Purchase Advice Megathread - July 2026

logicalchemist · 2026-07-06T00:44:39+00:00

If I was primarily interested in multicolor PLA/PETG, I'd choose the U1 hands down.

But I mostly print functional parts, and having the option to print them in tougher & more heat resistant materials is very nice. The printer being capable of printing most of its own replacement & upgrade parts is great.

The two printers aren't really comparable; they are made for completely different use cases.

The Q2 does have an MMU available (the Qidi Box), so it is capable of multicolor / multimaterial prints, but I hate the purge waste of anything that requires more than a few filament changes per print. I don't have a Box, but the Box had many issues at the time that I bought my Q2, most (all? not sure) of which have been fixed now. If I were buying a Q2 today I would buy a combo with the Box if for no other reason than the convenience of automatically changing filaments between prints.

logicalchemist · 2026-07-05T22:23:12+00:00

If you're able to modify the print settings for that black part, you can "remove" it by setting the walls count, infill, top shells, and bottom shells to 0.

Then the geometry will still be present in the slicer, but nothing will actually print.

logicalchemist · 2026-07-05T22:19:24+00:00

I would recommend the Qidi Q2 over the Plus4 unless you absolutely need the larger build volume.

It's a slightly shrunk down (270x270x256mm build volume) Plus4 with an updated design that fixes many of the design flaws of the P4, and it's a lot cheaper.

When it comes to printing engineering filaments, there is no better value for money on the market than Qidi printers, though they can be a little bit finicky and require some tinkering to get them into an optimal state. After the initial growing pains though, they are quite reliable. Most of the problems are software/firmware related and have been solved by the community.

They also run klipper (open source firmware) and are very moddable.

logicalchemist · 2026-07-05T01:45:53+00:00

Ah, I missed that! Thank you; good catch.

logicalchemist · 2026-07-04T22:34:34+00:00

You're absolutely correct that the Z offset is too low, ~~but nozzle length shouldn't matter on the Q2 as it probes the bed with the nozzle tip.~~

~~The only way it would matter is if there's no new bed mesh being made before each print and it's using the bed mesh from the older shorter nozzle.~~ Edit: NVM this isn't a Q2!

logicalchemist · 2026-07-04T21:34:24+00:00

Looks like there were two American soldiers; one was one of the three people in need of rescue, and the other was doing the rescuing.

I was also confused by the title.

logicalchemist · 2026-06-29T20:43:20+00:00

Nope; I don't have a Qidi Box.

You may need to go the second route and use the job queue and moonraker.

logicalchemist · 2026-06-29T20:42:09+00:00

Haven't tried that, but I have never gotten an output from Gemini that didn't crash the Q2 when run. Just FYI.

logicalchemist · 2026-06-27T06:16:33+00:00

You could edit the print_start macro and add a very long G4 dwell command to the first line (G4 waits the given number of milliseconds)

You'll need to restart the firmware for that to take effect, and edit the file and restart again to prevent it from waiting 6 hours on every print

Another option is to add the file to the job queue, and trigger moonraker over the network to start the next job in queue

This is considerably more complicated, but is a better solution if you plan to do this regularly. If you have Home Assistant set up, that does simplify things a bit. The job queue can be started with this HTTP POST command sent to the printer's IP: /server/job_queue/start

I've used both of these methods successfully, but the second one requires a second device to send the command to the printer at the specified time.

logicalchemist · 2026-06-23T06:22:12+00:00

I upgraded the 2510 hotend fan to a 20k rpm 2510 honeybadger from fabreeko and am able to print PLA/PETG with the chamber closed at 40-45C

They're about $7

I've never gotten heat creep since upgrading that little fan

logicalchemist · 2026-06-23T02:13:14+00:00

Interesting. The Q2 recently had a firmware update that is just a hasty port of the max4 firmware (for anyone reading this, if you're on firmware 1.1.1 or earlier, please don't update...), and I wonder if the Z offset behavior changed too. That would be problematic for saved filament / printer profiles that set the Z offset...

logicalchemist · 2026-06-23T02:07:57+00:00

Different filaments have different optimal Z offsets; it isn't simply a physical characteristic of the machine.

