The DaVinci is officially retired. Next, it gets stripped for parts and the enclosure will house one of my i3s…
On my way to retire my M3D micro. What are your concluded reasons to the shutdown?
Shoddy design, maintenance that does not reflect the device. The last straw was instructions to remove the extruder which was simply impossible no matter what zip tie I removed, plug I unplugged, tab I pushed. This after having to replace the belt tensioner and rhe annoyance of proprietary filament.
@Joshua_Taylor same question to you about the M3D…
6 months of use, impossible to print a perfect or near perfect circle. Very poor stock bed adhesion. I had to completely remove the stock bed and use a glass sheet with aquanet for every print which leaves print bases (without rafts) sticky for about a week. Have burned up 7 total Extruder motors to date. PrintM3D has sent me free replacements each time but I’m down a week waiting between every motor. This last time they sent me 2 because they know and expect them to fail but won’t even try different brands. Also, knockdown software although a guy by Donovan6000 hacked his own working firmware and allows us M3D users to use other print hosts though the only solid build works with OctoPrint. So much dissapointment in my first Purchased printer. I’m building a remix of the SimpleXL tower printer and moving on from the Micro. Once I decide on a control board as I don’t care much for the Ramps1.4 builds I’ve used previously.
I would look at smoothieboard as a control board
I might turn mine into a standard cartesian a-la SmartRapCore if I can design a suitable replacement X carriage.
Hmmm, extruder replacement was quite easy, and though there are definite accuracy issues, and a heap of poor design decisions (like screws going into plastic), I’ve very rarely had a totally unusable part from my DaVinci.
@funinthefalls I head tons of good stuff about smoothie and highly considering that.
@Neal_Grieb I have. Some models actually crash the machine. Finally got sick of that too. Going to add a new board, new x carriage ends, new LCD and build the controlling PC right into it.
I just wish I had a 3d printer… makes me sad to hear one is being retired
I also today retired my old SmartRap and 2 Edge printers. Their parts are going into other printers. Coming up are 2 i3 printers (acrylic and MDF), 2 mini Deltas, 2 full Deltas, a SmartRapCore and a SmartRapCore Alu, a FolgerTech 2020 i3, 2 all metal i3s and…coverting the dead CTC dual head, the Fab@Home2 and my i4 that has a dead board. Then there are 2 MPrime Ones and get this…a MendelMax 90…
@Samer_Najia ducks head down walking back to the Laser 
@Alex_Krause , do I need to dig through my parts bin and gather components.for you so you are not deprived? I have, ahem, a ton of gear and my local maker space offered me a box of nema 17 motors (no idea what they can do). I am asking Santa for a K40 this year
@Samer_Najia that would be super splined of you 
in the mean time is there anything you need laser cut
Send me an address offline and I will go dig l. And as a matter of fact, I do. I will send that along too
@Alex_Krause I’ve yet to get into laser cutting but have been wanting too. Where would I begin and would it be easiest and cheaper to convert one of my printers already say my I3 ?
I put repetier firmware on my davinci and replaced the extruder… Not too sure why you are having such an issue
Maybe because I am missing some ZIP Tie or something but it shouldn’t this hard or this annoying. Yeah I just need to replace the x carriage and modify the belt tensioning system and replace the guts with a smoothie and buh bye
@Samer_Najia I’m building another printer I’m not all that crazy about needing Speed Over Quality but all the issues with belt tensions and constant adjustments makes me want to make an entire threaded rod based printer. But even then I think the speed would gnaw at my skin.