Blue Bell Ponder Puddle  (to small to be a think tank)

I have built and use
---Ordbot Hadron
---Wally
experience with
Solidoodle,  Trinity aluminatus A1

Retired Space Systems Engineer
now  Tinkerer
Woodwork, CNC routing, metalwork, RC electric drones- quadcopters,
Astronomy, photography, Mac / PC

Got my Davinci 1.0 on eBay
($300  with $150 back since it didn't work
After a couple of weeks of wrestling with it
repair of torn ribbon cable
swapped out the y sensor
and made a new belt clamp

It's alive

Can't say I like XYZ firmware or software.
I use Repetier-host,  Marlin, repetier firmware
on other printers.

Learned a lot from repairing this beast.
Pretty amazing printer even for full price.

Shout out to XYZ support  (Charles)
He did a video skype to diagnose the printer
   but couldn't get the problem solved

Have phun

But I'm Dave and I'm from Illinois, USA.

My first project was a set of "feet" I designed for the purpose of allowing a couple of parsons tables (cheap black ones from walmart) to stack turning them into pseudo shelves but insuring that the inkjet I have on the top table can't vibrate enough to end up on the ground.

I'm currently printing the "VEND" candy dispenser and have already (after 3 tries) managed to get a working Emmett gear bearing to print.

I've purchased a really large aluminum pot thing with a glass lid to try some vapor smoothing eventually and purchased then assembled one of the cartridge reset devices so I can print with any filament I wish. I added a cable and socket to the SD card so I can print from the menu rather than go through a cooldown cycle on a print that fails from the start. Last thing on the hardware side is something I just picked up, a small digital scale to get around the issue of knowing how much filament I have left in a Da Vinci cartridge if the printer clogs for whatever reason (going with .4 grams per meter at the moment). Without that even though I can reset the cartridge I don't know if I have enough filament to finish a print. Hopefully it will also allow me to do the same with 3rd party filament I'm trying so I know if a print will finish or not.

Software wise I've managed to get good results out of slicing with KISSlicer and Cura, though the process I use isn't perfected yet. I would highly recommend a bunch of other software to try as well (all freebies) Netfabb basic for fixing broken STL's, Meshmixer for its ability to create supports, 123D Design for creating 3D objects, SketchUp for creating 3D objects, and any XYZ software modified by w34 from this forum.

As to the future, I really want to try my hand at extruding my own filament. Sadly while the Filastruder seems to be the machine with great support and ability to hit a price point I like, I simply can't get away with owning something that looks like that in the apartment that I live in. This issue is the reason I went with the Da Vinci as well, it looks like a "consumer" type item so I won't get any grief for owning one. The Strooder looks like it might have possibilities on that front but I'll wait for it to get beyond kickstarter range before I do much serious research on it.

Just wanted to start a post for us to introduce ourselves, what we are doing with our printers and see if we have projects in common and or can assist each other.

So I'm Craig Lewis. Living in Newfoundland Canada.

I got my Da Vinici 1.0 3D printer June 2014. I had a couple of aliment issues but up and printing in a couple og hours. Tech support is good at this point.

I have several projects that I will be working on. My first is a 3D Printed Magnetic Motor. gofundme(.)com/8nytuw

I'm also going to build and work on Laser Hacker 3D Printer Motor. laserhacker(.)com

Hope to learn a lot and share ideas,
Craig