Which is Faster – Resin Casting Or 3D Printing?

In this Robert Tolone video, he wonders how much difference in production time between casting 3 simple models or 3D printing them (all on the same print bed).

As he points out, this is a very variable-dependent question, but he tries to simplify everything with a 3-up casting mold and 3-up printing.

His conclusion is that, while there is a lot more set-up time with resin casting, once you have the mold box(es) made, you can easily make six casts in an hour versus one hour for each of the three models on the bed (so, over 3 hours for three models).

Of course, if you scaled up with a 3D print farm, you could eventually catch up, but he claims he could do a 100-run casting in around 5 hours. You’d need a lot of printers to match that.


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