The failure of dental handpiece bearings-4 problems & 18 solutions

In daily dental practice, dentists often face to a sudden failure of the dental turbines, usually due to the dental handpiece bearing or bur damage.What does run-dental.com suggest for maintaining a handpiece bearing?

Suggestion of run-dental.com

1. Follow the dental manufacturer’s recommendations for lubricating and cleaning your dental turbines and bearings.
2. Check the head of dental handpieces(including the inner surface) if damaged.
3. Dental bearings should be repaired only one time, and new ones should be replaced in case of further damage.
4. Replace the bearing O-ring in time.
5. As far as possible use a short dental handpiece burr, do not use a wear-out burr.
6. Repair the dental bearings in accordance with the specified operating technology.
7. The dental handpiece bearing must be maintained and sterilized after each patient-use.

Reasons for failure of dental bearings

1. Lower working torque.

2.Ball bearings wear out.

3. Air pipe is blocked.

4.The bur is bent or spindle is out of alignment.

Solutions

1. Check the wear-out condition of the bearing, replace it if wear out.

2. Replace the bearing O-ring.

3. Check the air pipe of the dental turbines, call the professional technician for maintenance if blocked.

4. Check if the bur is bent,if not, replace the spindle.

5.Do not use a big head bur or long bur.

If “lube-free” bearing balls wear out, what to do?

Solutions

1. Do not rinse this kind of dental handpieces.

2. Do not use “lube-free” dental handpieces and regular dental handpieces in the same clinic.

3. Wash and dry the dental handpieces immediately after each patient-use.

4.Do not put the wet dental handpieces in a paper bag to sterilize it.Because under normal circumstances, the dental bearings will not rust, but if there is debris accumulation, and in the wet state may rust.

Tips: What is a “lube-free” bearing for the dental turbines?

A “lube-free” dental bearing is a bearing which does not require intermittent lubrication with oil.Because it has been pre-lubricated at the dental factory with special grease.

What you should notice is that,when using a dental turbine with maintenance-free bearings,an external oil lubricant is used after most grease lubricants tend to migrate out of the bearing.Once a maintenance-free bearing starts to use an external oil lubricant, it must be lubricated with oil from then on.

A friendly tips from run-dental.com

For intake air pressure

For domestic and Japanese dental handpieces, the intake air pressure should be kept at about 0.20(Mpa)-0.22(Mpa), not more than 0.25(Mpa) as far as possible, otherwise there will be great damage to the dental handpiece bearings.

For KAVO, W&H, SIRONA dental handpieces, the intake air pressure should be kept below 0.28(Mpa), not more than 0.30(Mpa) as far as possible. Otherwise there is a lot of damage to the bearings.

For air compressor

You need to clean, filter and water it frequently, because the air always mixed with water, the air compressor needs to drain if water is too much, or will also damage the bearings.