The ever-growing maker community often shows a preference toward customizing their equipment, as shown by such movements as RepRap, wherein users can make their own 3D printers. Integrating software -- to slice, control movement, etc. -- is often the trickier part of the process, compared to constructing the hardware components. The Photon Elephant from Texas-based Photon Elephant LLC eliminates the need for an Arduino board, integrating linux into the printer itself and using the Raspberry Pi's GPIO pins to drive the motor controllers directly. The company built an SDK so hackers and makers can customize their setup to their heart's content. The Photon Elephant has just launched on Kickstarter, where the goal is to raise $10,000 in funding by February 12th to fully launch this bundle of hardware and software which will control almost any Cartesian-based 3D printer. Check out more details about this innovative product: http://3dprint.com/37160/photon-elephant-3d-print/


Below is a photo of the Photon Elephant board: