Chairside 3D printing adoption is stuck. Pac-Dent's Ayush Bagla explains why CAD is the bottleneck, and what his team is doing about it.
In this episode of Digital Dentistry Decoded, Dr. Ahmad Al-Hassiny sits down with Ayush Bagla, Managing Director at Pac-Dent and former CEO of Ackuretta, to unpack the real numbers behind 3D printing adoption in dentistry. Only 18% of US clinics have a 3D printer. Of those, most are still only printing models. Ayush argues the missing piece is not the hardware. It is the CAD step, and the cost, training, and time it adds to every chairside case.
The conversation covers the Pac-Dent acquisition of Ackuretta and how the two companies are merging analog and digital workflows. Ayush walks through their Chicago Midwinter launches (the SOL SE printer, the Chroma Flash curing unit, and the new CrownPod pod printer), and he and Ahmad dig into why bulb-based flash curing outperforms LED, whether nitrogen curing still matters, and whether pediatric crowns printed on demand could be the first real chairside printing application that actually scales.
If you have been wondering why so many dentists own a printer but still only use it for models, or what the next phase of digital dentistry looks like beyond scanners and CAD, this episode is for you.
CHAPTERS
00:00 - Welcome and Why the Dental Industry Feels Different in 2026
01:28 - The Pac-Dent and Ackuretta Acquisition (Inside the Deal)
04:38 - Why Industry Consolidation Will Keep Happening
07:32 - 3D Printing Adoption - The Lab vs Chairside Gap
08:55 - The Forgotten Metric (Adoption vs Utilization)
10:30 - Are Printed Crowns Hitting a Strength Ceiling?
12:28 - Pac-Dent's Chicago Midwinter Launches
12:50 - SOL SE Printer (Faster, Smarter, Same Platform)
14:16 - Chroma Flash Curing Unit (Why Bulbs Beat LEDs)
17:00 - CURIE Plus vs Chroma Flash (Which One for You)
20:24 - Is Bulb Curing the Future?
20:59 - The Nitrogen Curing Debate
26:00 - Splints, Aesthetics, and the Glaze Story
28:51 - The CrownPod and the Catalyst Workflow
29:33 - Print Crowns Without a Scanner or CAD Software
32:23 - Beyond Pediatric - The CrownPod Roadmap
34:24 - Whitening Trays and Rodin Works
37:34 - Is Pod Printing the Future of Chairside?
40:42 - When Will the CrownPod Ship?
40:55 - The 3D Printer Oversupply Problem
41:52 - What's Exciting in 3D Printing Right Now
44:29 - How HeyGears Multi-Material Denture Printing Works
45:23 - Could PolyJet Ever Go Chairside?
46:52 - Final Advice for Dentists Adopting Digital in 2026
48:03 - How to Choose Your First Printer
50:06 - Outro
🔗 Full written blog: https://instituteofdigitaldentistry.com/podcast/s04-e09-cad-problem-killing-chairside-3d-printing-adoption/
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