Casting is a manufacturing technique, which involves the process of pouring a liquid material into a mold cavity to harden it into desired shapes. The finished product obtained from the mold is subjected to a number of finishing treatments in order to make it strong and highly durable. Investing casting and die casting are two of the most common metal shaping processes used by die casting companies.
Many customers often ask die casters that which die casting process would be the perfect choice for them. There is no simple answer to this question, but the closest response would be that it depends on what you are looking for in the final product. If you were in confusion, below are a few simple tips, which will help you select the right die casting process for your company.
Design Complexity
The design complexity you want for the finished product will play a crucial role in the selection of a die casting process. If you are looking for a highly complex finished product with incredible design flexibility, then it is wiser to choose investment casting. This is because investment casting enables die casters to cast intricate shapes and incorporate design features like logos and other details into the product with ease. Although die casting also provides good dimensional results, but they are not capable of producing the level of intricacy that investment casting can.
Material Selection
One of the major advantages of choosing investment casting is that die casters will be able to use a wide range of alloys including non-ferrous and ferrous metals. This implies that investment casting offers greater material options than die casting. So, if you were looking to cast a wide variety of metals and alloys that can cause challenges to die casting machines, it would be better to go with investment casting. However, die casting does offer a superior quality finished product, which means that if you want to cast just zinc, magnesium, copper, and such metals, then die casting would be the perfect choice.
Cost of Casting
Investment casting costs a lot more than die casting, as it is a highly manual process. However, it does produce finished products with excellent surface finishes and superior dimensionality. Investment casting can be easily designed for minimal machining, which in turn reduces both cost and time. On the other hand, die casting has higher tooling costs and it usually requires the help of a few secondary machining to efficiently complete the casting process. These attributes make die casting a cost-efficient casting choice for high volume runs.