I haven’t posted for a while because my wife and I welcomed our second child to the world almost 2 months ago. The amount of time two kids take up seems exponential compared to one kid, so I haven’t had much time.
Just before her birth, I splurged and bought Simplify3D. I’d heard a lot of great things about it and found that it works with the DaVinci 1.0. It allows control over temperatures, supports, and tons of other settings. In my case, XYZware kept running the “upgrade tool” every time I tried to use PLA, which became very annoying. Simplify3D is not cheap and there’s no trial period, but I’m very happy with the purchase so far. The ability to modify supports easily is great, it has a ton of useful tools for messing with models, and the preview of the printing process is also really nice.
As I mentioned in my last post, I put the PLA-capable nozzle on my DaVinci. I’ve been able to print both PLA and ABS successfully on it with Simplify3D (and without switching the nozzle). I had some adhesion problems with ABS initially, but think I got my settings dialed in now. I’ve printed quite a few things with both filaments successfully. The smell of PLA is much nicer and the finish on it is generally more pleasing for what I’ve printed, but it’s much more brittle than ABS. I’ve had a few items break pretty easily with PLA.
I’ll post photos/time-lapse of a few recent prints in an upcoming post.
Rick Schrader 