1 Topic by Dantes (edited by Dantes 2018-08-06 17:05:44)

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Topic: Windows 10 Supports/Can Print to Da Vinci Printers, Including the Nano

My current setup, a PC running 32-bit Windows 10, precludes me from using XYZ software to print directly to my Da Vinci Nano.  I'm not able to use XYZWare, because it doesn't support the Nano.  I'm also not able to use XYZMaker, because, although it supports the Nano, it requires a 64-bit OS.  I tried using MiniMover, but couldn't get it to print properly.

Today, however, I discovered that Windows 10 natively supports a whole range of Da Vinci printers.  Microsoft and XYZ have apparently partnered to "make end-to-end 3D manufacturing accessible to anyone using Windows 10."  (See https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/w … g-partners.)  Although the Nano is not among the printers explicitly listed on Microsoft's website, I can confirm that Windows 10 can indeed print directly to my Nano. 

I imported my model into the 3d Builder app and then pressed the print button (in the upper right hand corner), which presented me with a range of print options.  I've printed out one object so far--so it's a very limited sample size--but the results are on par with printing from XYZMaker (using a borrowed computer with 64-bit Windows).  It does seem to make different noises while printing, however.  Printing from XYZMaker results in a kind of sing-song noise, whereas printing from 3d Builder sounded like a standard paper injet printer.  I'm not sure if this corresponds to any kind of functional difference.  The rate of printing seems to be the same.  The only significant drawback of using this method is that Windows 10 does not provide any functionality for bed calibration.   

In any event, this may encourage someone to buy the Nano (which is often on sale for as little as ~4500 NTD/150 USD in Taiwan, where I live) but has decided not to because of the perceived inability to print from a 32-bit OS.

2 Reply by carl_m1968

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Re: Windows 10 Supports/Can Print to Da Vinci Printers, Including the Nano

Even if Win10 does support them, I doubt MS would team up with such a shady company. Also it is an XYZ machine and will only be a matter of time before it fails and you have to send it in for repair at your cost because XYZ does not sell parts.

All you people trying to get into 3d printing for cheap are getting exactly what you want a cheap machine. Please do your research and select a machine for it's parts, it's reputation, and it's companies reputation. Don't buy one just for cost. I promise you, you will regret it. There is a reason why so many used XYZ machines are showing up on ebay and blogs.

Printing since 2009 and still love it!
Anycubic 4MAX best $225 ever invested.
Voxelabs Proxima SLA. 6 inch 2k Mono LCD.
Anycubic Predator, massive Delta machine. 450 x 370 print envelope.

3 Reply by yizhou.he

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Re: Windows 10 Supports/Can Print to Da Vinci Printers, Including the Nano

Wow, that's good to know.

I noticed file sliced by xyzware hotend accelerate differently from opensource slicer, the hotend reduce speed shortly before arrive target position or change direction, this result in much lower noise at cost of reduced overall speed.

(Da Vinci 1.0, Jr. 1.0 RAMPS, miniMaker) X4, (Creality CR-10S, CR-10 mini, Ender-3) X4, Anycubic MEGA X4, Anycubic Chrion X1, ADMILAB Gantry X2 (MonoPrice Maker Select V2, Plus, Ultimate)X4--Select mini X1, Anycubic photon X4, Wanhao duplicate D7 X1.
iNSTONE Inventor Pro X2, CTC Dual X2, ANET-A8, Hictop 3DP-11, Solidoodle Press, FLSUN I3 2017X1

4 Reply by yizhou.he (edited by yizhou.he 2018-08-05 17:30:36)

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Re: Windows 10 Supports/Can Print to Da Vinci Printers, Including the Nano

carl_m1968 wrote:

Even if Win10 does support them, I doubt MS would team up with such a shady company. Also it is an XYZ machine and will only be a matter of time before it fails and you have to send it in for repair at your cost because XYZ does not sell parts.

