Brian Evans - Practical 3D Printers: The Science and Art of 3D Printing

Practical 3D Printers

Brian Evans

Practical 3D Printers

Copyright 2012 by Brian Evans

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.

ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-4302-4392-2

ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4302-4393-9

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President and Publisher: Paul Manning

Lead Editor: Michelle Lowman

Technical Reviewers: Tony Buser

Editorial Board: Steve Anglin, Ewan Buckingham, Gary Cornell, Louise Corrigan, Morgan Ertel, Jonathan Gennick, Jonathan Hassell, Robert Hutchinson, Michelle Lowman, James Markham, Matthew Moodie, Jeff Olson, Jeffrey Pepper, Douglas Pundick, Ben Renow-Clarke, Dominic Shakeshaft, Gwenan Spearing, Matt Wade, Tom Welsh

Coordinating Editor: Brigid Duffy

Copy Editor: Kimberly Burton

Compositor: SPi Global

Indexer: SPi Global

Artist: SPi Global

Cover Designer: Anna Ishchenko

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For my father, who opened his garage and taught me

how to tinker at a very early age

Contents at a Glance

Contents

About the Author

Brian Evans is an artist working in electronic media and Assistant Professor of Art at Metropolitan State University of Denver, where he teaches multidisciplinary courses in art on topics that include electronics and digital fabrication. Many of his classes use open-source hardwareincluding MakerBot or RepRap 3D printers and the Arduino electronics platformto create new works in art and design.

He is the author of Beginning Arduino Programming (Apress, 2011) and contributed to Arduino Projects to Save the World (Apress, 2011) with Emery Premeaux. His work has been shown at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Park, the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, and the University Art Museum at California State University, Long Beach. In 2009, Evans was a resident and contributor to the Grounding Open Source Hardware residency and summit at the Banff New Media Institute in Alberta, Canada, and in 2011 a contributor to the Open Hardware Summit in New York. He received an MFA from California State University, Long Beach in 2008, and a BFA from Arizona State University in 2005.

About the Technical Reviewer

Tony Buser began his technology career in 1995 by writing HTML code. From there, he moved into web site and intranet application development and now works as a web developer for MakerBot Industries in Brooklyn, NY. Tony loves turning virtual digital information into physical reality, and he believes that the affordable and easy-to-use 3D printing and personal fabrication technology might very well be the most significant new technology since the World Wide Web. He is excited to be a part of its development at such an early stage and can typically be found spending untold hours in his basement workshop in Reading, PA with his four 3D printers: two Makerbots, a RepRap, and a whiteAnt. And hes always building more.