Liqcreate Tray Resin Brings 3D Printed Dental Impression Trays to Chairside Use

Dental labs went digital years ago. Intraoral scanners, CAD software, and automated milling transformed crowns, bridges, and aligners. Custom impression trays, though, are still often made by hand. Technicians mix acrylic, wait for it to cure, trim the fit, and hope it seats properly.

Liqcreate is trying to replace that step with a resin. Its new Tray material is CE Class 1 certified, biocompatible, and compatible with DLP, MSLA, and laser-based 3D printers that operate at 385 to 405 nm. That wavelength range covers most of the desktop and professional machines already in dental labs.

Why Compatibility Matters

Dental resin manufacturers often tie their materials to specific hardware. Liqcreate is taking the opposite approach. Tray resin works on printers from Anycubic, Elegoo, Creality, Asiga, Prusa Research, Raise3D, and Phrozen. The company says it continuously validates additional profiles and publishes updated settings online.

Open-format adoption matters because labs that already own a compatible printer do not need to buy new hardware to try the material. That removes the biggest barrier to switching resin suppliers.

Post-Processing and Sterilization

The workflow is straightforward. After printing, trays are washed twice in isopropyl alcohol, left for 30 minutes, then post-cured for 15 minutes in an Elegoo Mercury X or equivalent unit. The cured trays are rigid enough for impression taking across implants, dentures, crowns, and bridges.

Where Tray stands out is steam sterilization. Many dental resins soften or deform under autoclave conditions. Liqcreate says Tray survives cycles at 121 degrees Celsius and 134 degrees Celsius in validated autoclave programs. That matters for implant procedures or any case requiring a sterile field.

Volume and Chairside Use

Tray is also designed for throughput. At a 200-micron layer height, labs can print more trays per day without sacrificing the dimensional accuracy needed for precise impressions. The combination of open-platform compatibility, steam sterilization, and fast print times positions Tray as a practical alternative to hand-mixed acrylic in both lab and chairside environments.

Liqcreate is selling Tray in one-kilogram units through its online store. For labs already running a compatible MSLA or DLP printer, the switch is as simple as loading a new resin file and updating the exposure settings.