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After visiting the Lightweight Aggregate Company, we then went to C.H.I.P.S Investment Casting Inco.

The acronyms of C.H.I.P.S are: C Certified, H Honorable, I Innovative, P Precise, S Systematic.


This company is situated on the following address: No. 19, Zhongshan Rd, Tucheng District, New Taipei
City, 23680. It was founded in 1982 by Chung Ho in Taipei County, then in 1984 moved to Tucherng
Industrial Zone, New Taipei City.
We were lucky to have the owner of the company introduce the company to us at first. The company use
investment casting to manufacture products from metal. They produce 3 main lost wax products
categories which are auto & motorcycle parts (26%), weapon parts (24), medical supplies parts (19%),
and other products: machining parts, computer parts, telecommunication components, aero parts,
hardware parts, sewing machine parts and valve parts. He told us that they have developed more than 10
thousands parts from 30 different materials, and they are trying to invent a new product.
Investment casting is one of the oldest manufacturing processes, dating back thousands of years, in which
investment castings are produced from molten metal. Investment castings are typically selected because
they can be produced with fine detail, excellent "as-cast" surface finish, shape into internal or external
features, thin walls, and internal passageways to get to a near-net shape. Investment casting is often
referred to as "lost-wax casting" because the wax pattern is melted out of the mold after it has been
formed. This often leads to significant cost savings in material, labor and machining.

Fig.1 Investment Casting


Here are the companys investment casting material metals: Stainless Steel, Alloy Steel (Carbon Steel &
Low Alloy Steel (Mo-Cr Steel Ni-Cr-Mo Alloy), Heat-Resisting Steel, Bearing Steel, Bronze (Aluminum

Bronze, Tin Bronze and Silicon Bronze), Cobalt Based Alloys (Cobait6, Stellite6 (Low Fe)), Tool Steel,
Fe-Si Alloy (Fe-3%Si), Aluminum- Alloy and Copper Alloy.
The companys lost wax investment casting process: They took us from room to room observing the
whole process of investment casting. The first step in the investment casting process is to produce a wax
replica of the desired part. This is accomplished by using a computer program to design the mold flow,
gate and tooling, and also by injecting wax into a die cavity. After injection, the wax replica is removed
from the injection tool. Parts are inspected for tolerance and then cleaned for assembly. Replicas are wax
welded to a central sprue or cluster to facilitate pouring. Many replicas are attached to sprues for
increased efficiency. The wax pattern tree is alternately dipped into a ceramic slurry (aluminum oxide and
zircon) and sprinkled with stucco material, part of this step is automated, and is allowed to dry. Both the
shell building and drying takes about 48 60 hours for one process. This process is repeated 6 times until
a thick shell, of about 6 10 mm, is created over the wax pattern. Water steam is used to melt out the wax
leaving a hollow ceramic shell that acts as a one-piece mold, hence the name "lost wax" casting. The
mold is preheated in a furnace to approximately 11000 C before its cavity is poured with molten metal.
Pouring is typically achieved manually under the force of gravity. After solidification and cooling, the
shell is broken away, parts are cut from the sprue, and the gating material removed (smoothing). The parts
are then taken for quality control: measurements & adjusting and straightening, and for packing and
shipping.

Fig.2 Investment Casting Process

The inspection equipments which they use include: Spectrometer, 3D CMM, Optical profile projector,
Universal Testing Machine and Hardness Tester.

Fig.2 Inspection Equipments

Throughout the whole process only shell is not recycled, otherwise they recycle the gating material after
parts are removed.
Here is why C.H.I.P.S chose lost-wax casting method: 1) Near Net Shape-Uses metal economically and
reduces after-cast machining, 2) Close Tolerances-Cast as an average tolerance of +-0.15mm or better,
which decreases the need for after-cast straightening, 3) Excellent Surface Finish-Can be used as cast, 4)
Cast in Detail-Capable of including holes and lettering, lower the need for costly machining, 5) Design
Freedom-Allows simple or complex design, including intricate internal configuration, 6) Wide Alloy
Choice-Offers a broad range materials, and 7) Tooling Economy-Requires lower-cost tolling cost to high
quality parts.

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