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South African 3D printer goes on pre-order

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about RepRap Morgan, the innovative home-built 3D printer designed by Quentin Harley in Centurion which has the potential to bring down the cost of the technology to a properly affordable level. Morgan is a unique design in that it uses a 3D printed SCARA arm for manipulating the print head on the x and y axis and a solid pillar base, which makes it more stable and simpler to build that a conventional RepRap design based on the well known Prusa blueprints.

Good news just in, DIY kits for Morgan are available for pre-order at Open Hardware. The kit contains everything you need to build the machine, including the electronics and hotend for melting the plastic filament. At R6 999 this first batch is a bit more expensive than we were hoping, although it’s still cheaper than a Prusa kit (trust me on this…). Harley explains that the reason for this is the imported parts like the hotend and stepper motors, and the fact that many of the structural pieces are laser cut aluminium in this kit rather than the off-cuts of wood used in the original Morgan. Harley reckons that you could probably halve the price if you were sourcing the same components overseas.

Morgan has generated a lot of international interest, and has been submitted for the $20 000 GADA prize which encourages hackers to redesign the open source RepRap printer to make it more accessible. Interested? Pre-order a kit here: no timescale is given for shipping yet but should be decided before the end of the month.

Still think it’s expensive? Open Hardware will also be giving buyers access to build labs to help with putting together a Morgan kit in both Johannesburg and Durban, included in the price.

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