CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
23 July 2008
Product News
Delcam Adds Abutment Module and Five-Axis Options to Dental Machining System
Delcam has added a new module for the manufacture of abutments to its DentMILL knowledge-based machining system for the manufacture of components for the dental industry. This will make it easy for technicians with minimal manufacturing experience to produce abutments using the latest computerised machining technology. Previous versions were able to produce copings and bridges in ceramics and titanium. The new release, DentMILL 4, also include five-axis machining options for the first time, to allow the manufacture of more complex parts with more efficient use of materials.
As with the existing functionality in DentMILL, the new options are based on Delcam’s PowerMILL CAM system. This allows the software to offer a far wider range of proven machining strategies than is available in other dental CAM programs. The new five-axis options are particularly important for abutment manufacture as these components are difficult to produce with three-axis machining.
This new functionality can reduce material wastage when producing copings and bridges. Previously, all the components needed to be oriented within the material block so that they could all be machined in a single direction. With the five-axis approach, the components can each be rotated to minimise the block thickness required, since the different pieces, or even different areas within a single part, can be machined in different directions. This means that a set of parts can be produced from a thinner block of material so reducing material costs and machining times. Five-axis machining can also be used to machine parts containing undercuts.
The DentMILL software is completely ‘open’ and so accepts data from any dental design system or any scanner capable of exporting data in the STL format used widely within the dental industry. Similarly, it can output machining toolpaths to virtually any CNC machine. Most other dental CAM programs are part of a ‘closed’ system that can only work with unique data formats or specific machining equipment.
The software features a simple interface using icons that can be recognised easily by dental technicians. The process is completely automated, so no prior machining experience is required to produce high-quality components.
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