Mar. 20, 2015 | By Simon
Last time we heard from South Africa’s Quinton Harley, he was busy finalizing the details on his RepRap Morgan 3D printer and also celebrating the win of the Gada Prize for Innovation. The 3D printing enthusiast and builder is one of a few South Africans who are helping lead the next generation of Makers in the area who are helping push the movement forward.
Now, the former telecoms engineer has just revealed his latest design that he based off of his original Morgan 3D printer: the Mega Morgan.
The 1.1m tall 3D printer is considerably larger than the previous RepRap Morgan Pro - which stands a mere 700 mm high compared to it’s new sibling. At its widest, the RepRap Morgan Pro featured a print bed that measured 380x220mm. The Mega Morgan’s print bed measures in at a much larger 800x500mm.
Harley originally designed the larger Mega Morgan specifically for a customer who wanted to create 3D prints of shop signage that the size of the print bed of the original Morgan just simply couldn’t handle. To create the larger Morgan, Harley simply scaled up all of the part sizes of the original Morgan design and after some testing, realized that the Mega Morgan worked flawlessly. Since the RepRap Morgan is an open source project, all of the part files were readily available - even though he was the original source creator.
An early prototype of the original Morgan
The Mega Morgan also features an interchangeable printhead for owners to be able to easily switch between .4mm or 1mm nozzles that can print more quickly. Harley included this feature so that those that don’t need higher resolutions with their prints will be able to print complete models more quickly for prototyping purposes.
It comes with little surprise that the affordable Morgan 3D printers have been quite popular internationally. While its print quality is on-par to other RepRap-style 3D printers, it uses an unusual extending Scara arm to control the print head and extrude plastic.
Although the Mega Morgan is considerably large for a 3D printer, Harley has already received another order from a customer who wants an even larger 3D printer - which based on history Harley will surely build.
Regardless of how big (or perhaps one day, small) the Morgan becomes, Harley's vision for the 3D printer lineup hasn't seemed to change.
"RepRAP Morgan is all about a dream," said Harley.
"A dream to make it easy for anyone in South Africa, or anywhere else in the world to build a 3D printer without needing exceedingly expensive materials, hard to find components, stuff that has to be shipped at sometimes more than the cost of the components, requiring advanced tools. Morgan is to be a tool for creation, not a toy or end product. It should be used in education, and must be affordable and safe enough for school kids to use."
For those interested, Harley will be adding pre-made Mega Morgans to his existing product line for around R40 000 (or $3,322). The standard Morgan 3D printer currently costs less than half of that at R15 999 (or $1,329).
Posted in 3D Printers
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