Aidite AMD-500DC Mill with Automatic 12-Disc Changer for Continuous Milling Day and Night

Duff Wilson, CDT, needed to try something new at Wilson Dental Laboratory in Sumter, South Carolina. The three-person laboratory was doing well, but operating their four single-puck milling machines had become a full-time job, and that became even more of an issues with the staffing challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. So, when Wilson heard about a new machine from Aidite that featured a 12-disc changer, he was intrigued.

“With the single-puck mills, if our employee was not here, my wife and I had to take away from what we were doing to man it,” Wilson says. “When she was here, that was what she did all day: Change pucks. Our Aidite representative recommended the AMD-500DC, and the price point was significantly lower than our other mills, so we decided to make the investment.”

The AMD-500DC allows laboratories to mill continuously day and night, as the 12-disc changer can be loaded with multiple materials and shades. The C-Clamps allow 90° facial milling, making full arches easy to mill. The powerful 1.5-kw spindle allows the creation of lifelike facial restorations quickly and accurately.

The results in Wilson’s laboratory were immediately evident. All three employees can focus on other tasks, and the machine even can be operated remotely.

“We can set it and forget it for the day,” Wilson says. “If our employee is unable to come to the laboratory on a given day, she can log in remotely, load all of our crowns in the mill, and then just hit ‘Start.’ The machine runs through its entire cycle without anyone needing to actually man it. With the single-puck mills, she could nest from home, but she could not actually run the machines. Because the AMD-500DC had 12 discs and we only work with 16 shades, the occasional text message asking us to load a new disc is the only operation necessary. It has helped our small laboratory tremendously, and I can only imagine how much it impacts larger laboratories.”

The more he used the AMD-500DC, the more benefits Wilson observed. For example, he noticed that it seemed to be completing jobs quicker, so he timed how long it took each machine to mill two screw-retained zirconia crowns; the single-puck machines were able to mill both restorations simultaneously but took 53 minutes, whereas the AMD-500DC took only 26.

“We kept noticing that our employee would nest in the mornings and then the work would be finished sooner than we expected, but we were surprised to learn just how much faster it was,” Wilson says.

They also noticed that the quality of the restorations coming out of the AMD-500DC was superior.

“When we compared how smoothly each machine milled, the crispness of the AMD-500DC stood out,” Wilson says. The margins on both machines are nice, but the AMD-500DC does a better job on the exterior portion, where the mill goes in and cleans it up to make it smooth. That results in less finishing time being needed.”

That high quality of course, is in line with what Wilson had come to expect from Aidite. He already had been using the company’s 3D pro zir material for zirconia restorations.

“3D pro zir offers 57% translucency, which is significantly higher than the premium high-translucency zirconia that we had previously been using, and its 1,000-plus MPa of flexural strength allows us to use it for single units all the way to full arches,” Wilson says. “That versatility allowed us to lower our inventory by two-thirds. We had $40,000 worth of inventory on the wall, so cutting two-thirds of that is good business.”

The AMD-500DC has proven to be “good business” as well. Wilson even presented a lecture in Chicago last month titled, “Looking for Your Next Employee.”

“As a whole, this machine has helped us save money, save time, and increase our production,” Wilson says. “We are so small, every minute is astronomic in value. The price point compared with what you receive with the AMD-500DC creates such high value. We are thrilled with it.”