West African Hackers turn trash into treasure with 3D printer built from e-waste
"What’s a hackerspace doing in West Africa? And can it really build a sub-$100 3D printer out of discarded e-junk? “The better question is why hasn’t anyone thought to set up a hackerspace before now” says Afate Gnikou, one of the principal members of Woelab, a hackerspace based in Togo, West Africa. With prototypes already printing parts for the next generation of machines, Gnikou and his colleagues at Woelab are close to realizing their goal of creating a 3D printer which can to turn the region’s growing piles of imported e-waste from an environmental problem into an economic asset. "
SNIP
"But beneath its MacGyyver-esque appearance lurks a rather well-engineered machine. It doesn’t set any speed records, and it seems to need a bit more frequent fine-tuning than a store-bought unit but most of the samples it produced appeared to be at least as well-formed and sturdy as one would get from a standard Prusa printer. Afate said that he expects that the final design which will be released for general use will have additional refinements which will improve print quality and reduce the amount of tinkering a user will have to do in order produce it."
"Woelab has several other projects underway which use Maker-type technologies to create tools which address some of the region’s unique problems and opportunities. These include an Arduino-controlled water-conserving irrigation system and implementing an African version of the OmNom plastic recycling system."
Whole article from Lee Goldberg at Engineer Design News at:
http://edn.com/electronics-blogs/diy-zone/4432977/Hackers-turn-trash-into-treasure-with-open-source-3D-printer-built-from-e-waste-?&elq=4612371b2d414167bee4eea50b6e524a&elqCampaignId=18469
