When your handpiece is ready for a new turbine, removing ALL of the old turbine’s components before installing your new turbine can be tricky, but it’s the most important step in the turbine installation process.  This initial step is listed in all of our turbine installation guides for all of our turbines and is by far the most common troubleshooting/tech support inquiry we receive.  

When the service life of a handpiece’s turbine comes to an end, one of the most common points of failure is the turbine’s bearings.  Typical RPMs for a handpiece’s turbine is around 350,000-430,000 RPMs.  When a bearing fails at those speeds, it can cause the bearing’s components to break apart and separate.  When removing that failed turbine, it is very common for a part or parts of the old turbine’s bearings to remain inside the head and/or the back cap of the handpiece.  Sometimes, those old bearing components “stick” inside the head or back cap and can be very difficult to see at first glance.  If any parts remain inside the head or back cap, installing your new turbine will be impossible.

The best way to tell if your handpiece has pieces of the old bearing remaining inside your handpiece’s head or back cap is to compare the old turbine vs. our new turbine. See illustration: 

*For the sake of these illustrations we used the Star 430 turbine and handpiece.

If you have parts still stuck in the head or back cap, use a scaler tip, or our Turbine Component Removal Tool (see below) to pull out the parts.

See illustration:

Once all parts are removed from the head and back cap, you are now ready to begin installation of your new turbine.  

See illustration: 

Turbine Component Removal Scaler

Use this scaler to remove bearing pieces, spring washers, O-rings, etc. from the handpiece's head or back cap. This tool will be included with all turbine orders!

If you are attempting to install your new turbine in your handpiece and you find that it does not fit, chances are that old parts remain inside your handpiece’s head or back cap. If after you follow the above instructions and you continue to have difficulty installing your turbine, give us a call. We would be happy to help you with any part of the installation process so you can get your handpiece back in service!