Supporting Your Business Growth and Profitability with Industry Expertise
Investment casting is one of the world’s oldest manufacturing methods. Despite recent advances, it remains a manual process of pattern, mold, and casted part creation. Automation improvements in sprue assembly and shell building have streamlined mass production. Yet the requirement for tooling to deliver casting patterns is a barrier to fast part delivery and innovation. Digital processes and new investment casting technologies are poised to deliver massive time and cost savings. Workflows that took weeks can now be done in hours.
From the testing and iteration stages to the end-use metal components production, 3D Systems has developed advanced 3D printing solutions for scalable production of 100% wax or castable plastic patterns. These solutions offer a profitable way for foundries to achieve production-grade casted parts faster and more affordably than ever before, and to become increasingly responsive to customer requirements. 3D Systems’ digital foundry solutions eliminate the need for tooling to bring new agility and cost-effectiveness to investment casting pattern production and enable higher performing, more complex parts for casting in production volumes.
3D printed patterns are burned out into the standard investment casting process.
Addressing Investment Casting Patterns Manufacturing with 3D Printing
Customer Stories
3D Printing Solutions for Your Investment Casting Workflow
100% Wax Patterns in Hours Without Tooling
Developed for the investment casting professional, our wax MultiJet 3D printing solution produces small to mid-size 100% wax patterns at a significantly lower cost and in less time than traditional pattern production for low to medium-volume jobs. Delivering quality, accuracy and repeatability, it generates wax patterns that drop seamlessly into existing investment casting processes, with the same melt and burn-out characteristics of standard casting waxes. This solution is ideal for customized metal components, bridge manufacturing and low volume production.
High Quality, Lightweight Plastic Patterns in Hours
The QuickCast® build style is an SLA print methodology developed by 3D Systems to answer a pressing need for the investment casting industry. This highly productive solution offers all the benefits of legendary stereolithography for investment casting applications: smooth surfaces, high quality and resolution for complex geometries and exceptional accuracy. It creates small to extra-large lightweight, yet strong, castable plastic patterns that burn out with virtually no ash residue. 3D Systems’ castable resins are also available in antimony-free varieties, enabling more reactive metals like Titanium to be cast.
From Micro to Macro
Our 3D printers are able to produce finely detailed, high-resolution patterns in sizes ranging from just a few millimeters, all the way up to 1.5 meters long in one piece, minimizing the amount of assembly for larger patterns—all at the same exceptional resolution and accuracy, with virtually no part shrinkage or warping. Further, 3D Systems has seamless workflows for parts that exceed the build volume, guiding users through the sectioning and post-print joining steps needed to produce a perfect pattern, whatever its size.
Applications Consulting
Through our Application Innovation Group, we leverage years of investment casting and additive manufacturing expertise to help find optimized solutions for your applications. We help foundries establish their own 3D printing capabilities that reduce costs and ramp times. Through hands-on training and consultation—and the transfer of prequalified manufacturing processes to your site—our dedicated team works with you across every step, from pre-production to full-scale volume production.
Learn More About our Solutions for Investment Casting
ProJet MJP 2500 IC
Tool-less production of 100% wax casting patterns
VisiJet M2 ICast (MJP)
100% wax patterns for industrial investment casting
SLA 750
Industrial-scale additive manufacturing solution for stereolithography
Accura Fidelity (SLA)
Highly accurate, humidity/moisture resistant, antimony-free casting patterns
ProX 950
All the benefits of SLA 3D printing in extra-large format
Accura CastPro (SLA)
Highly accurate with excellent humidity/moisture resistance
Geomagic Control X
3D Inspection and Metrology Software
Accura ClearVue (SLA)
High clarity plastic, multitude of applications
Accura 60 (SLA)
Hard, clear plastic, aesthetics of molded polycarbonate (PC).
VisiJet Support Wax Remover (MJP)
Post-processing MJP material for wax patterns
Geomagic Design X
Reverse Engineering Software
ProJet 7000 HD
Mid-range integrated solution for SLA quality and accuracy
ProJet 6000 HD
Affordable access to renowned SLA quality in a smaller footprint