---
title: "3D Systems adds QuickCast Air to investment casting portfolio"
url: https://www.voxelmatters.com/3d-systems-adds-quickcast-air-to-investment-casting-portfolio/
date: 2024-09-05
modified: 2024-09-05
lang: en
author: "Edward Wakefield"
description: "3D Systems, a leading AM company, has expanded its investment casting portfolio with QuickCast Air - a tool designed to maximize material removal from the interior of casting patterns. This..."
categories:
  - "AM Software"
  - "Hybrid manufacturing"
  - "Product Launch"
tags:
  - "insights"
image: https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/3d-systems-quickcast-air-full-solution-1-scaled-e1725461099232-640x442.jpg
word_count: 454
---

# 3D Systems adds QuickCast Air to investment casting portfolio

[3D Systems, a leading AM company](https://www.voxelmatters.directory/company/3d-systems/), has expanded its investment casting portfolio with QuickCast Air - a tool designed to maximize material removal from the interior of casting patterns. This enables reduced material consumption, lower pattern costs, faster build times, cleaner burnout processes, and improved draining efficiency. As a result, end-users in [industries such as foundries](https://www.voxelmatters.com/foundry-lab-casting-metal-parts-for-power-management-company-eaton/), aerospace and defense, and energy can reliably deliver large, high-precision investment casting patterns at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional tooling and with no limitation on geometric complexity. QuickCast Air is already helping some of the company’s large-volume aerospace customers reduce the material consumption on their patterns by up to 50%. Additionally, customers are seeing a multi-hour reduction in build times.

QuickCast Air is available to 3D Systems’ customers [through its 3D Sprint software](https://www.voxelmatters.com/3d-systems-launches-3d-sprint-2-0-software-advance-productivity-3d-printing/). This feature, available via an annual subscription, allows customers to design casting patterns with fewer structures within the self-supporting walls. Using less resin and building more refined support structures results in less material needing to be burned out and thus less ash. Furthermore, having less internal structure makes it easier to drain the resin, thus retaining more within the vat during the draining process rather than being lost downstream. Within 3D Sprint, users can easily adjust the part’s shell thickness and add vents and drains on any surface -  simplifying part setup regardless of the build orientation.

![3D Systems adds QuickCast Air to investment casting portfolio - maximizing material removal from casting pattern interiors for cleaner burnout](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/sla-thumbnail.jpg)SLA 3D printed parts. Image credit: 3D Systems.

During investment casting, using traditional methods such as creating a wax injection tool is both time-consuming and expensive - often requiring several weeks and tens of thousands of dollars. In the mid-1990s, 3D Systems pioneered the creation of high-precision casting patterns using 3D printing - [introducing the manufacturing industry to QuickCast](https://www.voxelmatters.com/3d-systems-breathes-new-life-age-old-investment-casting-processes/). This 3D printed investment casting process enables manufacturers to produce lightweight, hollow parts with 3D Systems’ polymer technologies such as Stereolithography (SLA), or MultiJet Printing (MJP) that ultimately can be used to produce end-use metal components. QuickCast patterns are recognized as the leading type of additively manufactured high-precision pattern across the industry.

“Since 3D Systems introduced QuickCast more than two decades ago, we have continued to evolve this unique tool and the capabilities it provides,” said Patrick Dunne, VP of Advanced Applications at 3D Systems. “Our customer-centric approach to innovation fuels this transformation by closely aligning with their unique challenges. As with many of our products, QuickCast Air was born from a specific customer’s application requirements. I’m pleased that we are now able to bring this advanced tool to market thus refining the design and production of investment casting patterns. I’m looking forward to seeing how the adoption of QuickCast Air will continue to unlock design freedom and accelerate production timelines.”