3D Printer Made From E-Waste
A 33-year old African builds a 3D printer built almost entirely out of garbage...
We throw away millions of tons of electronic waste every year and barely manage to recycle more than 15-20%. Kodjo Afate Gnikou is a 33-year old African who built a 3D printer built almost entirely out of e-waste.
Using rails and belts from old scanners, the case of a discarded desktop computer and even bits of a floppy disk drive, he created what is believed to be the first 3D printer made from e-waste. With that and USD $100 worth of new bits that could not be found in the dump, Gnikou was able to make a working 3D printer. It has taken him several months to put together his experimental device. Lifting designs off a computer, the 3D printer produces physical objects. He shows by "printing" a small round container.
Gnikou started the project months ago on Ulule, a European crowdfunding sight, and had raised more than €4,000 to develop the idea. It was designed and built in WoeLab, which is the first hackerspace in western Africa. The printer is based on the classic Prusa Mendel, which they had available in the hackerspace.
The goal of the project was to create a 3D printer that is very easy to reproduce using majority of recycled components. In the end, they succeeded and it only cost $100 to manufacture. While it doesn't say what the purchased components are, it's safe to assume they would have to be the main driver boards, everything else could have been made from scraps.
His vision in the future is to send e-waste to Mars to create homes for future inhabitants. Far fetched? Maybe. But he did get into the NASA International Space Apps Challenge!
