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Topic: DaVinci Community Help

I need a bit of help from the Da Vinci Community on wether or not I should go with the Da Vinci 1.0 or a Solidoodle 3 (since the price drop).  I have been bitten before as an early adopter to a community, just to watch those who started off strong jump ship to something better.

What is holding me back is that to get the best prints from the Da Vinci, you need to flash the printer with the repetier firmware and the community right now is small.  Also the firmware seems to be in beta, possibly alpha.

The Solidoodle community seems to be larger at this time, but it seems to me that you need to also tweak the firmware to install the E3d extruder for the best prints.  With this printer, you can do ABS and PLA without too much tweaking, but have yet seen anyone print PLA on the Da Vinci.

What made you decide on the Da Vinci over other printers?  I know that tweaking a 3d setup is normal and I am not opposed to that, I just want something that I can upgrade in due time and works until then.

Thanks.

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Re: DaVinci Community Help

Just a few comments that probably won't help you make up your mind, but were the reason I bought a Da Vinci. While the slicer that is included in XYZWare is terrible, you DON'T have to use it even while keeping the machine "stock". If you spend $30 for a cartridge resetter, you can at least attempt to print with whatever filament you feel like trying. If you decide to try the repetier firmware flash, you don't even have to burn the $30.

But none of that was why I bought the Da Vinci, my reason was a lot simpler. I'm an apartment dweller where the property management types are serious about "managing". This means I can't punch holes in the walls, paint to a color I'd prefer, have loud parties or do have any of the things on a rather large list that was on my renters agreement. They also do yearly inspections to make sure everything is as expected. The upside is that they actually keep the place very well maintained and if anything would happen to have an issue they will fix it immediately.

So with that last paragraph in mind, I had no choice but to buy something that screams "built in a factory and is consumer grade" to insure that it doesn't get added to the list of things I can't have. On a side note, while I probably shouldn't have my Filastruder kit is already in route to me. Since I'll be putting that thing together (which means it will fail the "consumer grade" test) I'll end up having to hide it away in a box whenever I'm not using it, even though I'll only be running it in a room where it couldn't destroy anything even if I construct it so poorly that it falls apart.

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Re: DaVinci Community Help

I went with the davinci, because I found to many people and posts saying how horrible the build on the solidoodle was, people have to replace the rods and most plastic parts, along with the E3D extruder.  The parts on the DaVinci seem like they are of decent quality since they are not just printed parts unlike the solidoodle which prints all of its parts used in the printer.  Unless you can find someone who has owned both, you probably will not get anyone that can say which one is better, only the reason why they went with one or the other.

4 (edited by ggunners 2014-07-24 18:39:42)

Re: DaVinci Community Help

I have both an SD2 w/enclosure and a DaVinci 1.0.

I am keeping my DV stock with the full intent of taking it open source if I need to or when the warranty runs out. It worked well for me out of the box. Some issues I know about are caused by the closed slicer. Top layers are not always correct. Some curved top layers are not sliced well. A very large 11 hour print slightly burnt the bottom of the print directly in the middle of the bed. I am OK with paying a 40% premium for their filament because the optimal temps are set by the chip which I would normally have to run some calibration files through on the SD. There are many positive and negative reviews of the DV. Negatives are usually consumers expecting it to just work or those that received printers with broken or dislodged parts. Others bought the DV because the price of the DV BOM is very nice at $539 now and they were happy to see it work well even when there were small Maker issues.

The SD2 printed well out of the box too. However, it needed the normal calibrations to reach a good and consistent print quality. I have not done anything to the SD2 except calibration. Issues I know about and work around are a warped aluminum bed and a slightly bent "z" rod. Otherwise, a combination of SD RH default and KISSlicer have let me make anything I've wanted.

Dig into the BOM for each device and you'll see the DaVinci is quite compelling for the parts involved and can always be modified to work with other slicers and filament. See the Voltivo forum for more details too.

SD2 Expert stock, ABS fume fan,
XYZ DaVinci 1.0 stock ABS, Simplify3D
QUBD Two-Up PLA, new 3D printed X gantry, Y idler, flex z coupler, extruder mount, E3D Lite

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Re: DaVinci Community Help

Thank you for all the replies.  In looking at the BOM on the Da Vinci, it does look compelling and I don't think other printers can even touch the price point of what it is offering.    I think that my heart is telling me to go with the Da Vinci for my first printer, and then I can hack away at it when the time comes.