XYZprinting is now the world’s largest maker/seller of desktop 3D printers in the world. According to Canalys, a market analysis firm, XYZprinting sold over 22% of all 3D printers in the first half of this year. That is a lot of machines, and when you examine their machines up close, it isn’t difficult to figure out why they can move so many.
Their machines run the gamut from the da Vinci Junior, da Vinci, da Vinci 2, Noble, the new da Vinci Pro, and soon they will be releasing a food printer. They are inexpensive, reliable, easy to use, and come in a range of models that are designed for different kinds of users. This is a company that is seeking to build the 3D printing consumer market like no other.
The AiO is a fairly standard FDM-style printer, with a slight twist. In addition to all its other features it also includes a built-in 3D laser scanner! Needless to say we were pretty excited to give it a go. While we have tested and played around with more printers than I can recall, we have had fairly limited experience with 3D scanners, so for us this was going to be a bit of a treat.
The machine arrived at out lab packed in what we now consider the usual XYZprinting style…which is to say, really well. While opening and unpacking the machine, nothing rattled or was out of place. Every component was padded or taped down for shipment, including all of the printer’s accessories. The AiO is a bit large compared to most desktop printers at 47cm wide, 57cm deep and 51cm high. Its fully enclosed, 20cm x 20cm x 19cm, single extruder build chamber has a heated build plate, allowing it to print in both PLA and ABS. And a cartridge of each type of filament was included with the package.
We ran several prints in both materials, switching back and forth between cartridges to see if the extruder would jam up, which it (almost) did not. We had one minor jam…but unlike many other printers we have used, clearing the jam did not require us to disassemble the extruder. We simply ran the machine’s load/unload process again, and the problem resolved itself. As far as most machines go, ours was a bit noisy while printing but it didn’t seem to cause any printing troubles. The machine also had a clever nozzle cleaning device build onto the side of the buildplate that wipes the nozzle tip before it begins printing, helping to reduce plastic buildup on the hotend.
In our tests the machine printed very reliably and without any trouble. We used up the contents of both cartridges without a hitch, and while we would have liked to have seen a little better resolution, we had no real complaints. The PLA worked very nicely, but where this machine really stood out was its use of ABS. As anyone who has done any printing at all knows that ABS can be…difficult…to work with. Warping, peeling, delaminating…you name it, ABS can do it all! But the lion’s share of frustration comes from ABS’s tendency to warp. As incredible as this may sound, we experienced no warping of XYZprinting’s ABS at all! None. Every single print stuck to the printbed and printed flat and true, each and every time. We did absolutely nothing special to make this work, it just did.
Truth be told, we do not know if the ABS’s superior performance was due to the AiO’s hardware abilities, the filament’s composition, or a combination of the two…but whatever it was, it worked! How often can you say that printing in ABS is as easy as printing with PLA? I would have loved to have tested the AiO with an off-brand ABS filament, but the machine will not allow that, as it (currently) only accepts XYZprinting’s filament cartridges. But in an interesting twist, XYZprinting has announced that their new da Vinci Pro will allow users to use whatever filament they please, and if hope be there, maybe all their future machines will follow suit.
The laser scanner, which we were excited to play with, was mounted on the bottom of the build chamber under the build plate. To use it, the build plate moves to the top of the build chamber out of the way leaving the black scanner turntable exposed and ready for use. Humorously, one of our students noted that it made the printer look a little like an oversized microwave oven.
Jokes notwithstanding, the scanner consisted of two red lasers mounted on either side of the chamber, at different heights so that as the item being scanned rotates, its contours are fully covered. The turntable is about 20cm across, but the chamber is big enough that substantially sized items can be scanned fairly easily. The manual states that the turntable’s maximum weight capability is 3kgs, and though we didn’t test that limit, the heaviest item we scanned weighed about 2.5kgs, and the turntable operated smoothly, and without any problems. All in all, the hardware seemed solid and reliable. But this is where the story changes a bit….
The scanner comes with its own special software called “XYZscan” which we believe is the machine’s weakest point. We followed the manual’s instructions to the letter, but could not get a clear scan of any item we tried, no matter what it was or how many times we repeated the scan. The items’ shape, color, and surface finish did make a big difference; with light-colored, smooth items that had a mat-finished surface working the best. In our case it was a white, plastic cylinder…but even that came out at only about 90% accurate.
It also did it seem to matter what kind of computer operating system we used. During our test we used a Windows 7 laptop, a Windows 8.1 desktop, and a Mac desktop running Yosemite. The Mac was able to get the best scans, but even those were far from ideal. Given all of the AiO’s great hardware features, the software was a big disappointment.
If XYZprinting’s engineers can get the troubles worked out of their programs, the AiO would be a truly amazing machine…especially for the price! While we cannot yet recommend it for its scanning abilities, it is STILL worth considering as a 3D printer in its own right. Whatever your feelings about its flaws, it is still the best ABS printer we have yet seen out of the box…to be able to “hit print and forget” while printing, especially with ABS, is something that you are not likely to see very often.
When I was younger I had been told that “perfection is the enemy of good enough”. Products need to get out into the hands of people who can play with them, learn on them, use them, and suggest improvements or complain about them…and then…and this is the tricky part for most companies…actually listen to those suggestions and complaints and make the products better. But that entire process cannot even begin if the machines don’t actually get out the factory doors.
While many people have complaints about XYZprinting’s machines, including myself, what cannot be denied is that by focusing on getting functional, entry-level, inexpensive, easy to use machines that are ready to go right out of the box out into the marketplace, warts and all, XYZprinting is doing more to expand the global 3D printing consumer market than just about any other company. Say what you will, but as a 3D enthusiasts, we are glad for it.
