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222. Nvestment Casting Prototypes Pattern Production

There are many different processes in the rapid prototyping industry that are capable of producing an investment casting prototype pattern. These technologies include SLS?, SLA?, Ink-jet and 3D printers. The ink-jet and 3D printing technologies are limited by overall build chamber size and slow part building speeds. They are typically focused on producing small, high-resolution parts such as jewelry or larger parts where speed and overall part quality are not important. However, the majority of companies looking to take advantage of additive layer manufacturing processes to produce investment casting prototypes are interested in parts bigger than jewelry and in most cases, they require production-like quality. At Harvest Technologies, we have focused on both the SLS and SLA technologies to produce production-like investment casting prototypes for these types of customer requirements in mainstream industrial product companies, such as the automotive, aerospace, oil/gas and heavy equipment industries. Both the SLS and SLA technologies provide the unique ability to produce investment casting prototypes with a high degree of accuracy and quality. With our skilled technical staff, Harvest Technologies is also capable of building larger parts in multiple sections and then joining them in post-processing to produce large investment casting prototypes that would be difficult or impossible to do with any other pattern making method. There are some differences between the SLS and SLA processes and materials used in each. These differences should be taken into account when choosing the best process for your particular part size and geometry.

For investment casting prototypes in metal, the SLS CastForm? PS patterns are considered more “foundry friendly” than SLA QuickCast. This is because CastForm patterns can be autoclaved and easily burned out. CastForm is organic in composition, low in ash content and less likely to expand during burnout and thus break the surrounding shells causing loss of production, time and money. SLA QuickCast can produce larger, single-piece patterns with slightly better detail and surface finishing, but the QuickCast patterns require more experience and special processing to cast successfully in the foundry, thus there are far fewer investment casting foundries willing to work with this rapid prototyping pattern material. However, once a foundry defines and perfects a process for QuickCast, the results are generally very good and consistent.

Overall, Harvest Technologies’ skill and expertise in rapid prototyping provides you with a quality partner which you can trust for all of your investment casting prototypes. We are constantly striving to improve the processes involved in producing quality investment cast patterns, making adjustments in the build and finishing procedures for size and geometry complexity to further insure the final product meets with your requirements.