HeyGears UltraCraft ChairSide Pro
While most in the dental 3D printing industry have heard of the big players such as Sprintray, Formlabs and Asiga, fewer have heard of HeyGears – an up-and-coming China and US-based company that was started in 2015. HeyGears made itself a household name in the lab printing market with its A2D and A3D units – excellent pieces of hardware that excel in automation. Seeking to break into the clinical market, HeyGears came out with the UltraCraft ChairSide and ChairSide Pro. HeyGears has focused on providing a holistic printing experience, from providing a paid cloud-based design service, slicing
While most in the dental 3D printing industry have heard of the big players such as Sprintray, Formlabs and Asiga, fewer have heard of HeyGears – an up-and-coming China and US-based company that was started in 2015. HeyGears made itself a household name in the lab printing market with its A2D and A3D units – excellent pieces of hardware that excel in automation. Seeking to break into the clinical market, HeyGears came out with the UltraCraft ChairSide and ChairSide Pro. HeyGears has focused on providing a holistic printing experience, from providing a paid cloud-based design service, slicing and printing controls all within the same client portal.
This is a personal and individual opinion on the HeyGears UltraCraft ChairSide Pro. HeyGears nor any of its global distributors have not been involved in the writing or editing of this piece and have not restricted any conclusions made by myself of this product.
Notable features
Basics
* 1 banana = 0.15kg
Set up
Setting up the ChairSide Pro is not the most straightforward due to its bulk. It usually requires some sort of professional installation.
Levelling is factory-performed, and once the unit is put in place and set up, operation is pretty easy. I never encountered issues connecting to Wi-Fii and sending jobs over the internet.
Software
Like the ChairSide, the ChairSide Pro uses HeyGears Cloud – a cloud-based platform to nest, support and slice objects. It is pretty straightforward to navigate but graphically it’s not winning any prizes. I found it pretty “clicky” to find which resin and settings to use as different layer settings for the same resin are selectable as different options.
Moreover, there’s no way to “go back” or undo a mistake during the nesting and slicing process which means if you screw up, you go back right to the start. In addition, if you want to print multiple copies of the same object, there’s no way to do this in the cloud-based slicer. You basically need to copy and paste the file under a different name in the folder before uploading your files. Frustrating.
Default support settings and object orientation is surprisingly good. The software will generally know what objects require supports and those that don’t. You can manually edit support settings and add/remove supports, but I found this process once again, a little “clicky”.
As long as your PC and ChairSide Pro are connected to the internet (can be different networks), you can send the sliced print file directly to the printer wirelessly. It’s a simple drag and drop process but you will need someone to physically start the print.
Resin library
The resin library for ChairSide Pro is closed. However it is open to some popular exceptions – Saremco Crowntec, KeySplint Soft, KeySplint Hard, Rodin Sculpture, Rodin Sculpture 2.0 and Rodin Titan.
Basically users will have access to everything they need for pretty much any printable dental application.
The printing experience
The ChairSide Pro has innate heating and humidity controls. The printer itself is unfortunately quite noisy during operation which prevents it from being used in front of patients.
Print time is quite fast due to the perforated build plate which allows for reduced peel forces (improving print success) and reduced delay time in between layers. Models orientated horizontally and positioned direct to the build plate will take around 25-35 minutes to print at 100 micron layers
I did find quite obvious voxel lines depicted on models printed on the ChairSide Pro – probably not clinically relevant but it was surprising. Thankfully aligners, retainers and mouthguards made based off these models fit perfectly.
There is also an optional mini build plate which is surprisingly heavy. With this plate, restorations can be printed in as short as 15-20 minutes (Crowntec at 100 micron layers). Print quality of restorations has been honestly fantastic.
Probably my biggest gripe with the experience was how heavy the parts were to handle and how challenging it is to clean a perforated build plate. Unless you have access to a large and powerful wash unit, it is basically impossible to clean the build plate satisfactorily in between prints.
Conclusion
Honestly, as long as its not being used in front of patients, the ChairSide Pro is a gem. It just works well and the printed results speak for themselves. As with many Chinese-manufactured hardware, the focus is certainly on brawn and functionality rather than beauty and finesse. If users don’t mind not needing to keep up with the latest trends and just want a machine that works well and lasts ages, then this is your guy. Just make sure you have a large enough wash unit to clean that hefty build platform.