QIDI Tech 1 and a 3D Print newbie

After reading stellar reviews on this printer and seeing a healthy price drop on Amazon, I begged my wife to let me pull the trigger and get this. So far I'm REALLY happy, but I feel so green when it comes to printing. Straight out of the box I used MakerWare to print the 20mm test box in ABS which seemed to work great. Last night I tried to print one of my own models, a small figure I modeled and had printed previously through Shapeways. I used PLA this time, but it didn't go as smoothly this time. It might have been that the details of the model were too small, but the final print came out ragged and just a mess. I noticed a few times that the extruder had filament on it, just kinda hanging in space while it moved and occasionally the plastic just didn't seem to adhere to the previous layer.

Would you guys mind sharing some of your setting for PLA prints? I'm guessing it's user error, either with nozzle temp, plate temp, speed, etc . . . that I just haven't become acquainted enough with to know any better. Any tips you have would be great. Thanks!

Oh, a few other questions:

The menu on the printer has a setting to change the color of the LED lights. Even though it's not mission critical, changing the color doesn't seem to do anything. The lights alway remain white.

Does anyone else have problems with the top cover? Not problems per say, but the extruder box's cable bundle gets easily caught on the plexiglass and bends the sides of the T opening in. It hasn't stopped the head from moving around, but I'm a little concerned about the stress on the plastic and any resistance that might be caused because of it.

Hi Jedi Master, :D
I've had a QIDI Tech 1 now for a couple weeks, and am a little new to the 3d-printing stuff. I also started having the same issues with the prints as you did, except I was using ABS instead. I later found out that I was not calibrating the print bed correctly. I also found this video that helped me with calibrating the printer tremendously: https://youtu.be/blg9dGSi6Oo?t=1m1s (He calibrates the printer from 1:00 to 3:08). The only difference with calibrating his MakerBot Creator is he has four adjustable springs instead of three, which makes calibrating only a tad harder, since you have to make all the springs coordinate with each other. Make sure you turn on supports if the object has any places that might need it.

The settings I use for PLA: Infill - 15%, Number of Shells (wall thickness) - 1, Feedrate (filament feeding speed) - 100, Travel Feedrate (speed which the extruders move) - 120, Extruder temperature - 220 degrees C (428 F), and the Build Plate temp - 40 degrees C (104 F)

Also, I still have not figured out the LED thing yet. I THINK they borrowed the software from another printer and forgot to remove that feature, but that's just a guess. And also I had so many problems installing the top cover that I just left it off. It's also more convenient when you want to change out the filament.

I hope this helped!
Calvin

Guys, when you turn your printer on, what is the absolute first thing that comes on the screen? is it "Firmware 1.0" ?

Hi,

I've only had my Qidi a little while now too but here's what I've been using to give me good results with PLA. Infill: 15%, Perimeter Shells: 2 (though thats just a preference), Extrusion Multiplier: 0.95, Extruder Temperature: 195, Build Plate: start at 60 C and drop down to 40 C after 5 layers, Speed: 30mm/s and 50% for outline underspeed, Travel Speed: 40mm/s. (Though last night I tried printing at 60mm/s print and 80mm/s travel and the prints turned out great so experimenting to be done there. 80mm/s print and 100mm/s travel did not turn out good at all though, not even close :D)

I should say I'm using Simplify3D, before I bought it I thought it seemed expensive all things considered but it was definitely worth the money.

The option to change light colour will do nothing on the Qidi unless you want to install a couple of modifications yourself, as Qidi have only fitted the thing with white LED's.

I had problems with the cables hitting the back of the hood as well, so I just removed the back part altogether. I'm also fairly convinced my prints have been better since doing that but its probably a placebo effect brought on by all the other things I'm tinkering with on it.

I also replaced the build plate material, initially with borosilicate glass, it's vastly superior to that god awful blue stuff that the printer came with. But now I'm using Print Bite, oh my god is that stuff awesome.
Since I started using that I can have the bed temperature even lower and so far every single print has stuck like cement, not a lift, curl, peel or anything at all unwanted and I don't have to use hairspray, glue, tape, slurry or anything else now either. Best of all once the bed cools down to around 30C the printed pieces just lift straight off leaving no residue behind.


Geoff, when I turn mine on it shows quite a bit of information so I wasn't able to catch everything, but basically it has Qidi Tech at the top, then something else and the date underneath that and the bottom shows Sailfish v7.8.
I'm probably wrong here, because I've forgotten much of the 180 odd pages of the Qidi thread I read :rolleyes: but if I remember right firmware 1.0 is what Qidi were using before switching it over to the Sailfish they are using now.

I must have one of the first ones because my LED lights are blue. I'd actually prefer they were white because it would be more practical, but the blue looks kinda cool.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by marcnaz

I must have one of the first ones because my LED lights are blue. I'd actually prefer they were white because it would be more practical, but the blue looks kinda cool.

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To hell with practical, blue always looks cool. I'd swap my white over for blue in a heartbeat. In fact, I may just have to do that at some point :)

Also a newbie with a QIDI TECH. Really like the machine and excited to see what it can do. Managed to print the test cube from the file the company sent me but every time i try and print something else, the extruder temperature drops. I load the filament, the temperature is fine, then i click print and it just drops and drops until it's not hot enough to melt the PLA. All the settings on the software say the right extruder is selected and is at 220 degrees. ( i initially thought i had wrongly selected left but that was not the case) Any thoughts?

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Does anyone know how to adjust the qidi bed temperature?

You set it in your slicer program. In Simplify3d it's under "Edit Process Settings"->Temperature->"Heated Bed Platform"
You can have it change by layer if you want.
For ABS, I use 110 C for the first 10 layers, then 100 C for the next 10 layers, then 90 C til the end.
Since I have a glass bed, the part will pop right off when the bed gets below 40-50 C or so.