Customer Reviews

Printing in Plastic: Build Your Own 3D Printer (Technology in Action)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The book is just the written instructions to go along with the videos and plans from the author's website. The book by itself is nearly useless as there isn't even a small print of the plans with dimensions in the book.

Before you buy this book, I strongly suggest going to the author's website at buildyourtools dot com. Download all the plans, watch all the videos, then decide if you need the book.

If the website ever goes down or the author decides not to support this book, you'll be out of luck. So if you buy this book, I'd download all the files related to it and burn them on a CD or put them on a flash drive to keep with the book.

The main component, the plastic feed head, is an amalgam of DIY and parts from Makerbot's 3D printer. No instructions are given on building the melt head itself. You could go buy that and add it to just about any CNC mill to build a 3D printer. There are a lot of open source projects out there.

The goal is laudable - DIY something cheaper than the existing kits out there now. I just think the book could have been better thought out.

FYI- while I'm writing this review, I find the author's website, buildyourtools(dot)com, is currently unavailable. Only a temporary thing, but as an owner of this book that makes me nervous.

Update: After a lot more reading and thinking about it, I've decided to return the book. I've never returned a book before, but the lack of plans in the book and the lack of dimensions on the downloadable plans really bothers me. It feels like half of a book.

Very good book with tons of information about building a 3d Printer. Also, includes info to change it to a small router with a Dremel Rotary tool installed. Included are lists of required hardware and online web links to resources.

I was very impressed with the book. Also the full sized plans can be downloaded, and the assembly videos are available, as well.

This well documented and well illustrated project oriented guide to building a 3D Plastic Prototyping Printer is by the same authors and follows a similar format to Apress's "Build Your Own CNC Machine". Given the increasing popularity of "Hackerspaces" and kit-based 3D Plastic Printers like Makerbot and Reprap there will be a wide audience for this book that fully describes the process of implementing a completely do-it-yourself 3D Plastic Prototyper in the form of a complete book rather than some on-web instructions. The assembly of this device the whiteAnt 3D printer requires more woodshop skills then either Makerbot's Thing-O-Matic or the Reprap system but these are thoroughly documented in the book. In exchange for some extra woodshop requirements the whiteAnt system can easily be converted to a limited CNC fabricator with modification instructions contained in an appendix. Also while providing a powerful system whose assembly and use is fully described in the book and accompanying website the fabrication of the whiteAnt might cost considerably less than Makerbot's Thing-O-Matic (while sharing similar electronics).

I would suggest this book to anyone who has been fascinated or is assenbling the similar Makerbot and Reprap products having this additional information and illustration is invaluable to any interested in Plastic Prototyping.

--Ira Laefsky, MSE/MBA

IT Consultant & Researcher retired from the Senior Consulting Staff of Arthur D. Little, Inc. & DIGITAL Equipment Corporation

Pro:

- It's a book about making a 3D plastic printer

cons:

- It's filled with mostly outdated info. Currently there are much better looking and better functioning models on the market, like the prusa mendel.

- it's not much teaching about printing plastic, just about making the device; which is great for engineers, but not for the average hobbyist searching for a new hobby.

- Pretty complex stuff

-It's quite an expensive book!

- Less than 10% is about the software.

Conclusion:

A great book for the engineer trying to make his first 3d plastic printer, but not good for the average hobbyist searching for a new hobby.

This overpriced book is filled with outdated info, which you probably could get for free browsing around websites of prusa.

A great book perhaps 5 years ago, but today I would not recommend anyone buying this book (right price should be in the $15-range)!

I'd been looking for a book to augment my current (basic) knowledge of the 3D printing landscape. This book seemed like it would hit the mark, but it left me with an empty feeling. I think primarily this was because of the complete mess they made of the XYZ planes. As soon as I read how they planned to implement it I said to myself "that ain't right!". And sure enough at the back they owned up and admitted they'd made a massive mistake but it was too late for them to go and fix the problem - full steam ahead, damn the the correctness, schedule must be met! Hopefully they'll do a second rev to fix this.