own more than one printer. The modern practice will have multiple technologies. Start with one, understand what it can and can't do, and expand from there.
The Resins That Actually Matter
If there's one thing I want you to take from this entire article, it's this: choose your resins before you choose your printer.
Here's how I think about it by indication:
Full-arch temporaries: Pac-Dent Titan is my top choice. SprintRay OnX Tough is exceptional as well.
Provisional veneers and single-unit temps: Pac-Dent Sculpture is a very aesthetic option. SprintRay's newer high-translucency resins are also worth watching.
Splints: Everyone who's tried it lands on KeySplint Soft. It's not a soft splint in the traditional sense. It's a hard splint that's genuinely comfortable to wear. Most 3D printed splints feel rigid and uncomfortable. This one doesn't. Formlabs Comfort resin is also excellent; Luken actually tested both on a patient during a course in Seville, and the patient chose Comfort without being told which was which.
Crowns: The Midas HT Crown Resin is probably the best-looking crown resin I've seen right now. The original Midas crown resin was genuinely terrible. The HT version is a completely different product. Pac-Dent Sculpture also works well here.
Surgical guides and indexes: A rigid material works fine. You can use a splint resin for guides, gingivectomy templates, or indexes. Just because a resin is labeled "splint" doesn't mean that's its only application.
Formlabs' opening of their system matters here because it now allows the best-in-class resins to be used in one of the most popular printers in dentistry. That's a structural shift.
Why Post-Processing Gets No Respect
This is the part of the 3D printing conversation that gets about five minutes at the end of every training. And it probably deserves its own dedicated session.
Get post-processing wrong, and your crowns look opaque with a frosted finish. Your splints come out sticky after curing. Your devices may have uncured resin that can cause reactions in patients. This isn't hypothetical. It's in the literature.
Here's what to get right:
Curing: Don't use the same settings for everything. Every resin has different optical properties and requires different cure times, temperatures, and light exposure. If your cure box has presets for specific resins, use them. If it doesn't, invest in a system like Formlabs that includes matched wash and cure equipment.
And please, do not cure dental resins in an acrylic nail lamp. I've seen it done. It's a disaster.
Washing: Two washes. Not one. Follow the manufacturer's timing. And critically, do not wash your biocompatible resins in the same alcohol as your non-biocompatible model resins. Your splints, surgical guides, and dentures should never share a wash bath with your study model resin. You're contaminating biocompatible appliances with material that was never tested for intraoral use.
Alcohol disposal: This one really doesn't get talked about enough. When your IPA turns opaque and needs to be changed, do not pour it down the drain. Not just for environmental reasons, though that matters. The resin will clog your clinic's drainage system over time.
The correct method is to put the alcohol in a bucket, take it outside, and let it evaporate. What's left is the solid resin waste, which you then dispose of appropriately. Some countries and regions have regulated collection services for this. Know what applies in your area.
Speed - Less Important Than You Think
Speed dominated the 3D printing conversation for years. Every company was racing to claim the fastest print time. Here's the reality.
Most mainstream printers now use LCD or DLP technology, which means most things can be printed within an hour. The old SLA laser printers, like the original Form2 that took three or four hours for models, are gone.
The only time speed truly matters is when you want same-day delivery. If your patient leaves the practice and comes back tomorrow, a printer that takes 40 minutes versus 20 minutes makes no real difference to your workflow. You can run jobs overnight and process them in the morning.
The exception is same-day crown and veneer workflows. If the patient is in the chair, the printer needs to be done in 5 to 10 minutes. The SprintRay Midas delivers here. Something like a Formlabs Draft resin can print a model in around nine minutes, which works well for same-day mockups.
For models specifically, printers like NextDent and UNIZ NBEE can print in 15 to 20 minutes. That speed unlocks same-visit scan, mockup, and print workflows if that's something you want to offer.
What's Coming Next
Models are done. Splints are largely solved. Dentures are close; we're seeing excellent printed denture bases from Lucitone (Dentsply Sirona), Ivoclar, and now VITA, who released their first-ever resin for denture bases at IDS 2025.
The frontier right now is restorative printing, specifically crowns. The geometry is there. The things that still need to improve are:
Translucency. Printed crown resins are still too opaque. The HT generation is better, but we need more.
Color accuracy. A bottle labeled A2 doesn't always print A2. That needs to be solved.
Wear resistance. Some printed crowns are showing visible wear at three to four months. You can see the preparation through the crown material. That's not a restoration we can confidently place long-term.
Mechanical properties. They will never match ceramic. But there's room for significant improvement.
The future I'm watching is multi-layer printed materials. Just like we went from monolithic first-generation zirconia to multilayer zirconia with gradient aesthetics, I think that's where 3D printed restorations will eventually land. Once we can print a gradient in a single build, the aesthetic ceiling goes up dramatically.
Aligner printing is another category to watch. The ability to modify aligner geometry, thickness, and attachment design during the design phase, rather than being constrained by thermoforming, opens up a genuinely new approach to tooth movement. That space is still early, but it's moving fast.
The Short Version
If you're standing at the starting line with 3D printing, here's the checklist:
- Figure out what you want to print.
- Find the best resin for that indication.
- Find the printer that supports that resin.
- Budget for training and support.
- Set up a proper post-processing station with correct wash and cure equipment.
- Don't mix your biocompatible and non-biocompatible wash baths.
- And don't pour the old IPA down the drain.
My top three printers: Formlabs, SprintRay, and Asiga.
My top three resin manufacturers for denture materials are Pac-Dent, SprintRay, and Dentsply Sirona.
And for more in-depth reviews, awards, and breakdowns of the best materials and printers in each category, head to instituteofdigitaldentistry.com. We run annual awards covering exactly these questions, and it's all free.
