/diy/ - Do It Yourself

[ortho !!gB95I2paJIj No.810756]

Stage 3 is a go. I'm currently wearing aligner 1, and the rest of the aligners are manufactured.

I'm not going to update again until the end of the process, unless something goes wrong, so I'll just use this thread to answer any questions.

[ortho !!gB95I2paJIj No.810760]

Here's what they look like right out of the vacuum forming machine.

A improved the production process- now, each 3d printed positive sits on (and mates to) a half-inch riser. It's in a slightly different color of plastic. You can see the seam between them.

The riser is reused, which makes 3d printing the positive at least 100% faster (since they don't need to be as tall). Also, it provides a convenient gap that I can cut along with an x-acto knife when I'm removing the 3d print from the aligner. Without it, the aligner gets trapped inside the vacuum form.

[ortho !!gB95I2paJIj No.810762]

The riser and the 3D printed positives, labeled of course.

The aligner I'm wearing is very comfortable. It fits perfectly. I used a dremel tool to buff down all corners and edges.

I can feel the pressure on the teeth that need to move, but the rest of the teeth feel no pressure. Exactly what I hoped would happen! I can easily forget the aligner is in my mouth, and as you can see from the OP, it's basically invisible except for a little extra shininess.

[ortho !!gB95I2paJIj No.810763]

The aligner positive on the Formech 300XQ. I needed to manufacture a little adapter, since the retainer material is only 5x5", way too small to fit in the machine's vacuum seal. It's just two pieces of sheet steel with some weather stripping on one side.

It took a lot of experimentation and failure, but I found that 20 seconds at maximum heat is the perfect setting for heating the thermoplastic material.

You can see the riser here too, the off-white color plastic (I made this on my Reprap, because it doesn't need to be super precise).

[ortho !!gB95I2paJIj No.810765]

The aligner positive on the Formech 300XQ. I needed to manufacture a little adapter, since the retainer material is only 5x5", way too small to fit in the machine's vacuum seal. It's just two pieces of sheet steel with some weather stripping on one side.

It took a lot of experimentation and failure, but I found that 20 seconds at maximum heat is the perfect setting for heating the thermoplastic material.

You can see the riser here too, the off-white color plastic (I made this on my Reprap, because it doesn't need to be super precise).

[ortho !!gB95I2paJIj No.810767]

It all started with this... the original algniate mold.

I 3d printed an impression tray, since I didn't have one on hand. All these files will be open source.

[Anonymous No.810769]

>>810756
Well, I for one welcome our aligner /diy/ing overlords.

In terms of $ cost, how much did you save over a buyfag solution? And in terms of time?

I salute you anon.

pic unrelated

[ortho !!gB95I2paJIj No.810770]

>>810769
Assuming this /works/, I will have saved at least 3000 dollars. The average cost for a straightforward case of Invisalign is 3-4k. I've spend 'bout $60 all told, so practically nothing. Of course, I have access to a $30k Stratasys Dimension 1200es, the Formech, a $3k 3D laser scanner, and a shop full of machine tools.

In terms of time, I've probably spent 50 hours on this project.

o7

[ortho !!gB95I2paJIj No.810774]

Bonus utility from these aligners:

They double as perfectly formed, low profile nightguards, which protect me from grinding my teeth at night. Also, they can be used as well-fitting whitening trays.

Does anyone have any experience with DIY teeth whitening? Compounds to use vs which ones to avoid?

[ortho !!gB95I2paJIj No.810775]

Gonna keep dumping all the rest of my pictures, some you've seen before. Just to have them in one place.

[ortho !!gB95I2paJIj No.810776]

[ortho !!gB95I2paJIj No.810777]

Some research data.

This work is mostly based on Contemporary Orthodontics 5th Edition by William Proffit DDS, PhD, and Orthodontics at a Glance by Gill Daljit.

[ortho !!gB95I2paJIj No.810778]

If one plans to use an expensive method of 3D printing for even higher accuracy, using a riser to make the 3d print tall enough to be vacuum formed is important. I might add a pull-tab to the riser bottom to make removing it from the vacuum mold even easier.

I think Shapeways would be great for this kind of project. They have very fine resolution prints now. Another option could be using DLP resin printing. I want to build one of those printers in the future.

[ortho !!gB95I2paJIj No.810779]

The plastic loaded, about to be heated by the Formech. You can see why I needed that adapter.

[Anonymous No.810896]

>>810779
>/DIY/
>if you have all these tools

[Anonymous No.810897]

I thought this method only worked on spaced, not crowded teeth?

[Anonymous No.810919]

I love this guy and all the butthurt that ensues with his progress. Keep up the good work mate.

