Xaar's Nitrox Printheads Enable ZCZH Wax 3D Printing for Investment Casting

Wax patterns for investment casting have mostly been made by a small set of established players. 3D Systems' Multi Jet Printing heads and Flashforge's WaxJet solution already cover the market. Now a Chinese firm called ZCZH, also known as Foshan Zhongcheng Wisdom Technology or Cprint, is entering the same space with Xaar's Nitrox printheads.

XCZH's history gives the move some context. The company was once referred to as China's ExOne, building large machines targeted at casting jobs for ship propellers and other heavy parts. Moving into wax jetting is a natural extension, but it targets a very different customer base: jewelry makers, dental labs, and precision engineering shops that need small, detailed wax patterns.

Why Xaar's Nitrox

The Nitrox head is a high-laydown, 1,000-nozzle design built for materials with higher viscosities. Wax jetting demands tight control over droplet size and repeatability, because any variation shows up on the final cast part. Xaar's Ultra High Viscosity technology lets the head push those materials without clogging or inconsistent flow.

Samual Tam, General Manager at Xaar Asia, framed the project as a shift from prototyping to manufacturing: "This project demonstrates how industrial inkjet can be used as a reliable manufacturing process rather than a prototyping tool."

Where it fits in the market

Investment casting is one of the oldest manufacturing processes and still one of the most widely used. Wax is popular because it melts out cleanly, leaving a clean cavity for metal. 3D-printed wax patterns cut days or weeks from the tooling timeline, especially for low-volume or complex parts.

The ZCZH system will compete with more than just inkjet alternatives. Vat polymerization casting resins, binder-jet ceramic cores, and even manual casting methods all vie for the same jobs. The deciding factors will be throughput, material range, installation footprint, and how much post-processing each process requires.

For now, ZCZH is emphasizing speed to market, shorter lead times, and less manual labor compared with traditional wax pattern production. If the Nitrox-based system delivers on those claims, it could give small foundries and custom shops a new alternative to the big incumbent systems.