Custom designed facial implants made using an original rapid prototyping tool

We developed an original rapid prototyping tool, named Comp-U-Craft, having a precision of 2.5·10 -4 inches, a footprint comparable to a small office laser printer, and a capability to process large objects compared to the size of the machine. We started this mostly because there are only a few companies in the world, capable to manufacture facial implants, but not customizable at all. In Romania, the price of imported implants is prohibitive for most of the patients. Using this prototyping tool, we obtained a customized and cheaper implant, which passed all the necessary tests to be successfully used in reducing facial fractures. This paper presents our original prototyping tool and the performed tests to obtain the optimal set of milling parameters for a certain type of materials.