All you people trying to get into 3d printing for cheap are getting exactly what you want a cheap machine. Please do your research and select a machine for it's parts, it's reputation, and it's companies reputation. Don't buy one just for cost. I promise you, you will regret it. There is a reason why so many used XYZ machines are showing up on ebay and blogs.

I think it is good to get a cheap but easy to use 3d printer to get into 3d printing before you know for sure you will like it. I'm sure they will spend more money buy a better machine if they eventually find out they really love 3d printing. Many people spend lots of money buy an expensive 3D printer and sell for half price because it is not get used while take up lots of space in the room. 

It is true that xyzprinting machine have issues and they have terrible customer service. But all entry level 3d printer have all kinds of issue and very few of them have good customer service including some $500+ machine.

I never regret I got MonoPrice select mini as my first 3D printer and Da Vinci Jr.1.0. I still love them even with small build volume. In fact, I would seriously regret if I bought $500+ 3D printer as my first 3D printer. I might improve my English by dealing with customer service a lot, but still have little idea how 3D printer works.

(Da Vinci 1.0, Jr. 1.0 RAMPS, miniMaker) X4, (Creality CR-10S, CR-10 mini, Ender-3) X4, Anycubic MEGA X4, Anycubic Chrion X1, ADMILAB Gantry X2 (MonoPrice Maker Select V2, Plus, Ultimate)X4--Select mini X1, Anycubic photon X4, Wanhao duplicate D7 X1.
iNSTONE Inventor Pro X2, CTC Dual X2, ANET-A8, Hictop 3DP-11, Solidoodle Press, FLSUN I3 2017X1

5 Reply by Dantes (edited by Dantes 2018-08-06 17:59:50)

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Re: Windows 10 Supports/Can Print to Da Vinci Printers, Including the Nano

carl_m1968 wrote:

Even if Win10 does support them, I doubt MS would team up with such a shady company. Also it is an XYZ machine and will only be a matter of time before it fails and you have to send it in for repair at your cost because XYZ does not sell parts.

All you people trying to get into 3d printing for cheap are getting exactly what you want a cheap machine. Please do your research and select a machine for it's parts, it's reputation, and it's companies reputation. Don't buy one just for cost. I promise you, you will regret it. There is a reason why so many used XYZ machines are showing up on ebay and blogs.


You forgot to mention that XYZPrinting's razor-and-blades business model is potentially exploitative: it sells cheap machines but expensive materials.

In truth, I purchased the Nano with eyes wide open, and after first having conducted a substantial amount of research.  For instance, I knew of XYZ's less-than-sterling customer service record, the reported reliability issues with its printers, and the expensive raw materials.  Even so, I elected to purchase the Nano.  I submit that the decision to do so was not irrational and, in any event, maximized my individual, subjective utility.  Among other factors that influenced my decision was the relatively limited selection of 3d printers in Taiwan vis-a-vis "almost not Dallas[, Texas]."  I could have purchased a different brand on Amazon, but would have had to pay exorbitant shipping costs.

For what it's worth, the Nano has been a pretty great printer thus far.  It's a beginner's machine, to be sure, but, to date, it has been fully sufficient for my purposes.

P.S.  I've edited the link in my original post.  The prior version inadvertently incorporated an end parenthesis.  The corrected link now properly directs to Microsoft's website, which establishes that, in fact, Microsoft and XYZ have partnered.

6 Reply by yizhou.he

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Re: Windows 10 Supports/Can Print to Da Vinci Printers, Including the Nano

As huge fan of MonoPrice, I'm very sad that only MonoPrice Select mini is listed. As big fan of Da Vinci printer, I feel much better since whole list of xyzprinting printer is there. Then I see next on the list is bankrupted Printerbot Printer and discontinued Cube3, I start to wondering how Microsoft choose their partners.

