"The layers have a 'bulge' aspect to them, causing ridging along the sides."
There are 2 types of budging going on. The individual layers and "Z Wobble"
Minimizing the individual layers can be done with both layer height AND Width. Getting into the flow math.
Info on this:
http://manual.slic3r.org/advanced/flow-math
I have tried a lot of different setting, but tend to stick with the default .42mm for thin(default, top infill) and .68mm for thick (1st layer and default infill)
Z wobble is the sine wave cyclic ripple caused by the print bed "Wobbling" as it moves up and down.
http://goo.gl/ci9Gz
I am still working on this. One problem is the bronze bushings on the right side of the build plate are "loose". I found that slipping in shim made of thin plastic (I used a strip of clear plastic from some packaging) works fine. (I tried to use locktight to glue them in place and just glued them to the rod!)

"There's an appearance that the bottom has melted a bit"
I thought the same thing, but it is normal. Part of the "Melted" look is that the XYZWare prints with a brim, a base flange, in order to provide more surface area for the print to stick to the bed with in order to reduce warping. This is an option you can turn on and off in the slicer software.
FYI: You can also control the bed temperature. The DaVinci takes it initial temp from the cartridge. You can adjust the bed temperature to whatever you want in the slicer software. You can adjust the print temperature as well, though depending on the version of firmware you may only be able to adjust it cooler that the initial cartage setting.

"The tops are smudgy, presumably the result of the 50% fill."
The "Smudgy" in your pics is from over-extruding, the printer is putting out a bit more filament that calculated. The slicer software has a extrusion multiplier setting for this:
http://manual.slic3r.org/simple-mode/si … t-settings
To do this right you need a pair of calipers, test prints and math (it is not as hard as it sounds)
Other factors that will affect top quality, Number of top layers and infill density. I have found that on the lower densities the top layers as gaps. If this happens try increasing the density (around 30%) and see if that helps all.
Also watch out for "ice-cream coneing" on smaller prints, tips or columns. This happens when the layer does not have a chance to cool before the next layer is printed. Turing it into a gooey mess. One fix for this is to print 2 of the objects at once. Giving one time to cool as it moves to print the second one. another trick is to print a simple column of the same height with the object.

Ive been using the XYZware and auto-calibration to level the bed.  I havent dove into gcode editing, and just had my first look at slicer, but Ive been compensating by adjusting the bed.
*Ive heard* that the Da Vinci prints the first layer thick and slow for good adhesion, .3-.35mm then continues the rest of the print at the determined settings.  When I measure the test strip and the first, squashed and bulging layer, it is .25-.27mm.  So if the printer thinks its .3+mm above and is extruding material for that, when in reality it is closer, theres excess buildup.  I guess.

Ive tried printing on a raft, but found them very difficult to remove, and I had to sand the bottom.  Supports, on the other hand are easy to remove.

Is the XYZ open mod required to use a .stl from slicer?

FYI: Some good reference material regarding quality settings:
manual.slic3r.org/advanced/flow-math
goo.gl/ci9Gz

I have only just started to still on the sample cartridge and XYZware software, but after a dozen prints now I am frustrated with the quality, especially the roughness between layers and therefore loss of detail.  I also tried printing some calibration cylinders and cubes and found them rather oval and mis sized. There is no movement in the bed and the belts seem tight so will try software hacks first.

I will try the XYZ Open mod for a start and will share progress.

How do we go about controlling the temperature of the print bed - is that something that slic3r can do for me?

One other note - I've got painter's tape on it now but I'm hoping to swap out for kapton tape since I'm working in ABS. Could that be impacting the temperature? (I have to have something on it, as a little bit of glass came out and the edge is a little rough where I fixed it. Painter's tape was all I could find same day but I understand the kapton tape is better when it comes to ABS.)

Your prints look like the filament isn't hot enough, and I'm guessing the bottom layers that look distorted have warped as the print cooled. Just my opinion mind you, like most of us here, I am still learning as well!

I'm a programmer by trade, just not horribly hardware savvy, so if it's something software-related or coding related, I'll probably be at least competent enough to be dangerous and get somewhere with it. My only challenge is knowing where to start.

I slice with Cura and not XYZware and at fairly "slow" settings. I can't complain about print quality at .1 layer by this printer, it looks at least as good as the pictures I see from other machines.

Are you suggesting that both the filament and the slicer are causing the various issues i've described, and that it's not necessarily a tuning or configuration issue at all?

XYZ's filament isn't real good at bonding to itself, but is decent on fine details. XYZwares slicer on the other hand is terrible. Use w34's modded version and slice with something better even if you wish to stay with XYZ filament which isn't by any means "bad" or massively overpriced.

The only real downside to the cartridge mess is that you will end up with a bunch of them that don't have enough left for your current project and have to buy another one and keep cartridges around for "small" prints until you can finally use it up. (Or you can do away with them and use what you prefer to)

That said, I've gotten a few successful prints, one being the "Ultimate Extruder Calibration test" object at Thingiverse (thingiverse.com/thing:9804). Attached are a few detail shots of the product, which was printed at "Fine" (0.2 height?), with 50% fill, if I'm remembering right.

Here's what I've spotted as potential issues that I'm hoping to clean up if possible:

- The layers have a 'bulge' aspect to them, causing ridging along the sides.
- There's an appearance that the bottom has melted a bit, making me think the print bed is running too hot and killing detail being laid down. (This is pure speculation, also driven by a few other prints with bottom details melted away.)
- The tops are smudgy, presumably the result of the 50% fill. I'm not sure if increasing the fill would fix this or accentuate it.

The last image attached (2014-09-14.jpg) is the first print completed using the 'keychain' demo model. Since it's onboard, I'm not sure what print quality settings were used, but you can pretty clearly make out several of the issues I'm detailing.

Suggestions on how to 'tune' this, or get these details better?

Bonus questions:
- Best software for quality & integration (and how to)
- Good starter material / books