South African inventor and engineer Hans Fouche never stops inventing. He is using his large size Cheetah 2 3D printer to seriously test the boundaries of local manufacturing, by 3D printing real everyday articles at an amazing pace. He uses them to show the capabilities of his 3D printer, using low cost ABS pellets.
Following hot on the heels of his recent 3D printed Car Jack, prototype one and two, Fouche has just released pictures and a video of the Cheetah’s latest creation: prototype 1 of an 3D Printed Acoustic Guitar. In fact there are lots of 3D printed electric guitars on the internet, but only a few acoustic ones.
“This is intentionally a dimensionally accurate copy of an existing wooden Yamaha guitar. The neck has been printed in solid ABS, and the soundbox was printed with two 3mm layers, to make for a 6 mm wall thickness. This means that the guitar weighs in at 3.5 kg, vs 2.2 kg of the wooden guitar,” he said, adding that “the design of the sound-box will be changed to a single skin and reinforcing webs for prototype 2, and some reinforcement, like carbon fiber rods, to make the neck stiffer will also be considered for prototype 2”.
The sound quality on this video is not very good, but it shows that this is a real guitar, and not a toy. Fouche assures that more videos will be uploaded to YouTube in the coming days, with better sound recordings, and also with this guitar playing with a normal wooden guitar for comparison
Hans Fouche also points out that the real story here is the capability of the Cheetah 3D Printer to produce real everyday articles directly from pellets. These are the same pellets that are used for injection moulding machines, and can be bought directally from wholesalers in 25 kg bags. The price difference is huge between pellets and filament. That cost reduction, plus the 3mm nozzle size of the Cheetah, makes all the difference. The Standard Cheetah can print up to 600 grams of material per hour, and the larger model can go up to 2000 gram per hour. Most other 3D Printers uses a 0.5 mm nozzles, and print a maximum of 60 grams per hour. This makes the Cheetah’s printing material ten times cheaper and the flowrate 10 times faster.
Along with improving his hardware, Fouche has definitely improved his communication and marketing abilities. Creating a story to promote a product is what I generally suggest as the number one skill to obtain visibility with relatively low investments. Hans has become a master at this, especially since the one primary question of all 3D printing is: what can we use this amazing technology for?
So what do you thing he should print next with the Cheetah?
If you have a good idea, he asks that you contact him at [email protected]. Some wild and funny ideas are welcome, as well as serious business propositions to work with him on. Think big.
