In recent years CAD/CAM has seen tremendous growth as an accepted technology in the jewelry industry. The design freedom engendered by these digital tools and the speed with which a precise and repeatable 3-D model can be produced is truly a revolution in jewelry manufacturing.

CAD has also become very affordable, and there now exist a growing variety of sophisticated output devices to create the 3-D models for casting. The term “rapid prototype,” or “RP” (referring to the industrial stage of development it first served), has been re-coined as a proper noun to describe these fabrication devices.

Ultimately, a high quality metal product is the objective. Yet thus far the relationship between RP models and investment casting outcomes has not been widely understood in the jewelry industry. To understand the design fitness of RP models, we performed a qualitative analysis of models generated by the different RP systems. We hope our results will help your company get up to speed on this exciting technology.

While there are a number of RP systems worldwide, we have limited the scope of our study to RP systems used primarily in the United States. We acknowledge that there are a small number of RP systems produced by Z-Corp, Objet, Stratasys, Sony Precision Systems, and others, which may be in use by jewelry manufacturers. The selection of systems explored in this article was based on popularity and on the number of U.S. domestic installations. It should also be acknowledged that there are several CAD systems bundled with subtractive milling products for jewelry production. Since this study compares additive fabrication (RP) systems, these products were also excluded from the study.

The four RP systems tested were the Solidscape T6x Benchtop 3D Printer (using the Sanders Process), which uses a low molecular weight thermoplastic for the build material, and the 3D Systems InVision HR 3D Printer, the 3D Systems Viper Si2 SLA, and the Envisiontec Perfactory Mini, all three of which use a curing photopolymer resin to build models.