For the past few years, I have been using an electric handpiece, the KaVo ELECTROtorque plus system. Until I switched over from an air turbine, I don't think I fully appreciated how important a good dental handpiece can be. I used the Midwest Tradition back in dental school. It was a solid, dependable handpiece, and there were only a few times that I couldn't find the chuck to tighten down the bur. Once in private practice, I just kind of got used to sending the handpiece off every once in a while to get a new turbine. Then about five years ago I upgraded to the ELECTROtorque plus.
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The thing that made the transition easiest is the ability to hook up the ELECTROtorque plus directly to your existing delivery system. You plug the air hose into the back of the motor control unit, and after a quick calibration, you are ready to go. Once everything is hooked up, you have the option to adjust the max speed of the handpiece on the unit, but the actual speed is determined by how far you are pressing on the rheostat. More air coming through creates higher speed; less air coming through will spin the bur slower. What makes this superior then to an air driven handpiece is the torque. After spinning up the handpiece to the highest speed, you could technically cut from one side of the tooth to the other without a decrease in RPM's. The same goes for reduced speeds. I no longer need a slow speed for caries removal. I just feather the foot pedal so that the bur is spinning slowly, and the increased torque allows easy excavation.
The handpiece is definitely heavier than a regular air turbine handpiece, but the weight of the high-speed attachment with the motor is well balanced in your hand. While the head of the handpiece seems bigger, the bur can sit down in farther than most air turbines so your access is not limited. Since the head contains gears instead of a turbine, the bur spins more concentric. This combined with the high torque creates perfect smooth margins with no ditching. It also helps to reduce the chatter when removing the crown.
Years later, I think the best measure of satisfaction I have had with the ELECTROtorque plus was a comment I got from our lab technician. He felt like my crown preparations were just better than they were with the air-driven handpiece we were using. It seemed then that efficiency and accuracy for my patients had improved, just by switching to this electric handpiece. This retrospective look also made me realize that we had only sent two of the high-speed attachments in for servicing after about three years, and the motor control unit has never had a problem. In some ways, KaVo had kind of created the “BMW” of handpieces.
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Reluctant to rest on its laurels, KaVo recently introduced a brand new electric high-speed handpiece, the COMFORTdrive 200 XDR. I took advantage of the Try KaVo offer that allows you to test drive the handpiece for free. I signed up, and the handpiece arrived just a few days later. The sales rep for KaVo had already been notified and set up an appointment to help me install it.
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You can see the size difference between the COMFORTdrive 200 XDR (top) and the ELECTROtorque plus (bottom). |
The first thing I noticed was that the control box was about 1/5th the size of the original, allowing you to hide it better on the delivery unit. Plus, it is still completely compatible with any existing delivery system. Improved over the ELECTROtorque plus, however, was that this unit could auto-calibrate to whatever air pressure your system was delivering. The KaVo sales rep spent about 2 minutes hooking the handpiece up, and we were ready to go to work. The unit even beeps at you if there was anything hooked up incorrectly.
The second big change was that the handpiece motor itself had shrunk as well. Picking up the COMFORTdrive, it felt like I had picked up an air-driven handpiece. It was still balanced well, but at a fraction of the size and weight. After performing an initial sterilization, I used it on a crown preparation that afternoon. Despite the reduction in bulk, there was no reduction in performance. High torque made the preparation easy.
Lastly, the COMFORTdrive seemed a lot quieter than the ELECTROtorque plus. I had to call and check on the decibel rating for the handpiece. I was told that it operates at 55dB, which apparently is the quietest handpiece on the market. It helps to have gears running in the handpiece, rather than the high whine of an air turbine.
The COMFORTdrive would definitely be my first choice for an operatory that mostly performs basic crown and bridge. If I had to perform other procedures, such as endodontics, I might consider the KaVo ELECTROtorque TLC, with its ability to change the torque setting for your endodontic files. But for me, the ELECTROtorque plus remains to be a workhorse in my practice, and will for years to come. Keep in mind with the Try KaVo campaign, you can choose any one of these to be delivered to your practice for your very own test drive.