I recently bought a da Vinci 3D printer for my wife. We’ve been having a little fun with that, but it was having issues printing a lot of the initial parts. The extruded head was dropping plastic from the air on one side of the bed. It turned out the reason why was that calibration was off. So my first piece of advice, if you get one, is to calibrate it. It is really worth it. It is really hard, however, if you follow their instructions.

Here is the key, if you do it their way. First off, here is the way that the calibration pegs actually affect the three numbers (technically, all 3 move with each peg, but this outlines the most serious movements).

• B (left) -> 2 (down)
• A (left) -> 1 (down), 3 (up)
• C (left) -> 2 (down), 3 (down)

So the best way I found was to start with A, and get #1 in order. Then move on to B, and get #3 in order. Finally, adjust B, and get #2 in order. This should get you pretty close. If it does not, just cycle through the order again.

Basically, make an adjustment, then re-calibrate and see what changes happen. I, personally, made 3 swipes left or right per calibration to get it in the ball park, then fine tuned it one swipe at a time.

In total, this took me 6 attempts, where one was in the wrong direction by accident.

Below are the approximate adjustments I saw during calibration for each left turn (which was a swipe from farthest right on the knob to the farthest left on the knob). I expect that the adjustments may not be perfectly linear (at least with respect to one knob) since the relation between all three determine how it all works. In shorter words: your mileage may vary.

• A (left): +17, +3, -7
• B (left): +3, -3, +7
• C (left): -3, +20, +23

P.S. In my actual notes, I originally said that B (left) was 2 (up). It may be a transcription error. The data and procedure worked out the way I wrote here however. Maybe someone can comment with additional experience or thoughts, if the find a mistake in my writing.

P.P.S. Someone on amazon suggested to tell the printer to print a part, then stop it just off the bed. Then skew the head to the three corners and adjust until it was 3 sheets of paper off the bed. That sounds easier. I wasn’t feeling adventurous enough to start pushing the print head all over. I’d rather be patient. Please comment if you try the method and prefer it though. More on the actual Amazon review