I've been getting filament for $17-$20 a kilo delivered price from a couple places here in the US.. Just got a roll of clear today for $20 USmail 2nd day delivered from Calif.. from an Ebay store..  So far the only crappy filament I've had is XYZ that came with my printer and a roll of black  I think it came from suppliesoutlet, and they are usually pretty good.
   While I agree with you about XYZ's attitude,, I am seeing their used machine prices climbing on Ebay nearly every week, some are selling close to the price of a new one.. People go crazy on auctions..

I suspect that is people trying to get machines with the old firmware. Given the increased cost if you have to use their cartridges XYZ has succeeded in driving down the value of their new product. I was looking at total sales on ebay from the local DaVinci retailers over the last 6 months:

20 Advertisers
7 Printers Sold
7 Cartridges sold

Compare that to the the total sales of 1kg filament under $23USD:

5 Advertisers
Over 1000 Spools sold

Pretty obvious which business model is succeeding

Yeah, I mean I understand the logic of their business model and I wouldn't mind paying a reasonable (say 30%) premium, but not the 200% markup we have where I live. Thats just extortionate. I simply wont pay $50 for 600g of something I can get for under $28 per kg delivered. Literally triple the price.

Knowing that going in, I only bought it because I knew I could bypass it easily and at absolute worst case replace their electronics with ramps and I found a special deal where it was only $380USD delivered.

I've seen this happen over and over with new businesses: They come up with a model that says 'we could make $XXXXXX per year', then they get carried away and think 'we will make $XXXXXX per year' and when their is a problem with their model, instead of responding logically they dig their heels and think 'we are entitled to make $XXXXXX per year'.

Not surprising then with that attitude their customer service is terrible and the warranty is basically worthless for anything other than a DOA machine.

I've been getting filament for $17-$20 a kilo delivered price from a couple places here in the US.. Just got a roll of clear today for $20 USmail 2nd day delivered from Calif.. from an Ebay store..  So far the only crappy filament I've had is XYZ that came with my printer and a roll of black  I think it came from suppliesoutlet, and they are usually pretty good.
   While I agree with you about XYZ's attitude,, I am seeing their used machine prices climbing on Ebay nearly every week, some are selling close to the price of a new one.. People go crazy on auctions..

TuckerBadger wrote:

boxcarmib wrote:

What a bunch of amateurs.

Indeed... they wouldn't even admit the error in the firmware to me and were trying to get me to remove the print head last night (which of course I refused to do).

They don't get it... they are going after, what maybe at best the 10% of users who might use non XYZ filament yet are screwing over the 90% who don't have any interest in that.  I liked my Da Vinci and felt it did a good job with far less fuss then a makerbot at of course a much better price. Don't fault them for their business model and I had my eyes wide open there but they need to back it down a notch.  My next printer will likely be an SLA and if they want to be even considering the customer service has to go up quite a bit.

I am pretty sure you have the backwards. The majority of users of the Da Vinci bought it for price and hackability. I would say the larger majority do not want to be locked in to cartridges that cost twice the market average for filament. I would be willing to bet that greater than half of the Da Vinci owners have changed firmware or use a tool so they can print using non XYZ filament.

I was new to 3d printing when I got my Da Vinici in August of 2014 and the reason I got it was due the hackability of it. I am still running 1.1.I FW and a resetter so I can use any abs I want. I also just got a Flash Forge Creator Pro in February  2015 as a 2nd printer because of the freedom it has. I will not but another printer from XYZ ever due to them using the tactics they are using.

Knowing that going in, I only bought it because I knew I could bypass it easily and at absolute worst case replace their electronics with ramps and I found a special deal where it was only $380USD delivered.

I've seen this happen over and over with new businesses: They come up with a model that says 'we could make $XXXXXX per year', then they get carried away and think 'we will make $XXXXXX per year' and when their is a problem with their model, instead of responding logically they dig their heels and think 'we are entitled to make $XXXXXX per year'.

