Topic: 48 hours with a Da Vinci 1.0 observations
1) The noobs guide on this forum titled "Davinci Noob tips and tricks" is great feedback. I would add the thread on bed leveling for beginners to it.
2) You have to wait for the printer to cool completely down. Not just when the printer says "okay to remove". It has to be pretty much stone cold or you risk chipping your glass bed (trust me, I did it with less than 9 hours on my printer!).
3) Who's computer has CDROMs these days? I downloaded the latest build of the software on their site, set my windows firewall to block internet access for xyz.exe and started printing. No auto-upgrades for me. I'm interesting in hacking but not until I'm really familiar with it.
4) I'm pretty amazed with the quality of the print. I know others have commented that it's garbage and whatever but for someone that's been dying for a 3d printer for 2 years and finally pulled the trigger because it was $400, this is a solid device.
5) Supports and rafts. I haven't quite figured out when we need rafts but supports was pretty easy on. I did have a print that I re-orientated and then built supports for thinking I would be able to print the small details but unfortunately the small details were lost even with the supports. I think this is where using mod'd firmware or software will have to come in.
6) Yeah, lots of stuff can go wrong with this thing. :-/ But that's part of the fun I reckon.
7) So I chipped the glass and then on the second print after that it started not putting out filament and the print head (whatever its called) was vibrating really bad. I cleaned it and it was still vibrating like crazy and this time was kinda scratching the print bed. I stopped the print, cleaned it again and realized it's probably time I calibrate. So here's what I did.
I figure that little dip I have in my glass is going to mess up stuff so the painters tape is able to go over the top of that and give a somewhat flatter surface to print on until I get either a replacement bed or a piece of glass to go over to the top. (we'll see if I'm right or wrong in about an hour when this print finishes) and since the printer is probably out of calibration now it's a good time to do this. So here's what I did.
I put the painters tape on the print bed and then ran the auto calibration. I have to agree the little android app on the amazon marketplace is the way to go with this thing. What a pain and I can't imagine trying to level this without it. Once I got it somewhat in check. I proceeded to follow the bed leveling for beginners procedure. It took like 3 goes to get things somewhat level but I feel pretty confident in it. It will be interesting to see how this current print compares to the last couple of prints.
Well, 48 hours so far and that's the list .. I'm sure more will come. A huge thank you for everyone on the forums helping provide guidance, it's been invaluable.