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Show Notes

Chairside 3D printing adoption is stuck. Pac-Dent's Ayush Bagla explains why CAD is the bottleneck, and what his team is doing about it.

In this episode of Digital Dentistry Decoded, Dr. Ahmad Al-Hassiny sits down with Ayush Bagla, Managing Director at Pac-Dent and former CEO of Ackuretta, to unpack the real numbers behind 3D printing adoption in dentistry. Only 18% of US clinics have a 3D printer. Of those, most are still only printing models. Ayush argues the missing piece is not the hardware. It is the CAD step, and the cost, training, and time it adds to every chairside case.

The conversation covers the Pac-Dent acquisition of Ackuretta and how the two companies are merging analog and digital workflows. Ayush walks through their Chicago Midwinter launches (the SOL SE printer, the Chroma Flash curing unit, and the new CrownPod pod printer), and he and Ahmad dig into why bulb-based flash curing outperforms LED, whether nitrogen curing still matters, and whether pediatric crowns printed on demand could be the first real chairside printing application that actually scales.

If you have been wondering why so many dentists own a printer but still only use it for models, or what the next phase of digital dentistry looks like beyond scanners and CAD, this episode is for you.

CHAPTERS

00:00 – Welcome and Why the Dental Industry Feels Different in 2026

01:28 – The Pac-Dent and Ackuretta Acquisition (Inside the Deal)

04:38 – Why Industry Consolidation Will Keep Happening

07:32 – 3D Printing Adoption – The Lab vs Chairside Gap

08:55 – The Forgotten Metric (Adoption vs Utilization)

10:30 – Are Printed Crowns Hitting a Strength Ceiling?

12:28 – Pac-Dent's Chicago Midwinter Launches

12:50 – SOL SE Printer (Faster, Smarter, Same Platform)

14:16 – Chroma Flash Curing Unit (Why Bulbs Beat LEDs)

17:00 – CURIE Plus vs Chroma Flash (Which One for You)

20:24 – Is Bulb Curing the Future?

20:59 – The Nitrogen Curing Debate

26:00 – Splints, Aesthetics, and the Glaze Story

28:51 – The CrownPod and the Catalyst Workflow

29:33 – Print Crowns Without a Scanner or CAD Software

32:23 – Beyond Pediatric – The CrownPod Roadmap

34:24 – Whitening Trays and Rodin Works

37:34 – Is Pod Printing the Future of Chairside?

40:42 – When Will the CrownPod Ship?

40:55 – The 3D Printer Oversupply Problem

41:52 – What's Exciting in 3D Printing Right Now

44:29 – How HeyGears Multi-Material Denture Printing Works

45:23 – Could PolyJet Ever Go Chairside?

46:52 – Final Advice for Dentists Adopting Digital in 2026

48:03 – How to Choose Your First Printer

50:06 – Outro

🔗 Full written blog: https://instituteofdigitaldentistry.com/podcast/s04-e09-cad-problem-killing-chairside-3d-printing-adoption/

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