How to extend the life of your dental handpiece?

In oral treatment, the dental handpiece is the most frequently used instrument, with a wide variety and complex body structure. During use, the patient's blood, saliva and various debris will splash and contaminate the handpiece and enter the interior of the handpiece head. At the same time, the negative pressure generated when the operation stops will also suck the blood, saliva and debris back into the handpiece head. If the dental handpiece is not cleaned thoroughly, the dirt remaining inside the handpiece head will become solid dirt after high temperature sterilization and adhere to the handpiece cartridge, bearings and spindle, which will not only affect the performance and life of the handpiece, but also It will also affect the sterilization effect and become an important medium for cross-infection.

Therefore, the cleaning quality of dental handpieces plays a very important role in ensuring medical safety, improving handpiece performance and reducing costs. This small class will explain in detail the cleaning and maintenance steps of the dental handpiece.

After each use of the dental handpiece, it must be cleaned and disinfected, and the handpiece must be maintained with lubricating oil. We have proved through experiments that effectively maintained the handpiece have more than 2/3 longer service life than a handpiece that lacks maintenance.

Let us provide you with a professional handpiece maintenance process:

1. Remove the handpiece from the dental chair and remove the bur. Clean the outer casing of handpiece with a soft to medium bristle brush and alcohol or warm water. (DON’T: Use chemical wipes, disinfectant sprays or ultrasonic cleaners on dental handpieces. Besides degrading the outside housing of the handpiece, residual chemicals can get into the handpiece and cause corrosion and/or premature failure.)

2. Clean the spindle, use handpiece lubricant oil spray align the spindle hole and spray 2-3 times, it can keep the spindle with good clamping force.

3. Lubricate & Clean Internally: 

①Use dental lubricant oil: Spray dental lubricant into the drive air hole at the rear of the handpiece, as shown below. This enables sufficient lubrication of the bearings. For best results, run it over a white paper towel until only clean lubricant comes out. 

② Use cleaning device: select the correct cleaning procedure. The mechanical cleaning equipment should be equipped with a special interface for the dental handpiece, and its cleaning water flow and air flow conform to the internal structure of the dental handpiece.

(Whether lubricating manually or using a dental handpiece maintenance unit, be sure to run the handpiece long enough.) 

4. After your handpiece has been cleaned, use a pressure air gun to dry the interior and surface to expel excess lubricant, To prevent excess lubricant congeal inside handpiece head during sterilization, which will cause it to run sub-optimally.

5. Package the cleaned and maintained dental handpiece.

6. Load the handpieces into instrument trays or standard sterilization trays and load the trays into the sterilization device. Do not exceed the sterilizer manufacturer’s guidelines for load capacity. 

Run the autoclave, SENDA Dental recommends:

①Gravity Type Autoclave - Minimum of 15 minutes at 132° C or minimum of 30 minutes at 121° C.  Do not exceed 135° C.

②Pre-Vacuum Autoclave - Minimum of 4 minutes at 132° C.

7. Lubrication of handpieces before use (When the handpiece is sterilized, the bearing is very dry, and the bearing is easy to wear when used directly. Dropping two drops of lubricating oil can prolong the life of the handpiece.)