Which planning platforms and guide systems work with Crown Down?

Any planning platform that outputs a standard surgical guide with a metal sleeve. Crown Down has been used in workflows planned in coDiagnostiX, DTX Studio, NobelClinician / DTX Implant, 3Shape Implant Studio, Blue Sky Bio, and R2Gate. The guide interface is standardized around sleeve diameter and offset, so it is the sleeve specification (not the planning software) that governs compatibility.

Can I switch to freehand mid-case?

Yes. The same two drills that ran through the guide can complete the osteotomy freehand if a case has to open up, and vice versa. There is no separate freehand tray, no separate freehand SKU, and no drill swap. The tray is the tray.

Is Crown Down cleared for guided implant surgery use?

The Crown Down kit is CE marked for use in the European Economic Area and has FDA approval for use in the United States as an implant drill system. It is not sold as a proprietary guide system; it is a drill system that is compatible with third-party surgical guides through the depth-stopper interface described above. The drill design is patented under WO2023044570A1.

Guided Surgery

Guided Implant Drill Kit. Tungsten Carbide, Two Drills Per Site.

Name: Guided Implant Drill Kit — 2-Drill Carbide Protocol | Crown Down
Creator: Dr. Zvi Fudim, DDS
Published: 2026-07-02

A guided implant drill kit built around the practical constraints of drilling through a surgical guide sleeve: fewer instrument handovers, coded depth stoppers that register 3-dimensionally against the sleeve, and tungsten carbide drills that don't depend on saline reaching the cutting edge through the guide.

By Dr. Zvi Fudim, DDSClinically reviewed June 20265 min read

Quick Answer

Crown Down is a guided implant drill kit that replaces the 5-to-8-drill steel sequence with 2 tungsten carbide drills per site. Coded depth stoppers register against the surgical guide sleeve in 3 dimensions (depth, angulation, position), the drill material dissipates heat without relying on saline through the sleeve, and the same tray runs freehand cases without a change of instruments.

1Two drills through the sleeve instead of five to eight, which is the single largest workflow difference from a standard guided kit.
2Coded 3D depth stoppers in 8, 10, and 12 mm register against the coronal edge of the surgical guide sleeve.
3Tungsten carbide, ~250 RPM \u2014 heat is conducted away from the cutting edge instead of depending on saline reaching the drill tip through the guide.
4Guided or freehand from the same tray. No separate SKU, no swap mid-case.

The problem with a standard guided drill sequence.

A standard implant guided surgery kit ships with the same 5 to 8 sequenced steel drills used for freehand cases, plus a set of drill keys or spoons that key each drill to a matching sleeve diameter. In principle, that's a solved problem. In practice, running that sequence through a printed guide introduces three friction points that don't exist in a freehand case.

1. Instrument handovers scale with drill count.

Every drill change in a guided case is a physical handover: the surgeon disengages the current drill from the sleeve, swaps in the next diameter, re-engages the same sleeve, and confirms depth. Five to eight drills per site means five to eight of those handovers. Case time and fatigue both scale with the count, and every handover is an opportunity to lose the sleeve line-up.

2. Saline irrigation to the cutting edge is partially blocked.

The guide sleeve is a metal cylinder around the drill shaft. Saline irrigation from the handpiece doesn't reach the drill tip through that cylinder as cleanly as it does in an open freehand osteotomy. Slotted-shaft drills and internal-irrigation drills exist as workarounds, but the underlying issue is that saline arrives late and in reduced volume where you need it most. See heat in guided implant surgery for the underlying thermal argument.

3. Depth control depends on visual estimation.

Even with a well-designed guide, depth is often verified by watching the drill marking pass the coronal edge of the sleeve. A physical stopper that registers against the sleeve removes the visual step and stops the drill at the planned depth mechanically.

How Crown Down Handles Guided

Two drills, one set of coded stoppers, no saline dependency.

Crown Down handles the three friction points structurally, not incrementally. Drill count drops to two per site (one cortical, one trabecular), so through-sleeve handovers drop with it. Heat is managed by material: solid tungsten carbide has roughly six times the thermal conductivity of stainless steel, so the drill conducts heat up the shank and away from the osteotomy instead of relying on saline to reach the tip through the sleeve. And depth is set by coded 3D stoppers that seat against the coronal edge of the sleeve at 8, 10, or 12 mm, so the drill physically stops at the planned working depth.

