Electric toothbrushes
Last updated: April 9, 2010.
Do your friends reach for the sunglasses when you smile? If not, maybe
it's time you invested in an electric toothbrush. These
battery powered
teeth scrubbers move their heads back and forth up to 7000 times a
minute, shifting twice as much plaque (rotting, sugary food debris) as ordinary, manual
toothbrushes.
That's called good oral hygiene and it means
you won't have to go to the dentist quite so often.
The cleaner you keep your teeth (and the gums that
support them), the longer they'll last you.
Just remember, once your adult teeth are gone, you don't get replacements!
Photo: Use it properly, and a sonic toothbrush like this
can get your teeth cleaner than a manual toothbrush—or an
ordinary electric one.
What's inside an electric toothbrush?
Take an old electric toothbrush apart and it's easy to see how it
works. I had one that didn't work anymore, so I had a quick look inside
before taking it to the recycling centre. Here's what I found:
The first thing you notice is the removeable brush. This is the bit
that does
all the hard work. It has a semi-rotating head at the top so, as the
mechanism inside the brush handle rotates back and forth the brush
turns from side to side. Directly underneath the brush there's a cam
and gear unit, which looks like this:
The cam and gear unit is the clever part of an electric toothbrush. It converts the high-speed
rotary (spinning) motion of the brush's electric motor into reciprocating (back-and-forth) brushing motion that cleans your teeth more effectively.
The cam and gear works a bit like this very simplified animation.
The green wheel, driven by the motor, is always rotating clockwise at high speed, but the
black lever is pivoted on
rubber. So, as the green wheel turns, the black lever pulls first one way and then the other, moving the brush up and down.
(You can read more about cams in our article on cranks and cams.)
The cam and gear unit is connected to a gear built into the top
of the
motor, so the motor drives it directly. Underneath the motor, there's a rechargeable battery.
Attached to the inner plastic case,
there's a simple electric circuit board that controls the on/off
switch on the outer case. The outer case is made of tough
plastic and
the on-off switch is set into it in a piece of thin, very flexible
rubber. The purpose of the outer case is to keep water and toothpaste away
from the circuit, motor, and battery—which would quickly rust if you
got them wet.
And that's pretty much all there is to it—a bit of clever, effective engineering
technology that keeps your teeth in tip-top shape!
What's the difference between a sonic toothbrush and an ordinary electric one?
Sonic toothbrushes work just like ordinary ones: they move back and forth over the surface of your teeth at high speed, scrubbing away the plaque. But they also have an extra cleaning action that makes them more effective.
As we saw up above, in a normal electric toothbrush, the very top part of the brush rotates back and forth thanks to a little cam unit just above the motor. The rest of the brush head is stationary. You can see a conventional electric brush head (actually a special one designed for cleaning the spaces in between your teeth) in the top of this photo. The removeable brush head contains a little spring mechanism that lets the brush part turn back and forth, but the rest of the head remains static.
A sonic toothbrush buzzes over your teeth at much higher speed than a normal electric toothbrush, not only brushing away the plaque but also creating waves of turbulence in the toothpaste and water in your mouth. Tiny bubbles form in the space between the toothbrush and the teeth, and these help to shift more plaque than brushing alone. So, when you're using a sonic toothbrush, it helps if you have quite a bit of fluid near your toothbrush. Then you can actually feel an energetic sensation around your teeth as the pressure waves created by the brush do their work!
The head from a sonic toothbrush (seen in the lower part of the photo) is just like an ordinary manual toothbrush. Unlike a standard electric toothbrush, it doesn't contain a rotating mechanism. The whole brush head vibrates—and this can make sonic toothbrushes a little more tricky to use at first.
This article from Animated Teeth tells you more about how sonic toothbrushes work.
Do sonic toothbrushes work and are they worth paying for?
Don't trust the "customer reviews" expressed on websites selling electric toothbrushes. It looks to me like quite a few of these are submitted by people who work for the toothbrush makers!
I've tried normal brushes, electric brushes, and sonic ones.
Electric brushes get your teeth far cleaner than normal ones, and I definitely prefer my sonic brush.
But I suspect it's a matter of preference.
My own opinion, for what it's worth, is that if you use an ordinary electric brush properly, and floss your teeth as well, there's not a great deal of benefit to be gained from going sonic, especially given the considerable extra cost of a sonic brush.
But if you can afford it, give it a go.
