You Say Electrobeam Freeform Fabrication. I Say 3D Metal Manufacturing Magic, So There.

3D slicin’ spiders are cool and all, but how would you like to harness the power of VACUUMS… and LASERS? Well, guess what, some fancy group called ‘NASA’ has done just that.

The claim is they can melt certain heat-sensitive metals layer-by-layer into parts, with advantages of decreasing waste and forming it around electronics or other materials. Sound Cool? It is, it’s very cool and just one more way in which the future part of your 3D designing world is gonna be hung over a railing and shaken vigorously by the legs.

The technology is called Electrobeam Freeform Fabrication (EBF3)…

In reality, EBF3 works in a vacuum chamber, where an electron beam is focused on a constantly feeding source of metal, which is melted and then applied as called for by a drawing—one layer at a time—on top of a rotating surface until the part is complete. – _NASA

There are just two key components, which is where a lot of you come in – A 3D model and materials that can be melted by an electron beam. I’m sure you have both laying around. So anyway, this was actually revealed in 2008 around May. To catch up on the news you can read more on EBF3 or see Tech Seminar videos on the topic here.

So, who do you think is gonna be the first ShapeWays or Ponoko of Electrobeaming?

via Gizmodo. Thanks Ben!

Tagged as: EBF3, Electron Beam Freeform Fabrication, Manufacturing Magic, nasa technology