[ortho !!gB95I2paJIj No.810922]

>>810897
Nope, it theoretically works on crowded teeth too. My 3D solution for the teeth movement does involve progressive de-crowding as it moves them into position.

>>810919
Thanks! It feels pretty amazing to have this thing on my teeth. I can feel it working. There's outward pressure on CI-r and inward pressure on LI-r, and no pressure on any other teeth- just like I intended (see >>810774).

I really hope this turns out well. I I'm going to do an intermediate casting of my teeth at the 6 week mark to check progress.

I've decided to whiten my teeth at the same time as I'm moving them with some 32% carbamide peroxide gel. Hopefully there will be a huge change for the better here.

[Anonymous No.810931]

inb4 OP's jaw breaks

[Anonymous No.810953]

>>810896
yeah.. its all a bit >I've spend 'bout $60 all told, so practically nothing. Of course, I have access to a $30k Stratasys Dimension 1200es, the Formech, a $3k 3D laser scanner, and a shop full of machine tools..

- can we have a tldr summary of the last few threads, hopefully demonstrating why this is diy-plicable? Dont get me wrong, hate fucking dentists (& their overcharges) as much as the next man, just, losing the feeling this thread is applicable to anyone here, sans access to 100k+ equipment otherwise.

[Anonymous No.810957]

>>810953
Basically the only thing that's maybe out of reach for the average DIYer is the laser scanner.

You can use Shapeways or a similar service to get very nice high resolution 3d prints. They won't be free, but it's not that bad for less than 1 cubic inch of plastic per 3D printed positive.

You can buy a vacuum forming machine on Ebay for ~100 dollars. Often they'll even be specifically designed for this work, pic related. You can also build one. There are a lot of DIY vac former guides. It's a very simple machine- pretty much just a heater and a vacuum pump.

Laser scanning is not really DIYable unless you have access to a nice laser scanner. Maybe one can be found at a makerspace? I used a NextEngine laser scanner, which cost 3k retail... you can't use cheap 3D scanning methods like photogrammetry because the accuracy needs to be extremely high. I'm sure there are services that will laser scan stuff for you- you only need one laser scan, of the original teeth mold.

TLDR, yes, you can do this without all these expensive tools, if you find somewhere to do some nice laser scanning. You'll end up spending over 100 bucks, but it's still way cheaper than going the legit route.

Does this mean that this is easy? No. I did a crapload of research, and you need 3D modeling/CAD skills in order to animate the 3D tooth movement solution.

[Anonymous No.810965]

>>810957
ok, understand, laser-scanning is maybe the sticking point regards probable expenses.. if only that? - don't mean people that do have access to such shouldnt make threads, didnt mean to diss either - maybe, someone has a possible cheap /diy/ solution here..

..anyway, reply appreciated ;) furthur so - say cheese..

[ortho !!gB95I2paJIj No.810980]

>>810965
The best DIY laser scanner, which is DAVID-Laserscanner, still doesn't have good enough resolution for this process.

If someone designed a DIY "destructive scanner", that would be idea. This is how they do it in professional dental tech- a destructive scanner shaves the model layer by layer, then scans the flat surface after it's shaved.

[ortho !!gB95I2paJIj No.810982]

>>810957
This is the pic I meant to upload. You can buy one of these machines from China for about 100 bucks.

[Anonymous No.811009]

>>810980
For matte objects, you can do this optically with eg Photoscan, assuming you can get a decent SLR camera, bright lights, and a long macro lens. The more visual and tactile texture on the object, the better alignment will be. Blank, perfectly flat surfaces, as well as reflective surfaces, confuse the algorithms.

[Anonymous No.811014]

-Photogrammetry can be extremely precise, but you need a non-crappy algorithm, *and* a great camera, *and* a good distribution of angles, *and* a high enough real resolution of in-focus imagery - 10 microns to a pixel or less is probably appropriate in this case.

[Anonymous No.811018]

-Handheld is right out, a tripod is required, bright enough lights & long enough exposures to diminish noise to negligible levels is required.

So there's a lot of things to mess up, but they're not *incredibly* expensive things to fix, they just need the right gear and a degree of anal retentiveness.

[Anonymous No.811079]

>>811014
>>811009
>>811018

You need at least .05mm accuracy or better for scanning of any kind to be viable for this kind of work. If can get that from photogrammetry, I'd be extremely happy and surprised.

[Anonymous No.811523]

Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

[Anonymous No.812379]

Hey OP, have you considered attempting any IPR (interproximal reduction)? Looking at your mold pictures, it seems like you have some interproximal contact that could slow or stop teeth motion.