Quiet dental drill

Abstract

A dental handpiece having a low noise level consisting of: an elongated main housing having a head portion at the forward end thereof; a drive shaft located within the main housing and supported by fore and aft bearings mounted within the main housing; a rotor/burr holder located within the head portion of the main housing and supported by bearings mounted within the head portion, the rotor/burr holder being adapted to receive a burr drill or the like; an air-driven axial flow turbine wheel located and supported within the rear portion of the main housing, the turbine wheel being operably connected to the drive shaft; and, a coupling system for operably coupling the forward portion of the drive shaft to the rotor/burr holder. In one embodiment of the invention, the coupling system consists of a set of cylindrical driving magnets mounted on the forward portion of the drive shaft and a corresponding set of cylindrical driven magnets mounted on the rotor/burr holder.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.