Lost foam casting is a kind of precision casting process, also known as gasifying casting, full mold casting, no cavity casting. The dimensional accuracy of the process is within 0.2mm and the surface roughness is ra5 μ m～Ra6 μ m. It is known as "new casting technology in the 21st century" and "green engineering of casting".

Lost foam casting process, simply speaking, is to use fusible materials to make a model which can melt and disappear. After the model is vaporized at high temperature, the molten metal is poured in it, and the shell is removed after cooling to get the casting.

With the rapid development of 3D printing technology, combined with the application of computer technology, the 3D design drawing of products can be directly imported into the equipment, and the casting prototype can be directly obtained to replace the traditional wax mold. From the structure design and process formulation of investment castings to the design and manufacture of pressing mould and wax mold forming, great changes have been brought to the production of investment castings.

In the traditional investment casting, the wax mold needs mold. The production of small batch of complex parts is faced with the problems of high cost, long cycle and design verification is difficult to modify repeatedly. These problems will be changed in the use of 3D printing rapid precision casting, and the rapid production of castings will be realized.

What is sla3d printing rapid precision casting?

SLA (stereo lithography appearance) is a kind of technology with high precision and good molding quality in 3D printing process. Using SLA light curing 3D printing technology to directly print resin mold instead of traditional casting wax mold for casting production can save wax mold opening. It is a rapid prototyping technology that can meet the requirements of precision and surface quality of casting industry at the same time, with high success rate, And more environmentally friendly.

Principle of SLA UV curing 3D printing technology:

With UV as light source and liquid photosensitive resin as raw material, the sample printing is made layer by layer under the control of computer according to the cross-section data of three-dimensional graphics. The light cured prototype used for precision casting must be made into hollow shape. After printing, the uncured resin is poured out to form a hollow shape, the resin outlet is sealed, and then the wax gating system is installed to make the shell. The evacuated prototype with wall thickness of 0.6 mm can be made into thin sheet state, which can be volatilized and gasified during firing, and can completely reach the impurity free state. It is an ideal casting process, suitable for high strength, large size, high precision parts casting production.