1 Topic by skywiselh

  • skywiselh
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Topic: First Impressions and how to improve

Hello everyone,

so yesterday my Da Vinci 1.0 arrived. So far my experience has been mixed but positive.

First power-up ended with a 0031 error and while I was tempted to just box it back up and hand back to Amazon, I ended up just slightly adjusting the sensor and the error went away. After noticing some sort of minor bubbles (?) from the extruder, I moved the printer to a low-humidity, air-conditioned space (as in from the garage inside the house) and that seems to have solved it (I suspected moisture). Once moved inside, the unit promptly returned a 0011 error because my AC was cooling it too much ... installing the handle covers fixed that.

So far I have successfully printed two of the demos, a gear cube and a Sonic figurine (although I ripped his hand off when removing the support) and while the quality is acceptable, it seems a bit inconsistent - vertical walls are not entirely even showing that the positioning of the extruder is not perfect every time.

I did notice that my glass bed moves about 1 mm - any idea how to fix that?

What else could I do to improve accuracy?

Should the printer be affected by minor disturbances, such as opening the door? I could swear that any minor vibration throws it off just a tiny bit.

Maybe I expect to much from this machine, but when printing Sonic, for about 1/3rd of the figurine the layers were perfect and the side of the supports almost smooth.

I've been using the XYZWare software and tried both .2 and .3 layer height. Any suggestions appreciated.

Cheers,
Sky

2 Reply by scobo (edited by scobo 2014-08-20 06:58:15)

  • scobo
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Re: First Impressions and how to improve

I've only had mine a few weeks but one of the first things I noticed was that the bed didn't look level. I left it for a while as the instructions said it didn't need calibrating out of the box but after a few prints I was noticing some flaws.
So I ran the calibration utility and sure enough it failed.
After adjusting the bed and passing the calibration test, it's now producing much better prints so I'd try that first.

Davinci 1.0 with repetier firmware & E3D V6 Lite
Anycubic Photon DLP printer, Einscan-S 3D scanner
Simplify3d, 123D Design, Meshmixer
http://www.thingiverse.com/scobo/designs

3 Reply by Dr. Bogger

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Re: First Impressions and how to improve

The glass bed also moves around a little bit. I jammed a small piece of a business card between the glass and plastic, to hold the glass in place better.

4 Reply by skywiselh

  • skywiselh
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Re: First Impressions and how to improve

Thanks! Did a calibration, installed an SD extension cord and move the SD card slot to the front. The calibration cube I printed at 0.1mm came out pretty good.

What firmware is suggested for best printing quality?

5 Reply by scobo

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Re: First Impressions and how to improve

skywiselh wrote:

Thanks! Did a calibration, installed an SD extension cord and move the SD card slot to the front. The calibration cube I printed at 0.1mm came out pretty good.

Nice one !
Is it easy enough to take the back panel off to get at the SD card ?

Davinci 1.0 with repetier firmware & E3D V6 Lite
Anycubic Photon DLP printer, Einscan-S 3D scanner
Simplify3d, 123D Design, Meshmixer
http://www.thingiverse.com/scobo/designs

6 Reply by Weekend Avenger

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Re: First Impressions and how to improve

skywiselh wrote:

Thanks! Did a calibration, installed an SD extension cord and move the SD card slot to the front. The calibration cube I printed at 0.1mm came out pretty good.

What firmware is suggested for best printing quality?

Since you moved the SD card to an extension, it really won't matter what firmware your using if you just wish to slice with a better slicer than XYZware's.

I personally prefer Cura, others tend to use Slic3r, and still others go with KISSlicer. There are other choices as well and you can find some "help" setting most of them up.

Just to prevent issues with my cartridge resetter, I use the G firmware. Some day I may switch to Repetier, but what I'm doing now is pretty pain free so I intend to stay with it for the time being.

7 Reply by skywiselh (edited by skywiselh 2014-08-20 19:04:54)

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Re: First Impressions and how to improve

scobo wrote:
skywiselh wrote:

Thanks! Did a calibration, installed an SD extension cord and move the SD card slot to the front. The calibration cube I printed at 0.1mm came out pretty good.

Nice one !
Is it easy enough to take the back panel off to get at the SD card ?

The panel was easy (2 screws and pull it open on the side away from the power plug), but in order to actually remove the SD card you have to pull out the circuit board a bit. I was able to do so without disconnecting anything, but the LCD cable looks mighty thin, so be careful. I fed the actual SD card extension thru a hole in the back and to the inside. Taped the wire and the card-reader down on the inside - main reason for the extension was the ability to remove the mod in case of a warranty return. Picture imgur. com/Ep5nssF

8 Reply by skywiselh

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Re: First Impressions and how to improve

Weekend Avenger wrote:
skywiselh wrote:

Thanks! Did a calibration, installed an SD extension cord and move the SD card slot to the front. The calibration cube I printed at 0.1mm came out pretty good.

What firmware is suggested for best printing quality?

Since you moved the SD card to an extension, it really won't matter what firmware your using if you just wish to slice with a better slicer than XYZware's.

I personally prefer Cura, others tend to use Slic3r, and still others go with KISSlicer. There are other choices as well and you can find some "help" setting most of them up.

Just to prevent issues with my cartridge resetter, I use the G firmware. Some day I may switch to Repetier, but what I'm doing now is pretty pain free so I intend to stay with it for the time being.

Thanks! The cartridge chip "encryption" should be easily overcome by flashing the original content back into the cart once empty and deleting a file on the SD card.

