A start-up 3Dmouthguard has developed a custom mouthguard for athletes like field hockey and rugby players by scaning the athlete’s upper jaw, sending that model to a 3D printer, and printing a fully customized mouthguard within 45 minutes. Using this procedure, 3Dmouthguard could make about 10 mouthguards per printer per day.

In order to really make a difference, higher volumes are needed. Together with a 3D printing company Marketiger, Maarten Van Dijk launched AMcubator, an end-to-end Additive Manufacturing ecosystem to develop scalable applications, last year. Then, Maarten Van Dijk joined the 3Dmouthguard and focused on industrializing the mouthguard.

3Dmouthguard has developed a custom mouthguard.

Now, 3Dmouthguard has gone from making 10 mouthguards per scanner per day to 150,000 per scanner per year. “We want to eventually get up to a production of 5 million per year,” Maarten Van Dijk told.

“That doesn’t put a dent in the market yet,” remarked Arno Hermans, co-founder of 3Dmouthguard. “You can’t make a good business case out of that. At BIC (Brainport Industries Campus, ed.) together with Maarten, we’ve now actually managed to be the first in the world to achieve high volumes thanks to a different form of printing.”

Moreover, Arno Hermans and co-founder Victor Beerkens showcased their mouthguard to dentists, sports enthusiasts and sports retailers at home and abroad. Richard van der Oost joined in and designed the conversion software to be able to make a mouthguard automatically from a scan.

A joint venture was also set up with a company that sells scanners, Carestream Dental (a Kodak spin-off), and with a Latvian company for making the 3D printers, Mass Portal. And, DSM Additive Manufacturing, now known as Covestro, developed the material for the mouthguards.

A start-up 3Dmouthguard has developed a custom mouthguard for athletes like field hockey and rugby players by scaning the athlete’s upper jaw, sending that model to a 3D printer, and printing a fully customized mouthguard within 45 minutes. Using this procedure, 3Dmouthguard could make about 10 mouthguards per printer per day.

In order to really make a difference, higher volumes are needed. Together with a 3D printing company Marketiger, Maarten Van Dijk launched AMcubator, an end-to-end Additive Manufacturing ecosystem to develop scalable applications, last year. Then, Maarten Van Dijk joined the 3Dmouthguard and focused on industrializing the mouthguard.

3Dmouthguard has developed a custom mouthguard.

Now, 3Dmouthguard has gone from making 10 mouthguards per scanner per day to 150,000 per scanner per year. “We want to eventually get up to a production of 5 million per year,” Maarten Van Dijk told.

“That doesn’t put a dent in the market yet,” remarked Arno Hermans, co-founder of 3Dmouthguard. “You can’t make a good business case out of that. At BIC (Brainport Industries Campus, ed.) together with Maarten, we’ve now actually managed to be the first in the world to achieve high volumes thanks to a different form of printing.”

Moreover, Arno Hermans and co-founder Victor Beerkens showcased their mouthguard to dentists, sports enthusiasts and sports retailers at home and abroad. Richard van der Oost joined in and designed the conversion software to be able to make a mouthguard automatically from a scan.

A joint venture was also set up with a company that sells scanners, Carestream Dental (a Kodak spin-off), and with a Latvian company for making the 3D printers, Mass Portal. And, DSM Additive Manufacturing, now known as Covestro, developed the material for the mouthguards.