For moderate quantities of castings (orders for 200 to 300), PERFECT-3D has developed a rapid process for designing, printing, and testing wax injection dies.

Challenge – PERFECT-3D was approached to produce a small engine throttle body used by a manufacturer of consumer internal combustion engines. The challenge was to produce ten aluminum castings delivered in weeks without hard tooling.

Engineering reviewed the model with our foundry partner. The review determined we needed a multi-piece design. The design for additive manufacturing was completed in just days.

The design was processed for 3D-printing of the die components using a material with high thermomechanical properties and excellent detail and surface finish resolution.

 

Production – Die components were printed in one of PERFECT-3Ds DLP printers overnight. Production completed in a matter of days including detail finishing. Inspection was conducted and dies were assembled and delivered to the foundry for wax injection.

 

 

The foundry used their in-house wax room to generate the patterns using their standard processes. These patterns from 3D-printed injection dies did not need the level of finishing required for 3D printed wax patterns. The patterns were then used in their standard investment casting process to generate throttle body castings in A356 aluminum. There were finished, inspected, and delivered to our customer in just 4 weeks.

Turn time from design to completion allowed our customer to complete testing and evaluate design in record time utilizing the Additive Die Manufacturing process. Using the process allows for rapid turnaround, low-cost tooling that allows less expensive alternatives for design iterations.