New Super Sturdy 3D Printer Comes to South Africa for under $500

I'm glad to see 3D printing start to catch on in places like South Africa. One company has built a 3D printer using sheets of steel, rather than steel rods (like the RepRaps). This saves money in Africa where the rods are more expensive. Thanks to a company named OpenHardware and a man named Peter van der Walt, this South Africans can now pre-order a quality 3D printer for under $500. See image below. Read more about this at http://3dprint.com/5586/south-africa-3d-printers/

http://3dprint.com/wp-content/upload...2-1024x680.jpg

What do you think of this design? Would you spend $500 for it?

This is one of the first commercial printers I've seen with the CoreXY system, and man does it look good.

From what I've seen the CoreXY repraps are crazy fast and accurate, I'd bet this thing has some great prints.

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Originally Posted by Feign

This is one of the first commercial printers I've seen with the CoreXY system, and man does it look good.

From what I've seen the CoreXY repraps are crazy fast and accurate, I'd bet this thing has some great prints.

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It doesn't look like it's CoreXY, it's an H-Bot... CoreXY would have the belts crossing. http://joshuavasquez.com/docs/jVasqu...ts/coreXY.html

Does look nice though.

A little bit of an update. The designer of this printer has done some test prints. and so far, they look great.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-z...o/IMGP9946.JPGhttps://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-S...o/IMGP9947.JPG
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-6...o/IMGP9954.JPG

I'm impressed they went with metal. It just makes me sad seeing plywood and acrylic used so heavily in budget machines. They just won't hold up as well.

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Originally Posted by JRDM

I'm impressed they went with metal. It just makes me sad seeing plywood and acrylic used so heavily in budget machines. They just won't hold up as well.

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True, but in some cases it's a cheaper way to get your first printer running. I went with a melamine frame for my i3 Rework build (that I'm starting today), but plan to upgrade it to Aluminum in the future.

Does anyone know where one can see a demo machine in Pretoria, I am quite interested in getting a machine. The test prints doesn't look that great according to me unfortunately but would love to see it in action as well as print something with the correct settings. Can't seem to find any detailed specs on the machine either.