#dental workflow

Every orthodontic patient hears the same warning: wear your retainer, or your teeth will move back. Yet the traditional retainer workflow builds a one-to-two-week gap into exactly the moment retention matters most. The appliance ships to a lab, the patient waits, and teeth start drifting the day treatment ends.

In-office 3D printing closes that gap. With the SprintRay retainer workflow, a practice can scan, print, and thermoform a finished retainer in roughly 80 to 116 minutes, with only 20 to 40 minutes of hands-on chair time. The patient walks out with the appliance the same day. No lab invoice, no shipping delay, no retention gap.

How the Four-Step Workflow Works

Step 1: Scan (5 to 10 minutes). Capture a digital impression with any major intraoral scanner, including iTero, Trios, Primescan, and Medit. iTero users benefit from direct SprintRay integration.

Step 2: Design (9 to 20 minutes, or outsourced). Brackets are digitally removed and the model is prepared for printing. Practices without in-house CAD expertise can upload scans to SprintRay Cloud Design and receive a print-ready file with near zero hands-on time.

Step 3: Print, wash, cure (60 to 80 minutes, mostly unattended). The model prints in Die and Model 2 resin on a SprintRay Pro 2 or Pro S using RayWare software, then washes in the ProWash S and cures in the ProCure 2. Print time is passive, so the clinician sees other patients while the model prints.

Step 4: Thermoform and finish (about 20 minutes). The team thermoforms a 0.75 to 1 mm sheet over the model at 35 to 40 PSI, trims below the gingival margin, polishes, and packages the retainer.

A Faster Alternative: Direct Printing

SprintRay also offers direct 3D printed retainers, where the appliance itself is printed from SprintRay Retainer resin and post-cured in NanoCure. No model, no plastic sheet, no thermoforming machine. Thermoforming suits practices with existing equipment and trained teams. Direct printing suits greenfield workflows and high-volume production where thermoforming becomes the bottleneck.

Why It Matters for Patients and Practices

Patients get same-visit delivery after clear aligner or bracket treatment, a precise digital fit, and same-day replacements: because scan files persist in SprintRay Cloud, a broken retainer reported Monday morning can be replaced Monday afternoon.

Practices get one of the lowest-risk entry points into same-day digital dentistry. The workflow runs on hardware already used for dental models, night guards, and crowns, so retainers become incremental utilization rather than a new capital purchase. Every in-office retainer avoids a lab fee, and replacements become a high-margin same-day service.

Getting Started

The full protocol, including scan requirements, print settings, and troubleshooting, is documented in the SprintRay retainer workflow guide. Free clinical training is available through SprintRay University, and teams evaluating equipment can schedule a free consultation to see the workflow run on their own scans.