Qidi Tech 1 - Replicator 1 clone

[DarkAlchemist]

I have...and for most stuff it seems to create more strings and phantom towers.
Granted I have never messed with fan speed or such.

The Qidi seems enclosed, but I can assure you this machine has plenty of breathing room. Not on par with an open frame machine I'm sure, but this machine is far from an closed off print area.
I am planning to use active cooling one my lexan plates get here, but then the machine really will be in a sealed environment.

Gonna take couple months to get my new set up done, but I'll have to snap a shot for yall, its gonna be silly awesome.

The people saying the fan on ABS makes a lot of difference are those who made a totally enclosed case around their printers (all were RepRaps) so it makes sense since the inside temps can get pretty hot in there so a fan blowing is a wise move. Like a 100f day in the summer with a fan blowing through 200f, or higher, water+coolant through a radiator keeps your car going. 100f compared to 200f plus is a chill so basically the same on the ABS in a totally enclosed case.

This Qidi does have a warmer inside but not as warm as when I stuck a box over my I3. I never did do a fan on it when inside the box but it was just a test and the ABS worked for tall objects with the bed in a 20c room. Without the box forget it with a fan or without.

edit: The enclosed case with the Qidi is really meant to keep drafts off the print, and the steel frame case for rigidity, than anything else I think.

[cncartist]

I have...and for most stuff it seems to create more strings and phantom towers.
Granted I have never messed with fan speed or such.

The Qidi seems enclosed, but I can assure you this machine has plenty of breathing room. Not on par with an open frame machine I'm sure, but this machine is far from an closed off print area.
I am planning to use active cooling one my lexan plates get here, but then the machine really will be in a sealed environment.

Gonna take couple months to get my new set up done, but I'll have to snap a shot for yall, its gonna be silly awesome.

Definitely, there is a ton of breathing room in between the gaps. So far I only use cooling on ABS prints when the prior print (same item) had raised edges/curling that affected the final print quality. Probably 10-15% of my prints use cooling now but don't require it. This helps keep the layers flat and prevent raised edges/curling which has allowed some of my "second" prints to not require sanding/filing.

Looking forward to seeing the pictures, should be sweet!

[DarkAlchemist]

My replacement part arrives tomorrow but I will say this never again will I purchase directly from China as I need someone in between who has some protections for the buyer.

As I was removing the X carriage endstop I could not get the wire off no matter what (Z's endstop was easy peasy) and after it was all said and done the endstop wire connected to the endstop was melted together. Since these have no real current to cause that I have absolutely no idea how, or why, that was fused together like it was, but I think this was what we call around here a Friday piece which means a lot of things manufactured on a Friday have the most defects. Called the Friday syndrome where everyone is thinking of going home and goofing off.

I have lived and I have now learned and nothing is beyond repairing, and I have ordered another wire and another endstop, but man oh man for a brand new machine.

Oh, before I forget another thing I found was the left hand side front piece with the pulley I had to apply a lot of force to get one of the bearings to finally slip into place so it came to me cockeyed for the belt.

edit: The more I looked at it the more I think this was not melted this was super glued.

Anyone happen to know how to remove the Y GT2 bet when it wears out eventually? They have it pushed into a toothed holder and either super glued in or epoxied but it isn't going to budge and with it glued in under the tooth holder that will be heck to remove when it is time to replace it.
20160509_010626[1].jpg20160509_010619[1].jpg20160509_010603[1].jpg

After talking with Emily she said "Some customers told us , when the printer is working , the belt will loose ,So we all stick the belt on the plastic parts ." SOP for them now it seems.

So, this tells me some of this glue is what got onto my endstop somehow at the factory as it looked the same only I thought it was melted.

edit: This was indeed glued per Emily "Yes , we stick some parts on the printer directly to put an end to some small problems . So we suggest our customer do not to replace it ." Replacing a mechanical Endstop has to happen eventually as they wear out (mine did in about a year on my I3 and was one of the reasons I went to a Hall Effect endstop on it).

So, I am going through all of the pains and grief that everyone will eventually have to only I am in hyper accelerated mode because I had to take all of this stuff off to replace the bowed/bent rod. I am glad I am finding this now instead of later though so that is a positive thing.

[JSensebe]

Hey. I just ordered my printer, so I'm one of you now. What slicer/host is best for this printer if one is unwilling to shell out $150 for Simplify3D? I am dubious about a lot of these online reviews since it looks like they always print from the PC, so communication issues can show up in the print. I plan to use the SD card exclusively. And if the review includes Simplify3D, the result is always "Simplify3D is totally awesome! (Where's my check?)"

Right now I'm playing with ReplicatorG/Skeinforge. The model I'm making is a puzzle with sliding and turning pieces. Ambitious, I know, but I learn better when I shoot for the Moon.

[cdmcg]

So, did some more fiddling around and figured out whats going on...figured I'd share for anyone reading thread in the future.

It would appear that when Blender imports/exports things in .stl format it converts Meters into Milimeters.
A 1meter cube in Blender that is exported to .stl and the loaded into S3D will be 1mm cube.

Now that I know whats going on its actually not a bad thing at all. Blender is not so good for working so close to tiny objects. You can only zoom in so much before the engine will force a cross-section view on the mesh. This makes working on anything smaller than 1cm or so kinda a pain to work...gotta fidget with the camera so much.

But now that I know how its converting the messurement I can just modelstuff super big in Blender.

I know this was a few months ago, but having plenty of experience with other 3D modelling packages. You SHOULD be able to change your clipping setting which is what is happening. Eventually the camera will go into the model and there is nothing you can to there.

Something else you can do, this at least works in Maya. Put your model inside a group and scale the group up. Once you are done working on your model, set the group scale back to 1 in X,Y,Z and it will go back to its original scale.

