3D printing technology is different from traditional manufacturing methods. It is a continuation of digital manufacturing of intelligent jewelry design. Traditional manufacturing belongs to "subtractive manufacturing", while 3D printing technology is "additive manufacturing", which is a technology that uses metal or plastic and other related materials to form objects by accurately adding materials layer by layer according to computer digital models.
The progress of 3D printing technology in the gold jewelry industry has impacted the traditional jewelry production model. At present, there are two main technical solutions for 3D printing applied to the jewelry industry. One is the 3D printing technology that directly prints out precious metal entities, namely laser sintering technology. It is an additive manufacturing process based on 3D CAD design, using a 3D CAD file as a digital information source and energy setting, and a high-power laser beam to sinter very small metal powder layers into a three-dimensional component. The other is to use 3D printed wax models (Projet technology) and resin models (DLP/SLA technology) and adopt the lost wax casting process. This solution improves the speed and accuracy of the wax model making process, which is the most critical process in the traditional jewelry manufacturing process, and can achieve rapid mass production. Whether 3D printing technology is used directly or indirectly in jewelry manufacturing, it will simplify the current jewelry production process and promote the development of the industry towards personalized, refined, and digital intelligent manufacturing.
At present, the jewelry industry mainly uses 3D printing wax model technology, which uses lost wax casting technology with a process accuracy of up to micron level. Through professional 3D design software systems, online interactive systems, material libraries, model libraries, display platforms, etc., the database resources in the system are used to independently select and design jewelry, quickly generate product elements, and after the product order is generated, a high-resolution 3D printer is used to print it into a wax model, and then the lost wax casting process is used for production, which can restore the design style in detail and quickly respond to market demand.