More Info About New Version 3.1.0 Update!

[razster]

First of all, super happy for the new update! I own 2 of the new printers that are now supported with version 3.1 and I'm soo glad I can finally use my favorite software with them I also had at least one bug and another feature request that both got put into this release so also very happy for that

If you haven't downloaded the new version yet, you can find all the changes here. There's a lot to look through and I feel like many of those bullet points don't fully explain things so I wanted to make a new thread for adding info about all the new options. Feel free to contribute as you find things

I'm playing with some of the new stuff on my xyz printers right now, so I'll report back soon after the prints finish

[razster]

Just finished running a print on my davinci pro. All I had to do was go to the Help menu, select Configuration Assistant, then I just picked the XYZprinting 1.0 Pro profile. It rearranged the build plate and loaded all the settings. I plugged in my printer and it automatically connected. I went to the machine control panel and it was already reporting the bed and extruder temperatures, so everything looks good.

To actually start the print, I just imported a simple calibration model, sliced it, and then clicked Print over USB. Sure enough, I heard the davinci pro beep a few times and the file started uploading and printing. After several months of being forced to use the bad XYZ software, I can't say how exciting this is. It's behaving just like the other reprap printers I have and it seems I can do most anything that I can do with them in S3D.

The print only took about 15 minutes, but it looks even better than what I was getting. Plus now I get to use all the other goodies in the simplify slicer

While it was printing, I also saw that the percent complete was being sent back to the S3D window and the preview was actually following along with the print. I don't remember this ever working on my old da vinci 1.0. Has anyone else noticed this? I'm thinking this may also be something new they added in v3.1...

EDIT: The davinci pro firmware doesn't support manually jogging, so don't expect that to work. The software gives you a warning to confirm this.

[andrewk72]

I'll add some info to this. They mentioned some improvements to their automated mesh repair stuff, and I have to say, it's already been a big help to me. I deal with lots of STL files at my job that frequently have tiny mesh errors or other issues that I can sometimes fix by running through netfabb, but it's a pain to have to do that every time. I have now tried 3 previous models that I was having trouble with, and they are all working now with the new version 3.1.0 update. So for anyone that's had trouble with a specific part slicing in S3D, I would recommend upgrading to 3.1.0 and trying again. Between their automatic stuff and the separate connected surfaces feature, I'm able to slice a lot of parts now that I couldn't before.

[razster]

I only have 2 files I had ever had trouble with in S3D. I can't find one of them, but the one I still have now slices correctly. Looks like there's definitely some improvements there.

I also got to do a lot more tests today using by CubePro printer. I've spent a lot of time working with some of the other profiles on this forum, but now there's one already included in the configuration assistant. I got to compare it to the best profile I was using previously (which was already better than the stock software), and the new one in the software is MUCH better. It seems like it's now extruding and moving at faster speeds. It's hard to describe, but the whole things just seems to be operating a lot more smoothly. I also didn't have to change a single thing from their stock profile

It took a lot of work tweaking some of the other profiles on this forum for this printer, so it's great to not have to do that anymore. Glad the S3D team stepped up and saved us the trouble

Has anyone else with a CubePro got to test the new profile yet? It's working a lot better for me, but I'm hoping someone else can confirm

[razster]

Did a bit more digging last night and found out how to use some of the new wifi options for the da vinci printers. It seems like it won't work by default unless you change one setting. Go to the Tools menu, select Options, then go to the network tab and enable "search for printers on local network". Then if will automatically detect printers on the same network. In fact, my 1.0 pro seemed to behave the exact same over wifi as it did when plugged in directly. So it seems like you can use all the same options and controls. That's going to make printing from the other room a lot easier.

[CompoundCarl]

In case anyone has questions about how the new version gets installed, it's the same as every other view I have ever used. When you install the new 3.1.0 version, it will actually install the program into a separate folder. It will not overwrite your old version or installation, which makes it very easy to switch between versions if needed. For example, if you're on Windows and you were using v3.0.2 previous and install v3.1.0, you would have two folders now with separate installs:

C:\Program Files\Simplify3D-3.0.2
C:\Program Files\Simplify3D-3.1.0

You can go into either folder to launch the version you want. If you ever want to get rid of the old version, just uninstall it. All of your profiles and settings are maintained between versions, so you don't have to worry about losing those things when you uninstall an old version. It will all still be there.

[Geoff Sim]

Just finished running a print on my davinci pro. All I had to do was go to the Help menu, select Configuration Assistant, then I just picked the XYZprinting 1.0 Pro profile. It rearranged the build plate and loaded all the settings. I plugged in my printer and it automatically connected. I went to the machine control panel and it was already reporting the bed and extruder temperatures, so everything looks good. I did a few jogging commands just to test the toolhead and that was also working.

How did you do jogging?
Trying this on my iMac wirelessly connected to my DaVinci pro resulted in, "You must be connected before sending commands".
In fact, most things on the control panel didn't work, or resulted in this message, or something on the lines of "This printer does not support..."
Equally, I am not seeing "live preview tracking".

I will have to try the Windows version to see if it is any different.

[razster]

How did you do jogging?
Trying this on my iMac wirelessly connected to my DaVinci pro resulted in, "You must be connected before sending commands".
In fact, most things on the control panel didn't work, or resulted in this message, or something on the lines of "This printer does not support..."
Equally, I am not seeing "live preview tracking".

On second review, I think I mixed that up, so I edited my post. My old davinci 1.0 never used to support jogging because I was using a newer firmware, but now it does! So apparently they added capability for a bunch of the old machines as well. However, the davinci pro does not support jogging since the firmware on that machine is pretty limited. You can go read around on other forums to confirm this. There's only a few commands that it supports.

However, I ran a few other tests and live preview tracking IS working on the davinci pro. All I had to do was start printing over USB, and then as the print progresses, the live view updates along with the printer (just make sure to not exit the preview, since it obviously won't work then). It's not very exciting until the print actually starts though, so don't be surprised if you don't see a lot of movement during the preheating part. Wait till the toolhead actually starts printing and then you'll probably see it.

[razster]

To add some more findings about the CubePro - the more I've been using it, the more things I'm finding that they added. For example, all of the retraction, coasting, wiping, and even some of the advanced retraction controls all work properly now. Proper coasting and some of the retraction behavior settings can make a big difference when you're trying to perfect the prints, so that is greatly appreciated. None of those options worked with the prior versions, there were just using some fixed retraction that didn't work very well in many scenarios.

There's also a new firmware template for the BFB printer and they handle a lot of the M108 and other M-codes internally in the software. The automatic flow control is probably the biggest improvement, since that means you can also use a lot of their dynamic cooling and speed settings.

I'm sure there's more to find, but these new settings are already making a big difference

[andrewk72]

Another thing I noticed today is that when I make a file for my flashforge, it now puts .x3g at the end of the filename, which is a lot more intuitive (it used to put .gcode at the end)

That confused me when I first got started, so I'm glad they changed it