[Syd_Khaos]

I know this was a few months ago, but having plenty of experience with other 3D modelling packages. You SHOULD be able to change your clipping setting which is what is happening. Eventually the camera will go into the model and there is nothing you can to there.

Something else you can do, this at least works in Maya. Put your model inside a group and scale the group up. Once you are done working on your model, set the group scale back to 1 in X,Y,Z and it will go back to its original scale.

Actually I rather like the import/export difference.
1mm in S3D is 1m in Blender, so there is no thinking about how its gonna scale...easy-peasy.

One of my biggest issues in Blender is getting the camera JUST right for what I'm trying to do. This little problem get much much worse the smaller the item/area is I'm working on. I don't seem to ever have this issue when working on models to print.

Zoom in on that little bit to work? SUre...that 'little' bit is 6m x 12m, no worries lol!!


@JSensebe:
Welcome to the Qidi club bud =)

OK...now lets talk about heat.....
Recetly got a spool of that new(ish) FDA dishwasher safe PLA from MakerGeeks. Having a hell of a time getting it to print. First of all this stuff has to be printed SUPER slow...I'm down to 1600mm/min and still think they may be a tad on the fast side.
The heat is really what concerns me though...I'm still running the stock PTFE/nozzle setup. The MakerGeeks tag on the spool say 260c, but this still seems a little on the cold side.
So my question is, how hot can this machine run (safe to run that is) with stock setup? Keep in mind these prints would in the 4-8hr range. At what temp will the PTFE tubes start to deform ?

[DarkAlchemist]

Actually I rather like the import/export difference.
1mm in S3D is 1m in Blender, so there is no thinking about how its gonna scale...easy-peasy.

One of my biggest issues in Blender is getting the camera JUST right for what I'm trying to do. This little problem get much much worse the smaller the item/area is I'm working on. I don't seem to ever have this issue when working on models to print.

Zoom in on that little bit to work? SUre...that 'little' bit is 6m x 12m, no worries lol!!


@JSensebe:
Welcome to the Qidi club bud =)

OK...now lets talk about heat.....
Recetly got a spool of that new(ish) FDA dishwasher safe PLA from MakerGeeks. Having a hell of a time getting it to print. First of all this stuff has to be printed SUPER slow...I'm down to 1600mm/min and still think they may be a tad on the fast side.
The heat is really what concerns me though...I'm still running the stock PTFE/nozzle setup. The MakerGeeks tag on the spool say 260c, but this still seems a little on the cold side.
So my question is, how hot can this machine run (safe to run that is) with stock setup? Keep in mind these prints would in the 4-8hr range. At what temp will the PTFE tubes start to deform ?

260c is already past the safety limits so watch out. Sounds to me like another case of an all metal hotend is needed. Deforming PTFE is about 250c but the actual melting point is around 350c so an all metal hotend would be able to extrude PTFE and PEEK (I know they make PEEK filament at around 600 dollars a Kg).

I found this "Unfortunately, both PEEK and PTFE begin to breakdown at temperatures above 240°C. Get them above 250°C for too long and you’ll be treated to noxious fumes and a blackened mess."

[rcleav]

Hey. I just ordered my printer, so I'm one of you now. What slicer/host is best for this printer if one is unwilling to shell out $150 for Simplify3D? I am dubious about a lot of these online reviews since it looks like they always print from the PC, so communication issues can show up in the print. I plan to use the SD card exclusively. And if the review includes Simplify3D, the result is always "Simplify3D is totally awesome! (Where's my check?)"

Right now I'm playing with ReplicatorG/Skeinforge. The model I'm making is a puzzle with sliding and turning pieces. Ambitious, I know, but I learn better when I shoot for the Moon.

I have tried ReplicatorG thought it was a little cumbersome to use and quickly switched to S3D and haven't tried anything since.
S3D prints just fine using a SD card that's what I have always used.
Unfortunately S3D doesn't do demos but it works as good as most those reviews say.
I have a couple different printers types and it works equally well with all of them.

[DarkAlchemist]

I have tried ReplicatorG thought it was a little cumbersome to use and quickly switched to S3D and haven't tried anything since.
S3D prints just fine using a SD card that's what I have always used.
Unfortunately S3D doesn't do demos but it works as good as most those reviews say.
I have a couple different printers types and it works equally well with all of them.

The only thing they do is a satisfaction guarantee and if not completely satisfied within the first two weeks of usage they will refund all of your money. That program just started recently I believe.

[JSensebe]

The only thing they do is a satisfaction guarantee and if not completely satisfied within the first two weeks of usage they will refund all of your money. That program just started recently I believe.

I am led to believe that they will indeed refund all of your money... eventually.

Anyway, I want to slum it for a while with the free software. I wish there were at least choices when it came to paid software, but Simplify3D appears to be it.

The only thing I'd really like to have from ReplicatorG is a preview feature where I can check out the layers, but there is other software for that. At the end of the day, I just want something that makes a good tool path and doesn't f@^k up my build.

I'm a Lightwave 3D user, so naturally I want to model stuff in that. I was going to write my own STL exporter (I read that now Lightwave ships with one, but alas, I haven't upgraded in a few years), but I found one online that I was able to modify to suit me. The only issue is that it only does ASCII STL, so the files are large, but I don't really mind as the STL is not what goes on the SD card anyway.

My first design should be ready to print by the time the printer arrives. Of course, It's not going to be the first thing I print. There'll be calibration cubes and Yoda busts and the usual flotsam.

Anyway, I can make my version of the STL exporter available if anyone's interested. It should be a bit faster than it was before I modified it, and it produces slightly more compact files. I just don't know who else is using Lightwave to model stuff.