The Cheetah 3D printer from Hans Fouche! You’ve already heard a lot about Hans’s enormous 3D printer, capable of printing (almost) entire vacuums and lawnmowers, as well as a fashionable pair of shoes. Well, the Cheetah 3D printer 3.1 is now officially for sale and at a price that undercuts many large-scale 3D printers.
For 100,000 South African Rand (about $8,533 USD), you can purchase the super fast, super big Cheetah 3.1 and jump into the world of large-scale 3D printing. The Cheetah is capable of printing objects up to a cubic meter in volume (1 x 1 x 1 m or about 3.3′ x 3.3′ x 3.3′). Using an 8 mm nozzle, instead of the typical 3 or 4 mm hotend, Hans’s garage-sized printer fabricates objects quickly. Estimating that his printer is about 10x faster than most desktop machines, Hans says that it only took him about 4 to 5 hours to 3D print his lawnmower. For comparison, my own RepRap could only create a large bust in that amount of time. And, though an 8 mm nozzle increases the striation between printed layers, the Cheetah can also be equipped with standard nozzles, if you’re hoping for a slow, smooth print.
Compared with other large-scale printer, Hans is making a pretty good deal, in terms of price-to-size ratio, for the Cheetah. Other machines in the same league as the Cheetah might be the BigRep ONE.2, the 3DP1000 from 3DP Unlimited, and the Part Daddy from SeeMeCNC. I’m not sure that the Part Daddy, a delta printer with a print bed of 4 ft in diamter and can printer objects 11 feet high, is currently for sale, as of yet. The BigRep has a similar print volume to the Cheetah at 1100 x 1067 x 1097 mm, but a much higher price tag of $39,000. At almost twice the price ($16,699), the 3DP1000 from 3DP Unlimited has a build volume of 1 m x 1 m x 0.5 m (39″ x 39″ x 19″).
As fast and large and reasonably priced as the Cheetah might be, the best thing about the printer is, if you do happen to buy one, you’ll get the warm and friendly customer service of an eccentric South African inventor. And maybe even some custom chocolates? For the complete specs of the Cheetah 3.1, see below, or, to purchase, visit the Fouche 3D Printing site.
