Towards the end of last year I wrote about South African inventor and chocolatier par exellence Hans Fouche, a man who has been at the forefront of 3D print tech for some years. When I interviewed Hans at his factory, I was really impressed by his hand built machines capable of printing chocolate designs to more or less any specification or request.Oddly enough, though, I hadn’t planned to write about chocolate at all when I met Fouche. A few weeks prior to my factory tour, he’d told me about a 3D printer he had built that was the size of his garage. When I interviewed him, however, that printer wasn’t working – but the magnificent chocolate factory more than made up for it.Now, Hans sends word that not only is his garage sized printer up and running, but he’s using it to spew out enormous designs far beyond the realm of possibility for your humble MakerBots et al. In fact, he’s even printed the entire frame for a RepRap Morgan – yet another South African 3D print innovation we’ve featured extensively here.
Why is this a big deal? Because the dream of the entire RepRap project is to make a 3D printer that doesn’t require ‘vitamins’ – those extra parts like nuts and bolts that you have to buy when assembling current designs – so that if you have one printer, you can make as many more as you need. As far as we’re aware, the Morgan frame Fouche has printed is the most complete chassis yet.
According to Fouche, it only took seven and a half hours to print the entire Morgan frame in three parts, and unbelievably, it’s solid enough to use as-is without any extra reinforcement. Compare that to the two weeks or so it took me to print out enough parts to make a Morgan using a normal size printer. Among other things Fouche has printed so far include wheels for a wheelbarrow, ladies shoes, flip flops and a fully working briefcase. Because of the size of the printer and the feedstock used, Fouche’s invention creates thick, rope-like patterns in every layer – an aesthetic which he’s hoping to use when he commercialises the design, printing designer ‘things’ at a previously unimagined scale.
