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LED in dental turbines – innovation of today
Light emitting diodes (LED)are the future for illuminating the operation site during treatment. Halogen bulbs in dental instruments are a thing of the past.
Since the end of 1970s, miniaturized incandescent light bulbs or halogen lamps have been used in dental instruments to illuminate the operation site during treatment. A bulb has a relatively short lifespan and vibration, sterilization and changes in temperature are only some of the factors that can make it even shorter.
And, although the color rendering index CRI is very good, the color temperature CCT is quite low. This means the emitted light has a yellowish tinge.
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Compare: halogen bulb (left) and light emitting diode LED (right).
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About life span, efficiency and illumination quality
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Because the bulb is placed at the back of the instrument, optical fibres have to be used to direct the light to the emission site near the bur. As the light guide is made of glass, sterilization can easily cause damage. Although improvements to this system have been made, it has basically stayed very much the same, until today.
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LED in daylight quality!
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All these drawbacks have been removed by W&H who are the first on the market to develop a completely new light source – the "light emitting diode" or LED which is a feature of its new air driven turbines.
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equal to neutral white daylight
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One of the main advantages of the new technology is that its CCT can be adjusted during the production process. This means that for the first time it is possible to offer a light source for dental instruments that is equal to neutral white daylight.
What’s more, W&H improved the CRI of the LED for white and yellowish colors. So, all relevant color information concerning dental application will appear correctly and in an unprecedented quality. These facts are Photonics Institute at the Vienna University of Technology and are published in Lighting Research & Technology (Sep. 2007). |
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Without a light guide
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Provided that the recommendations in the operating manual are carefully adhered to, it should not be necessary to change the LED giving it a life span measurable in years. Furthermore, because W&H were able to integrate the LED without a light guide the efficacy and the stability of the whole lighting system is improved.
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; "equal to neutral white daylight")