The result is a guided workflow that reads more like a two-step procedure than a sequenced protocol: engage the cortical drill through the sleeve, complete with the trabecular drill, place the implant.

Crown Down 3D drill stoppers in 8, 10, and 12 mm working depths, engineered to register against the coronal edge of the surgical guide sleeve for depth-controlled guided implant drilling.

Crown Down 3D depth stoppers: 8, 10, 12 mm.

Compatible planning platforms and guide systems.

Crown Down does not ship a proprietary guide or planning software. The kit is engineered to work with any surgical guide that follows the standard metal-sleeve convention, which is nearly every guide on the market. Sleeve-diameter mapping and drill-body geometry are the two variables that govern compatibility; both are documented in the kit user manual.

coDiagnostiX

Straumann's planning platform. Most common workflow for guided BL / BLC cases.

DTX Studio / DTX Implant

Nobel Biocare's planning platform (formerly NobelClinician).

3Shape Implant Studio

Widely used with in-house 3D-printed guides.

Blue Sky Bio

Open-platform planning software with printed-guide export.

R2Gate

Osstem's fully-guided workflow with metal-sleeve guides.

Custom / in-house

Any guide with a standardized cylindrical metal sleeve is compatible.

Planning platform names are trademarks of their respective owners. Crown Down references these platforms only to document practical workflow compatibility; there is no partnership or endorsement.

A guided kit that also runs freehand.

Most guided-surgery kits on the market are configured for guided cases only, which forces the practice to maintain a second freehand tray. Crown Down runs the same 2-drill protocol either way. When the coded stopper is on the shank, the drill runs through the sleeve to the mechanically fixed working depth. When the stopper is off, the same drill runs freehand and depth is read from the laser-marked letter code on the drill body.

This matters practically: guided cases that need to convert to freehand mid-case don't require a tray change. All-on-X surgeries that run part-guided (posterior tilted implants planned around the sinus and inferior alveolar nerve) and part-freehand (anterior straight implants placed under direct vision) don't require two trays. And when a guide breaks or seats poorly, the case doesn't stop.

For the underlying protocol, see the 2-drill osteotomy protocol. For the material argument, see carbide vs steel implant drills. For pricing and the 5-year cost math against a conventional guided steel kit, see the drill cost calculator.

Frequently asked questions

Quick answers to questions clinicians ask most about this topic.

In guided implant surgery, a printed or milled surgical guide with metal sleeves seats over the patient's teeth or a mucosa-supported base. Every osteotomy drill must pass through that sleeve at a fixed diameter, angle, and depth. A guided drill kit is any kit whose drills mate reliably with those sleeves, either through diameter-matched drill bodies, keys, or coded depth stoppers that register 3-dimensionally against the sleeve. Crown Down uses coded depth stoppers, which is the same registration method used by the major guided-surgery workflows.

Two ways. First, the drill count drops from 5-to-8 to 2 per site, so the through-sleeve portion of the case runs faster with fewer instrument handovers. Second, the tungsten carbide drill dissipates heat away from the cutting edge instead of relying on saline reaching the tip through the guide sleeve. This addresses a well-documented limitation of guided drilling: saline irrigation is partially blocked by the sleeve wall, so heat accumulates at the cortical bone contact zone.

Crown Down 3D depth stoppers lock onto the drill shank and register against the coronal edge of the guide sleeve, so working depth is set by the stopper geometry, not by visual estimation. Stoppers are supplied in 8, 10, and 12 mm working depths and are keyed to the coded letter markings on the drill body, so depth verification is triangulated between the physical stopper and the visible drill markings.

See the guided workflow end-to-end.

Book a clinical demo and we'll walk through the two-drill guided protocol on a live case setup, plus the coded stopper system, sleeve compatibility, and how a Crown Down tray sits in your existing guided-surgery workflow.

View catalog & pricing Book a clinical demo

Keep reading

Guided Implant Drill Kit. Tungsten Carbide, Two Drills Per Site.

The problem with a standard guided drill sequence.

Two drills, one set of coded stoppers, no saline dependency.

Compatible planning platforms and guide systems.

A guided kit that also runs freehand.

Frequently asked questions

See the guided workflow end-to-end.

Related reading

Heat in Guided Implant Surgery

Crown Down 3D Drill Stoppers

Crown Down 2026 Catalog

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