Not surprising then with that attitude their customer service is terrible and the warranty is basically worthless for anything other than a DOA machine.

boxcarmib wrote:

What a bunch of amateurs.

Indeed... they wouldn't even admit the error in the firmware to me and were trying to get me to remove the print head last night (which of course I refused to do).

They don't get it... they are going after, what maybe at best the 10% of users who might use non XYZ filament yet are screwing over the 90% who don't have any interest in that.  I liked my Da Vinci and felt it did a good job with far less fuss then a makerbot at of course a much better price. Don't fault them for their business model and I had my eyes wide open there but they need to back it down a notch.  My next printer will likely be an SLA and if they want to be even considering the customer service has to go up quite a bit.

I am pretty sure you have the backwards. The majority of users of the Da Vinci bought it for price and hackability. I would say the larger majority do not want to be locked in to cartridges that cost twice the market average for filament. I would be willing to bet that greater than half of the Da Vinci owners have changed firmware or use a tool so they can print using non XYZ filament.

What a bunch of amateurs.

Indeed... they wouldn't even admit the error in the firmware to me and were trying to get me to remove the print head last night (which of course I refused to do).

They don't get it... they are going after, what maybe at best the 10% of users who might use non XYZ filament yet are screwing over the 90% who don't have any interest in that.  I liked my Da Vinci and felt it did a good job with far less fuss then a makerbot at of course a much better price. Don't fault them for their business model and I had my eyes wide open there but they need to back it down a notch.  My next printer will likely be an SLA and if they want to be even considering the customer service has to go up quite a bit.

http://support.xyzprinting.com/us_en/He … inci%201.0

which had embedded a new version of firmware 1.2.5

It could unload my filament now.

However still said I wasn't using a genuine cartridge even after an unload, reseat and load.  Never once have a I used anything other then Da Vinci cartridges and I noticed it was reading the serial number/remaining of the cart just fine.  This was my white which is what I needed to print my object for today.

Unloaded again, tried black, said it wouldn't recognize it which never once happened to me before. Repeatedly reseated, same result. Contacts look fine.

Unloaded black, then tried my kids orange cartridge which I rarely use and last time may have been prior to 1.2.3.  This one fully worked and is printing now. 

My guess is they are writing something to the cartridges now to try and detect bootleggers and haven't yet figured out all the error cases and are showing false positives.   Of course, in the process they may have just created a bootlegger because I had never heard of Repetier until I started hunting around for others having the same issue.  Speaking of, as I previously asked, is there a good FAQ available for it focused on Da Vinci users?

Well they've obviously retreated... as of this posting they're not listing any firmware at all. So basically abandoning everyone who upgraded as instructed and now have left them out to dry since the 12th.
What a bunch of amateurs.

Can't say I'm too surprised about that.
Although I suppose there's a remote possibility they've removed it while they try to fix it.
Then again .....

Specifically, I'm wondering if out of the box Repetier can do as good as the DaVinci stock firmware for me just plugging in a STL file and printing. I.E. not alot of tweaking for the same out of the box quality. I use my 3D printer as a tool and I've got something I need to get done. DaVinci 1.2.4 currently has my printer bricked.   I'll have time later for tweaking and repetier sounds like the way to go.... obviously I need to do something with the firmware load, but if I'm going to reset the adrino board and force feed some firmware to it I'd rather be going forward then back.

Also, Da Vince just told me the real reason they don't allow downgrades.   ;-)    See below.

Thanks again for the help here... it was excellent.

-Jeff

--------------- (after they admitted they had an issue, their response to if I could reload 1.2.3 )-----------

Dear Mr. King,

We're sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Please kindly note that in order to preserve the lifetime and good print quality,  the firmware cant be downgraded.

And please kindly be noted that we are checking this to the relevant department and will advise you as soon as possible.

Thank you.

Best Regards,
Customer Care (Mae)
XYZprinting Inc.

But yeah repetier if your machine it's supported it's the way to go. Specially with software likes3d supporting it for better fine prints