RoboBeast: a tough guy in the 3D printing industry

The South African inventor Richard van As declares that the problem with the popular and affordable 3D printers in the market is that they are too fragile to be of much use in the field. Actuated by this fact, he has built RoboBeast, a RepRap-derivative 3D printer.

A carpenter by trade, van As, lost four fingers on his right hand in a work-related accident. After this personal tragedy, he collaborated with an American inventor to create RoboHand, a prosthetic hand made of 3D printed parts.

RoboHand parts were dispatched to people who were injured during the civil war and couldn’t afford other forms of prosthesis. This was when van As discovered that low cost printers were finicky. Broken parts and requirement of maintenance after printing few pieces became a nuisance. In order to enable a clinic in a desolated area to produce RoboHands, van As needed a printer which was bulletproof and capable of being knocked around without losing its ability to print.

This is when RoboBeast was invented. It has an aluminum frame with laser cut perspex sheets protecting the electronics. The print bed has the dimensions of 300x400x400mm. The print nozzle adjusts its movement automatically. The added features is that you can move the printer or change its orientation while it’s printing with zero impact of the disturbance on the quality of the print. RoboBeast is designed to run on a battery pack and comes with a solar charger for the same purpose. The battery can last up to five hours which is enough to print the parts of an adult RoboHand. Definitely, the total makeover of the 3D printer renders it way more expensive than any other currently popular 3D printers. Nevertheless, it solves the purpose like none other and the first RoboBeast machine is up and running.