Speaking of slicers - after looking at gcode from Slic3r and XYZWare it looks a bit that XYZprinting stole large parts of the source from Slic3r, in obvious violation of the licensing. Along the same lines I am pretty sure that the firmware inside the unit is actually based on the Repetier and XYZ stole that too. If this is true and can be proven, both NewEgg and Amazon would likely pull the model.

9 Reply by Weekend Avenger

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Re: First Impressions and how to improve

The slicer derivative they are using is unquestionably Slic3r. The version is one that doesn't exist which is 1.2, on Voltivo's forum they go into this pretty extensively.

Oddly the same group has looked into the firmware and decided it's not Repetier. No one seems to know exactly where they came up with the machines firmware, but considering how long CNC type equipment has been around they may well have done their own work there.

As to license violation, I wouldn't be able to speculate on that. As it works now, the XYZware gui calls an external program "out.exe" which is in reality Slic3r with a command line that looks something like this --> 18:03:02.806 : Slic3r command:C:\Users\Darwin\AppData\Roaming\Temp\out.exe  --bed_size 200,200 --filament_diameter 1.75 --print-center 100,100 --fill_density 0.3 --layer_height 0.2 --perimeters 2 --perimeter_speed 45 --infill_speed 45 --support_material_speed 30 --raft_layers 0 --machine daVinciF10 --nozzle_diameter 0.4  --base64 0  -oxyz "C:\ProgramData\XYZprinting Inc.\XYZware\1.1.29.42\composition.3w" "C:\ProgramData\XYZprinting Inc.\XYZware\1.1.29.42\composition.stl".

I'm not sure that is any different than how Slic3r get integrated into other gui front ends. The main difference of course is the lack of identification / license information that should be there along with making the source code for the version they use available. In the end though it would be up to whoever Slic3r was licensed by to determine if they want to do anything about it.

10 Reply by skywiselh

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Re: First Impressions and how to improve

Weekend Avenger wrote:

The slicer derivative they are using is unquestionably Slic3r. The version is one that doesn't exist which is 1.2, on Voltivo's forum they go into this pretty extensively.

Oddly the same group has looked into the firmware and decided it's not Repetier. No one seems to know exactly where they came up with the machines firmware, but considering how long CNC type equipment has been around they may well have done their own work there.

As to license violation, I wouldn't be able to speculate on that. As it works now, the XYZware gui calls an external program "out.exe" which is in reality Slic3r with a command line that looks something like this --> 18:03:02.806 : Slic3r command:C:\Users\Darwin\AppData\Roaming\Temp\out.exe  --bed_size 200,200 --filament_diameter 1.75 --print-center 100,100 --fill_density 0.3 --layer_height 0.2 --perimeters 2 --perimeter_speed 45 --infill_speed 45 --support_material_speed 30 --raft_layers 0 --machine daVinciF10 --nozzle_diameter 0.4  --base64 0  -oxyz "C:\ProgramData\XYZprinting Inc.\XYZware\1.1.29.42\composition.3w" "C:\ProgramData\XYZprinting Inc.\XYZware\1.1.29.42\composition.stl".

I'm not sure that is any different than how Slic3r get integrated into other gui front ends. The main difference of course is the lack of identification / license information that should be there along with making the source code for the version they use available. In the end though it would be up to whoever Slic3r was licensed by to determine if they want to do anything about it.

Interesting. I've successfully did a few prints from Slic3r but it totally failed on my 0.1mm Sonic try (no support for the spikes? Wut?) so I think I gonna give some alternatives a try. Are there recommended print speeds? I felt that the defaults in Slic3r were a bit fast and slowed it all down a bit, but I am really just guessing numbers here.

11 Reply by Weekend Avenger (edited by Weekend Avenger 2014-08-21 05:19:34)

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Re: First Impressions and how to improve

Well, you can see the speeds that "excellent quality / normal speed" is set for at .2 layer height by looking at the post I made... here is the speeds for the "excellent / slow speed" --> 00:11:14.733 : Slic3r command:C:\Users\Dave\AppData\Roaming\Temp\out.exe  --bed_size 200,200 --filament_diameter 1.75 --print-center 100,100 --fill_density 0.1 --layer_height 0.1 --perimeters 2 --perimeter_speed 30 --infill_speed 30 --support_material_speed 30 --raft_layers 0 --machine daVinciF10 --nozzle_diameter 0.4  --base64 0  -oxyz "C:\ProgramData\XYZprinting Inc.\XYZware\1.1.29.42\composition.3w" "C:\ProgramData\XYZprinting Inc.\XYZware\1.1.29.42\composition.stl"

Last but not least, the fastest and worst settings at "normal / fast .4 layer height" --> 00:14:47.903 : Slic3r command:C:\Users\Quartz\AppData\Roaming\Temp\out.exe  --bed_size 200,200 --filament_diameter 1.75 --print-center 100,100 --fill_density 0.1 --layer_height 0.4 --perimeters 2 --perimeter_speed 60 --infill_speed 60 --support_material_speed 30 --raft_layers 0 --machine daVinciF10 --nozzle_diameter 0.4  --base64 0  -oxyz "C:\ProgramData\XYZprinting Inc.\XYZware\1.1.29.42\composition.3w" "C:\ProgramData\XYZprinting Inc.\XYZware\1.1.29.42\composition.stl"

TLDR version, support print speed is always 30, but perimeter and infill speeds are matched at 30, 45, or 60 for Slow, Normal, or Fast.