(Da Vinci 1.0, Jr. 1.0 RAMPS, miniMaker) X4, (Creality CR-10S, CR-10 mini, Ender-3) X4, Anycubic MEGA X4, Anycubic Chrion X1, ADMILAB Gantry X2 (MonoPrice Maker Select V2, Plus, Ultimate)X4--Select mini X1, Anycubic photon X4, Wanhao duplicate D7 X1.
iNSTONE Inventor Pro X2, CTC Dual X2, ANET-A8, Hictop 3DP-11, Solidoodle Press, FLSUN I3 2017X1

7 Reply by david.tucker

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Re: Windows 10 Supports/Can Print to Da Vinci Printers, Including the Nano

I can confirm that microsoft has native support for the mini printer as well.  It works nice, except for two problems.  First your trading one proprietary slicer for another and still have no control over the underlying gcode, and second I could not find any software that supports microsofts 3d printer interface, other than there own rather clunky 3d builder app.

It certainly works, but it needs more work before it can replace cura or whatever slicer you use.  Of course if it is all you can use then it is more than good enough.

8 Reply by carl_m1968

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Re: Windows 10 Supports/Can Print to Da Vinci Printers, Including the Nano

It also does not seem to like the Cube3 over wifi. It was not able to find mine although their program on the same PC has no issue finding it and printing to it.

Printing since 2009 and still love it!
Anycubic 4MAX best $225 ever invested.
Voxelabs Proxima SLA. 6 inch 2k Mono LCD.
Anycubic Predator, massive Delta machine. 450 x 370 print envelope.

9 Reply by yizhou.he

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Re: Windows 10 Supports/Can Print to Da Vinci Printers, Including the Nano

http://download.microsoft.com/download/ … inting.msi

microsoft do provide SDK for 3D builder apps, there might be something can be used to miniMover

(Da Vinci 1.0, Jr. 1.0 RAMPS, miniMaker) X4, (Creality CR-10S, CR-10 mini, Ender-3) X4, Anycubic MEGA X4, Anycubic Chrion X1, ADMILAB Gantry X2 (MonoPrice Maker Select V2, Plus, Ultimate)X4--Select mini X1, Anycubic photon X4, Wanhao duplicate D7 X1.
iNSTONE Inventor Pro X2, CTC Dual X2, ANET-A8, Hictop 3DP-11, Solidoodle Press, FLSUN I3 2017X1

10 Reply by david.tucker

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Re: Windows 10 Supports/Can Print to Da Vinci Printers, Including the Nano

yizhou.he wrote:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/ … inting.msi

microsoft do provide SDK for 3D builder apps, there might be something can be used to miniMover

Thanks, I will take a look at that.

11 Reply by david.tucker

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Re: Windows 10 Supports/Can Print to Da Vinci Printers, Including the Nano

david.tucker wrote:
yizhou.he wrote:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/ … inting.msi

microsoft do provide SDK for 3D builder apps, there might be something can be used to miniMover

Thanks, I will take a look at that.

I took a quick look.  First off, there is almost zero documentation, this feels like a prototype more than an actual api ready to be used.

Anyway there are only 6 calls you can make and while I'm not positive on this it looks like all you can do is send a windows 3MF file to a proprietary slicer provided by XYZ or monitor the current status of the print.

XYZ provides a slicer driver and a sending driver, the slicer slices to gcode and the sender pushes gcode to the printer.  However it does not look like you can get in the middle and send your own gcode to the printer.

The 3MF file format is a Microsoft creation that they are trying to get adopted by industry.  Presumably it is a more robust version of an STL file with support for color and specifying interior detail of the model.  Not a bad idea, but I don't think it is being picked up by anyone else at this point in time.

12 Reply by david.tucker

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Re: Windows 10 Supports/Can Print to Da Vinci Printers, Including the Nano

In this video, at around 14 minutes in, they give you code to print 3mf files from C#.  It looks like that always brings up a minimal 3D builder interface that lets you place your model before slicing.  Again I see nothing about bypassing there slicer.

https://channel9.msdn.com/events/Build/2016/P459