Authorised Partner
3D Printing for Foundries
Reduce manufacturing costs and lead times while delivering more complex metal parts
Foundries are adopting additive manufacturing solutions to address growing industry pressures that range from digitalization and the need for faster, more complex geometry patterns and molds to foundry labor shortages. In the age of the digital foundry, these solutions offer streamlined manufacturing workflows with higher degrees of automation, improved operational efficiency, as well as significant time and cost savings.
3D Systems has decades of expertise in metal casting solutions development. While investment casting foundries have been using 3D printing to produce casting patterns for decades, sand casting shops have been taking advantage of additive manufacturing in the recent years. In both cases, we have developed specific and integrated additive manufacturing (AM) solutions that maximize your productivity, reliability, flexibility, and yield – delivering your customers high quality parts while reducing total cost of ownership (TCO).
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Grow your business and increase profitability opening the door to new designs and efficiencies with our turnkey 3D printing solutions
100%
integration into conventional casting processes
50-90%
cost reduction over conventional patterns
2 - 8x
faster component delivery
Patterns for Investment Casting
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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.
Addressing Investment Casting Patterns Manufacturing with 3D Printing
Rapid Order Fulfillment
Meeting demand and quality standards requires fast design iteration, customization, updates, and adjustments on the fly, as well as the capability to deliver expected volume production batches. Foundries highly responsive to customer demand will get the new contracts. 3D Systems solutions deliver cost-effective, high-quality 3D printed patterns with quick turnaround and high throughput at factory scale.
Design Complexity and Flexibility
The layer-by-layer build of 3D printed casting patterns means foundries can quickly and inexpensively deliver what were previously impossible or difficult to produce geometries. The combination of topology optimization, light weighting or assembly consolidation strategies with additive manufacturing of casting patterns means digital foundries can address the most challenging customer demand.
High Quality Castings
Variabilities in investment casting quality are caused by many factors, all of which can affect surface quality and accuracy. Our 3D printing solutions for investment casting produce high-fidelity and smooth surface finish patterns that are fully compatible with your processes. These result in accurate and high-quality metal castings with complete, ash-free pattern burn out.
Reduced Costs
Beyond eliminating tooling need, costing tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars and requiring storage space, reduced labor enabled by downstream compatibility with automation, minimized waste with high material efficiency, end-to-end 3D printing solutions, and reduced finishing with smooth pattern surfaces contribute to reduced cost per part.
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.
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.
Unlimited Design Freedom
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.
Patterns and Core Equipment for Sand Casting
The sand casting process is evolving thanks to the benefits and advantages offered by Additive Manufacturing (AM). By incorporating AM into your process, you can achieve faster, more cost efficient and more agile production of patterns and core boxes.
With 3D Systems additive manufacturing solutions and expertise, you can reduce production time for medium to large casting patterns from weeks to days without sacrificing size or design complexity.
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Solving Sand Casting Patterns and Cores Manufacturing Challenges with 3D Printing
Faster Time to Market
To be competitive, foundries and pattern shops must meet demands for fast production of patterns and core boxes, while still delivering high quality parts and the ability to adjust designs quickly and cost-effectively. 3D Systems solutions enable lights out manufacturing processes that can print a pattern quickly with pellet extrusion 3D printing and then machine the surface during or after the printing process for smooth, accurate patterns and core boxes.
The layer-by-layer build of 3D printed casting patterns means foundries can quickly and inexpensively deliver what were previously impossible or difficult to produce geometries. Additive technology enables the creation of hidden voids, internal struts and blind holes that are beyond the geometric limitations of 6-axis CNC tooling. Gating, runners, and sprues can also be included.
High Quality Castings
Maintaining dimensional accuracy and ensuring pattern durability are key to sand casting success and metal part quality. Our additive manufacturing solutions for sand casting use durable and affordable materials proven to run for thousands of cycles with almost no visible wear.
Reduced Costs
Beyond minimizing waste with additive manufacturing efficiency compared to traditional subtractive methods, our 3D printing solutions use the most cost-effective, yet durable materials. Labor is further reduced with lights out manufacturing capabilities, the ability to produce single-piece large patterns that don't require assembly, and minimized finishing with sooth pattern surfaces, all contributing to reduced cost per part.
Your Partner for 3D Printed Sand Casting Patterns and Core Boxes
We Offer Complete Solutions
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Powerful software for CAD design, reverse engineering, inspection and 3D printing
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Multiple 3D printing technologies that can deliver from complex geometries with outstanding surface finish, up to very large parts with the highest material deposition speeds
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Best-in-class materials, including a wide range of affordable, high performance pellets
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Tailored hardware to meet your needs, including pellet extrusion and hybrid additive + subtractive systems
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Large build capacities, up to 1.82m in length
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Ideal for large parts that would typically require extensive labor for assembly
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Seamless workflows for parts that exceed build volume
Applications Consulting
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Robust network of experts in the 3D Systems Application Innovation Group (AIG)
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Leverage AIG's years of sand casting and additive manufacturing experience
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Dedicated team provides hands-on training and consultation from ideation to implementation
Learn More About our Solutions for Sand Casting
EXT 800 Titan Pellet
Accessible high-speed industrial pellet extrusion 3D printer
The EXT 800 Titan Pellet makes 3D Systems’ high-speed pellet extrusion additive manufacturing technology accessible to organizations without the need or budget for one of our larger systems.
The EXT 800 will fit through standard double doors, enabling office or lab installation while still boasting a sizeable build volume of 800mm x 600mm x 800mm (31.5” x 21.6” x 31.5”).
High-speed, large format industrial 3D printer with CNC milling option
The EXT 1070 Titan Pellet (formerly Titan Atlas 2.5) is a large-format, high-speed industrial production system utilizing low-cost thermoplastic pellet feedstocks.
The EXT 1070's build volume of 1070mm x 1070mm x 1118mm (42”x42”x44”) enables production of full-scale medium-to-large size parts with no need for gluing pieces together.
EXT 1270 Titan Pellet
Large-Format High-Speed Industrial 3D Printer with CNC Milling Option
The EXT 1270 Titan Pellet (formerly Titan Atlas 3.6), 3D Systems’ largest printer, is a versatile and reliable industrial additive manufacturing system designed to leverage low-cost thermoplastic pellet feedstocks.
With a built volume of 1270mm x 1270 mm x 1829mm (50" x 50" x 72") the EXT 1270 can print most large parts in one piece, eliminating the need for gluing.
EXT Titan Pellet Materials
Broad selection of commercial, flexible, engineering grade and high-performance polymers for 3D printing.
3D Systems largest 3D printer capable of printing full-scale parts up to 6 feet tall with direct pellet-fed 3D printing