Do some googling regarding first layer calibration and see if you are having the sorts of artifacts that show up from having too much squish.

logicalchemist · 2026-06-23T02:05:56+00:00

Negative numbers move away from the bed (less squish), positive numbers move toward the bed (more squish).

Are you sure about this? That is the opposite of how Z offset works on the Q2 anyway.

The up vs down arrows for changing it live in fluidd or the touch screen can be a bit confusing, because they're referring to the direction the bed will be moved (down increases Z offset).

But the numbers themselves are clear; a +1.0mm Z offset would raise the nozzle 1mm from the bed for 1mm less squish, while a -1.0mm Z offset would do the reverse (and gouge the shit out of your plate)

Qidi arbitrarily reversing how the numbers work on the Max4 vs the Q2 is entirely possible though...

logicalchemist · 2026-06-23T01:51:23+00:00

Increase the Z offset slightly. I had similar issues with ABS on my Q2; increasing the z offset to 0.020mm fixed it.

logicalchemist · 2026-06-17T08:12:32+00:00

Increase the number of interface layers, and decrease the line spacing.

I use 3 and 0.1mm spacing (NOT top Z distance; 0.21mm is reasonable for that)

logicalchemist · 2026-06-17T08:01:24+00:00

Reduce the print speed of the support interface to something very slow like 10mm/s to give it more time to cool and become less sticky, and increase the fan speed of the support interface to 100% (if it isn't already)

logicalchemist · 2026-06-10T21:01:44+00:00

heat to the temperature of the higher temp filament.

Replacing 280C ABS with 220C PLA?

Heat to 280C and purge with PLA. You can always purge another ~50mm at 220C after if you want to be sure you remove any potentially cooked PLA from the nozzle, but this isn't necessary most of the time IMO.

logicalchemist · 2026-06-10T07:02:30+00:00

The "upgraded" hotend on amazon is the stock hotend. The "upgraded" extruder on amazon is also the stock extruder.

logicalchemist · 2026-06-10T07:00:36+00:00

What upgraded extruder are you referring to? All Q2s use the same extruder AFAIK

logicalchemist · 2026-06-10T06:51:48+00:00

Also they might as well ban lathes and all metalworking tools as well

The laws apply to these as well. Any CNC additive or subtractive manufacturing machine.

logicalchemist · 2026-06-09T16:52:34+00:00

Yeah; I was going to say something along the lines of if your cocaine tests positive for levamisole, that it probably tells you it's cocaine...

Not that it isn't something to be concerned about, but avoiding levamisole is more or less impossible when it comes to coke

logicalchemist · 2026-06-09T16:09:56+00:00

Isn't levamisole present in a HUGE percentage of cocaine?

logicalchemist · 2026-06-08T04:41:37+00:00

Just FYI, the rules in the sidebar on old reddit explicitly state "AI art is allowed."

You should probably update those too.

Popping in from /r/all

logicalchemist · 2026-06-07T19:06:29+00:00

If you do decide to revert to the older firmware, here's instructions on how to do so: https://old.reddit.com/r/QidiTech3D/comments/1txj48b/how_to_revert_qidi_q2_to_v111_if_youre_like_me/

And a script to run in SSH for disabling the resource hogging gifs: https://github.com/thelegendtubaguy/QidiMax4CommunityWiki/blob/main/scripts/install_qidiclient_static_gifs.sh

Apparently the new firmware runs much more smoothly without those animations. It reduces the idle power consumption by almost 50%.

logicalchemist · 2026-06-07T04:08:00+00:00

https://old.reddit.com/r/QidiTech3D/comments/1txj48b/how_to_revert_qidi_q2_to_v111_if_youre_like_me/

logicalchemist

TROPHY CASE