What’s the Difference Between Dental Handpiece Maintenance and Repair?

Clinicians today are extremely dependent on their dental handpieces to sustain a smooth running practice. Modern day handpieces are a sophisticated combination of precision parts moving in perfect harmony at high speeds. This perfect harmony delivers a smooth and powerful cut that allows the clinician to perform the dental procedure accurately with little discomfort to the patient. Knowing when you should maintain your handpieces versus when you should get your handpieces repaired will ensure less stress on both the clinician and patient. But what is the difference between dental handpiece maintenance and repair?

Maintenance: Understanding the handpiece components and learning how to maintain them properly can help your practice reduce expensive repair costs.  The air-driven high speed handpiece has two main components:

  • the outer shell, which is where air and water passes through
  • the turbine, which is in the head of the handpiece

It is important to clean the surface of your handpiece after each use, as CDC guidelines call for flushing water through the handpiece for 30 seconds to remove potential contaminants. You should also lubricate the handpiece with the proper lubricant tip to spray into the drive airline.  After lubricating the handpiece, it’s important to run the handpiece to make sure you evenly distribute and expel an excess lubricant. Finally, you should sterilize your handpiece by following the manufacturer guidelines and allow the handpiece to completely cool off after sterilization.

Repair: Dental handpiece repair is necessary when your handpiece is not running at optimal speeds during procedures.  Repairing the turbine is one of the most common repairs that clinicians will encounter.  Before 1992, handpiece sterilization required using a turbine that could last for years and could easily be replaced by a dental team member in an office. Today, due to repeated high heat sterilization, the life of a turbine and all the components are limited, which can make repairs more frequent and costly. A turbine is the only moving part of the dental handpiece and can operate at speeds beyond 400,000 rpm. Due to the high speed, and the effects of sterilization, a turbine can show signs of wearing and eventually need replacement. Proper cleaning and lubrication will extend the handpieces life, but it’s inevitable that the turbine itself will need to be replaced.

If the turbine is the brain of the handpiece, then the bearings are the heart of it. When the bearings wear out, the turbine will no longer rotate, causing it to stall when placed on a tooth. It may also emit a loud high pitched sound or vibration. It’s often said that the handpiece is just a handle to provide a means of controlling the turbine as well as serving as a conduit to drive the turbine and to cool the surface being cut.

If you do start to notice a decrease in the performance of your dental handpieces, it is important to quickly find a reputable handpiece repair company such as First Choice Repair to help repair your handpieces and keep them running at optimal performance.

We hope that this helped you understand the differences between dental handpiece maintenance and repair!

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