,High-performance, lightweight handpiece rivals the cutting power of electric handpieces with the advantages of air-driven, ,Dentists have been using traditional air-driven handpieces for about 70 years and there have been plenty of innovations in that time,
but none have addressed speed and torque issues quite like the Aeras 500 Elite handpiece from DENTALEZ., ,High-speed air-driven handpieces operate at revolutions per minute (RPM) of 250,000 to 420,000. When cutting, they typically lose around 40% of their speed. “They don’t have a lot of torque,” says Dr. Brian Wilk, who practices in Chalfont, PA. “If you bear down too much, the handpiece stops rotating. They lose power once you touch something, so you have to be very light with them.”, ,Some clinicians prefer electric handpieces because of their cutting speed. They operate at 200,000 RPM, which provides consistent torque that does not decrease when the bur is applied to a material. “They will cut through anything,” Dr. Wilk says. “But you lose some of the tactile sensation when you’re drilling and that’s what most dentists need. Plus they’re very expensive.” While the advantage to the steady torque is faster cutting, they require more force, which can traumatize the tooth, he adds., ,
, ,“It cuts so much faster than a traditional highspeed.”,– Brian Wilk, DMD, , , ,Dr. Wilk has been using DENTALEZ’s Star handpieces since opening his practice in 1992, having also used them in dental school. When DENTALEZ was developing the Aeras 500 Elite handpiece in recent years, Dr. Wilk tested it and has since been using it daily. “It works really well,” he said. “It has a lot more torque than the traditional air-driven handpiece. It’s like a hybrid between the air-driven and the electric in the way it functions. Its torque is close to the electric, but if you put a little more force into it, it doesn’t slow down. You can cut through everything faster.” He is using the Aeras 500 for every kind of procedure, from cavity and crown preps to crown removal and repairs., ,According to the company, the Aeras’ 39W power rivals the cutting power of electric handpieces with the advantages of air-driven, including tactile feedback and safety. High-strength ceramic materials like zirconia require adequate power to cut them efficiently. The Aeras 500 offers a power output that is 30% higher than other air-driven handpieces., ,To find out if the Aeras 500 cutting speed is similar to the electric handpiece, Dr. Wilk conducted a side-by-side test (watch the video here). “We used identical zirconia crowns, which are incredibly strong and hard to drill through,” he explains. “I put new diamonds in the handpieces and we cut through the crowns using the electric and the Aeras. I thought that the Aeras would cut slower than the electric—the question was just how much slower. But it turns out that the Aeras 500 actually cuts twice as fast as the electric, which was pretty astonishing!”, ,“Its performance is amazing,” Dr. Wilk continues. “It cuts so much faster than a traditional highspeed. A lot of people are switching to electric handpieces because they can work faster. But I just always felt I could make a nicer preparation with a high-speed than an electric.”, ,With speed also comes increased heat, but the Aeras 500 was designed to prevent excessive heat generation. “It’s got 3 ports of water flow,” Dr. Wilk says. “A lot of handpieces have only 1. This helps keep things cooler and helps keep the area clean by rinsing away the debris.” Another feature Dr. Wilk loves is the cool-spectrum LED fiber optic light. “The fiber optic light is amazing. It’s a very true light—it’s not yellow, it’s like daylight—so it’s easy to see and it’s very bright. Having that great light right on the end really illuminates the area you’re working in very well.”, ,Ergonomically, Dr. Wilk says the handpiece is lightweight with an optimal, compact head size and it is on a swivel, so it is very easy to maneuver., ,The Aeras 500 Elite features an anti-retraction valve that prevents water backflow into the delivery unit. The system also features cloud-based software and patent-pending RFID technology that automates the tracking and recordkeeping of the handpiece via a compatible RFID reader system.
