What causes failure in dental turbines?

Rapid cool downs of handpieces after sterilization with cold water

Rapid cool downs could cause warping of handpiece components and you could also introduce contaminants onto your sterilized instruments.

Running handpieces without burs

Doing so could cause damage to the spindle/chuck assemblies.

Irregular lubrication

The chuck must be lubricated at least once a week to keep it clean and functioning well. Debris can clog the chuck and interfere with holding the bur.

Use of incorrect burs

One of most common failure in dental turbines is the using of incorrect burs with les then 1,59 mm diameter. Unfortunately, there are many thinner and softer burs on the market coming from low costs productions and in turn available at attractive prices. If burs are too narrow or to soft, the chuck cannot hold them well. During the rotation of 300.000 revolutions per minute or more, incorrect burs will sooner or later start to deviate and consequently cause failure of chuck mechanism.

Broken bearings

Bearings and specifically the bearing cage, will generally fail first, mostly because of:

  • Debris;
  • Excessive air pressure;
  • Excessive temperatures during sterilization;
  • Side load stress;
  • Water from air storage tank of compressor;
  • Use of bent burs or a bur that is not fully seated;
  • Using low cost ball bearings of unknown producers.