Colibrium Additive unveils Point Melt, Powder Supports and Plate Free

Colibrium Additive – a GE Aerospace company – has unveiled EBMControl 6.4, a significant upgrade to its core electron beam melting (EB-PBF) software.

EBMControl 6.4 comprises three significant innovations: Point Melt, Powder Supports and Plate Free and is commercially available from today for customers running Colibrium Additive Spectra L printers and the new Spectra M printer launched at RAPID+TCT 2024.

“Much anticipated by our customers and with them in mind, we are delighted to be releasing EMBC 6.4 at RAPID this year. We continuously evolve our EB-PBF printers to take them to the next level. With the additive industry’s largest team of electron beam additive experts, we are dedicated to helping our customers unlock the full potential of EB-PBF technology,” said Oscar Angervall, senior product manager, Colibrium Additive.

Point Melt

Point Melt technology, melts metal powder through small "points" instead of lines, enables a more accurate temperature as well as reducing temperature gradients through the printing of a part.

Offering excellent isotropic material properties independent of build direction, including a significant increase in yield strength, Point Melt allows for freedom of orientation. Parts made with Point Melt demonstrate excellent surface roughness, on par with laser powder bed fusion.

“Controlled with adaptive software algorithms, Point Melt marks a step change in melt strategy. Metal parts can benefit from a reduction of support needed to build overhangs and an improved surface quality,” added Angervall.

Powder Supports

Powder Supports are a new solution for supporting parts during the build. The enlarged process window enabled by Point Melt functionalities significantly reduces or eliminates the number of support structures needed, while Powder Supports retain the excellent dimensional accuracy of line melt with supports. For customers, the new tool aims to reduces post-processing costs.

“For the aerospace and medical industries, we can now print smaller parts, such as a femoral knee implant, fully without traditional supports, which reduces post-processing cost and time. For some components this application will drastically improve the business case for customers,” continued Angervall.

Plate Free

Plate Free is an alternative to conventional ‘Start Plate Heating’ and offers a more cost effective, hands-off way to start a build. During the Plate Free start, powder is gradually sintered to a point where parts can be built on top, bringing a range of advantages around quality and cost. These include:

- Decreased machine turn-around times and less operator dependencies.

- Reduced risk of contamination, longer cathode lifetime.

- The possibility to start several builds per machine turnaround.

- Eliminating one heavy, spacious, and expensive consumable.

In addition, Plate Free versus Start Plate Heating is set with themes, therefore requires no effort to swap between builds.