DaVinci 1.0 3d printer
After having play for a year with a Tobeca Printer, I decided to acquire a DaVinci printer. When I was looking for the Tobeca I was already interested in the DaVinci because of its really low cost. At this time, this printer was not available in Europe and the price for import was too expensive. The printer is actually distributed by Boulanger in France for a price about 500€ making it a really competitive solution with a good technical specification.
The XYZ business model is based on 2D printer business model : have a low cost printer and sell the cartridge at a higher price. For 800g of PLA you have to pay 50€ compared to 30€ for a Kg of standard PLA. By the way, it seems that you can get discount on Wednesday on XYZ website 😉
This post details my end user experience on getting the first print with this printer.
Unpacking
The experience is really like unpacking an Epson 2D printer !! I was surprised by the size of the box and the printer itself. This is a huge printer ! The packaging is excellent and after a first loop you see that they have provided all what you need to start : glue, cleaning tool… All the element are really well attached, blocked, protected and well finished. This is really a mass market printer. Really different from the other I have seen.
The good surprised was to have a plastic material cartridge this information was not on the seller website neither on the XYZ website. It means the extra cost I spend buying a cartridge has not a must have.
May be because it is a consumer oriented product, you have no way to know if the material is ABS or PLA before installing it 🙁
Installing the cartridge is easy even if you can intall it on both sides. The material net guide will help you to find the right way.
Initializing
The software provided with the printer was really old for MAC at least. I recommend to directly go on website / support area and download the last version. The firmware was also really old 1.0.6 compared to 2.0.1 available on the website.
As the software is not signed & certified by Apple you will have to authorize the access ; for a mass public product it would be better to have the Apple signature … by the way, it works
Once the software is launched, after a while you will be asked for the firmware upgrade. Everything is done seamless.
The software is really basic : I did not saw any option for making object bed of selecting temperature you can only select a stl file and print it. It is once you click on Print you can choose to have a support, select the printing details… So no, I know it : the given material is ABS !
All the printer controlled actions like material charging are executed from the printer screen and can’t be done from the software.
First print
The first step was to put glue all over the board for making printed object attach to the board. My advice is to put glue on the right side of the board also as the head is printing a small line for initializing. If this one is not correctly attached to the board you will have it in the middle of your object… On my second print I forgot to use the glue and I appreciated the material adherence even without glue.
Then I chosen to print the last object I have printed with my Tobeca for a comparison. At this point the first thing I can tell is the printing time with XYZ is long ! It plans 2h for an object I have printed in about 1 hour with a equivalent precision of 0,3mm height. Board heat is quite long (7min). By the way, i do not really trust the estimated time as it is announcing 11h00 after starting…
What is really good is you have you object printed correctly at the first time ! the printer is calibrating automatically. It is also cleaning head automatically and when you are use to have a more rustic printer, I promise it is a really really appreciable thing.
The printer is noisy … as all the printers for sure and basically less noisy than my other one. The printer is also less vibrating when making honeycomb.
The light in the printer is also a nice thing. You can reactivate it with the home button.
The software is crashing on MacOS on every first slice and works when you restart it… so take it into account !
The communication between computer and printer is only needed to transfer the object data to print. This is a really good point as you can turn off your computer or do anything without fear of a print error.
First conclusion
I really appreciate the consumer experience for unpacking to printing. Was fast enough and easy enough. I’ll see, time after time if this first impression change or not and let you know.