Xaar Enables ZCZH to 3D Print Wax Patterns for Investment Casting

Xaar has spent years embedding its print heads inside other manufacturers' machines, and the latest collaboration points in an unexpected direction. The British company is working with Chinese firm ZCZH, also known as Foshan Zhongcheng Wisdom Technology and Cprint, on a wax jetting system for investment casting. The machine uses Xaar's Nitrox high-laydown print heads, which are built to handle high-viscosity fluids and packed with 1,000 nozzles across a 70 mm head.

Investment casting has used 3D printed wax patterns for a long time, but most of the established solutions come from 3D Systems and Flashforge. ZCZH's entry adds another competitor in a market that moves slowly but rewards reliability. The company previously produced large-scale casting-targeted machines that made parts like ship propellers and structural components. Wax is a narrower application, but it opens doors to automotive, aerospace, machine tools, and medical devices.

The appeal is speed. Traditional wax pattern production involves molds, manual finishing, and multiple steps. A droplet-based inkjet process can drop a pattern directly, reducing lead time and post-processing work. For shops that run thousands of castings a year, that difference adds up.

Samual Tam, General Manager at Xaar Asia, said the project demonstrates how industrial inkjet can graduate from prototyping to production. Precise droplet control and stable long-duration jetting are the key requirements for wax, where any inconsistency shows up as a defect in the final metal part.

Not every foundry is ready to digitize. Space constraints, tolerance requirements, and material preferences still favor traditional methods in many places. But the market for wax 3D printing is warming. More competitors mean faster iteration, lower prices, and wider acceptance. For Xaar, the deal is another proof point that enabling other machine builders is a better growth strategy than selling printers under its own name.