Source: Vector 3D, via the Sanjay Mortimer Foundation

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Huxley Under the Hammer

Own a Slice of 3D Printing History in SMRRF’s Online Auction

by Matthew Mensley
Published Dec 5, 2024

The Sanjay Mortimer RepRap Festival is coming up and with it, a charity auction featuring a one-of-a-kind 3D printer.

This coming weekend in sunny Manchester, England, the Sanjay Mortimer RepRap Festival begins. An action-packed weekend of educational, STEM-oriented workshops, plus influencer-lead shows including the return of San Prentice’s battle bot-esque DeathRacer, and a quiz hosted by Joel Telling, the 3DPrintingNerd, SMRRF is inarguably self-billed as “the UK’s hottest 3D printing event of the year”.

Those of us not near the Manchester Metropolitan Business School venue can still get in on the fun, with the eye-catching auction with a unique top lot– a modern remake of the eMaker Huxley RepRap 3D printer. Produced by Vector 3D, the Vector 3D Huxley looks old hat but has up-to-date components, a large touchscreen interface, and Klipper firmware, for the ultimate mashup in old-school looks and convenient, modern performance. A polished brass frame completes the picture.

It’s a small machine, no doubt, but its significance is not. In the early 2010s, the late E3D co-founder Sanjay Mortimer acquired a Huxley and later developed the RepRap Pro Huxley along with RepRap founder Adrian Bowyer. It was the 3D printer that kickstarted E3D, explains the auction description.

The Vector 3D Huxley is a one-of-a-kind homage, and worth a spot on any self-respecting 3D printerer’s shelf. All proceeds from the auction (and festival, for that matter) go to the Sanjay Mortimer Foundation, which supports neurodiverse young people in STEM and engineering.

Other items in the auction range from functional components for your printer to eye-catching art, including a clutch of large HueForge 3D prints of famous paintings, including Andy Warhol’s pop-art portrait of Marilyn Monroe, and da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

And if the auction weren’t enough, there’s also an online raffle with a similarly unique prize: the first prototype Voron Phoenix Rev0001. For those out of the know, the Phoenix is the Voron Project’s highly anticipated large-format IDEX 3D printer; it’s been a long time coming and will be a landmark release when the time comes.

The raffle runs into the new year, with the draw date on January 17, 2025, while the auction ends at 4 pm GMT (8 am Pacific, 11 am Eastern) on December 8, 2024. So, get bidding, do some good, and maybe you’ll walk away with a piece of 3D printing history.

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About the Author:

Matthew Mensley

Matthew Mensley is a senior editor at All3DP with nine years covering consumer 3D printing hardware. He writes news, reviews, and buying guides with the clarity of someone who's seen enough hype cycles to know which ones to take seriously.

License: The text of "Own a Slice of 3D Printing History in SMRRF’s Online Auction" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.