Leave Handpiece Repairs to a Professional
Dental handpieces are significant investments for any dental practice. When substantial investments are made by any business, they should be taken care of, and dental handpieces are no different. While most dentists know they shouldn’t attempt a dental handpiece repair themselves, what about servicing and maintenance of handpieces? Handpiece repair can be complicated and intricate work, but properly maintaining a handpiece can be much simpler and easy for any dentist to do themselves. However, there are few exceptions. Here is a list of the maintenance tasks you can do yourself and what should be left to a dental handpiece repair specialist:
Dentists Should Purge and Sterilize
All dentists should be familiar with the process of cleaning a dental handpiece. This includes purging the instrument of any biomatter that has built up inside during a procedure. You definitely do not want this biomatter to be passed to your next patient, so make sure to be thorough and remove it all. You should then sterilize the handpiece, but always remove the bur before sterilizing.
Oil Will Help Avoid Costly Repairs
Every dental handpiece needs to be oiled. This is definitely one of the maintenance tasks every dental practice should be doing on a daily basis. Oiling is a necessity for handpieces and will also help prolong the time until repairs are needed.
Bur Replacement Can be Done Safely In-House
Dentists can also service a dental handpiece by replacing a bur when needed. For push-button chucks, this is literally as simple as pushing the button on the end of the handpiece. However, because the push-button option is more costly to purchase and repair, most dental practices choose to use the standard screw type of handpiece. If you have a bur tool, you can safely remove the bur from the chuck and replace it with a new one.
Replacing a Turbine? Send it Out to be Repaired
Turbine replacement is the most common service needed in the handpiece repair industry. You may find yourself wondering if it can be taken care of in-house because of the commonness of this repair, but consider the cost of your investment over the expense of having the job done by professionals. In the end, it’s just not worth the risk.
Don’t DIY a Slow or Overheated Motor
If you have purged, cleaned and oiled a handpiece and it’s still giving you trouble by slowing down or heating up, send it to your handpiece repair specialist right away. Sometimes leaving a repair too long can mean having to completely replace the handpiece. If you are thinking of taking it apart to see if you can fix the issue, think again about your investment and what a voided warranty would mean. Remember, you wouldn’t counsel your dental patients to DIY their dental care, and you probably shouldn’t attempt it on your handpieces either.
