OpenHardwarecoza

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'About OpenHardware.co.za' OpenHardware.co.za is a South African organisation aimed at promoting the use and development of opensource hardware in South Africa specifically:


Community

Involvement with the following organisations enable us to find projects and developers, market Open Source and interact with the community:

  • http://www.house4hack.co.za - South Africa's largest Hackerspace, meeting each Tuesday in Centurion and Wednesdays in Randburg. This is the birthplace of OpenHardware.co.za. In late 2011 Peter van der Walt joined House4Hack (then still in its infancy) - initially involved in the Electronics wing, later hosting the Reprap courses from approx March 2012 onwards. In March 2013 we moved down to Kwa-Zulu Natal and opened the first House4Hack outside of the Gauteng Province
  • http://reprap.harleystudio.co.za - While hosting the reprap courses at House4Hack - we needed some help printing all the parts. Queue Quentin Harley... He just joined House4Hack as well, did not own a printer yet. We gave him a Ecksbot-ZA to use to print parts for our courses from the comfort of his own home (Named Ecks0) - which he was then free to use to prototype RepRap Morgan on. Quentin later bought Ecks0 from us as a memoir. Quentin's Morgan went on to win the Interim Gada Prize - An achievement we are very proud of, we carry a special place for Morgan because of our involvement in realizing the dream
  • http://TheMakerSpace.co.za - After a while of hosting KZN House4Hack in borrowed venues, we joined forces with the theMakerSpace.co.za and moved into their venue in Uhmlali where we meet each Thursday night.

Highlights:

  • Ran a Printrbot Build course in August 2012: 16 kits sold in 3 days
  • Ran a Ecksbot Build course in October 2012: 22 kits sold
  • Developed our own Reprap electronics: [[1]] - Based on the Gen 7 - but with dual extruders, LCD and SD support on a expansion shield. By 5 Jan 2014 over 100 of the controllers have been sold/built/used
  • Designed a Open Source CNC - active project launching very soon: [[2]]
  • Designed and currently building three open source Laser Cutters: [[3]] - 100w units
  • Designed a cheap, South Africanised Linear Rail System: LaZaRail

Reprap Developments

  • Our fork of the Eckertech Ecksbot: Called Ecksbot-ZA has gone through a year and a half of improvements, with most of the precision parts replaced with lasercut metal
  • Designed a Hotend based on the JHead that we now manufacture locally
  • Prototyping an all metal, dual nozzle hotend: Printanator
  • Assisted Traumflug by developing LCD/SD support for the Gen7: [[4]]