Qidi X max - Get the perfect print. My beginner tips on leveling and settings

[jhenrikb]

Hi

Just wanted to share my experience setting up the X MAX /X PRO (since they are the same apart from size)

After you unboxed, the first thing your told to do is leveling and install the PLA.
Installing the PLA is pretty easy and the manual is OK.

Leveling is a bit different. "Adjust screw til you feel slight friction". But "slight" can be interpreted differently by different people.

Do the manual or Normal level procedure.

Use the paper you got in the kit and make sure its flat on the bed or the Bending in the paper will make you feel the friction.

Turn the knob until the nozzle touches the paper.
Now, turn in back down until you no longer can feel anything (Or barely barely anything, like touching a piece of hair) AND try to look between the gap and it should look like there is no gap
to sum it: No friction, but no visible gap.

Repeat for the 2 other screws and do the same with the middle one. No friction (or very slightly) and no visible gap


heres comes the fun part. Do the full leveling again. Adjusting the different screws affected my first screw initial leveling.

To check leveling, print a bed level test (search bed leveling on yeggi and add a circle in each corner. Make it 0.2mm thick instead of 0.1) and make sure all 5 circles are equal.




Qidi software settings for PLA

Change bed temp to 60?C. It starts at 60 then goes to 50. Just keep it at 60.

Enable Coasting
Retraction speed to 40mm/s.


Now try and print the xyzCalibration_cube from thingiverse at 0.1mm layer hight. Takes 1 hour.

It should be so smooth it literally feels molded and not printed. Totally insane how accurate it is



attached are my pictures. The rough underside is from my first level attempt.
Then I did the proper leveling and tiny change to settings and printed the cube and retraction test.
Both absolutely flawless

[curious aardvark]

that does look pretty damn good !
the other thing with levelling is generally you actually heat the nozzle while levelling.

I used to heat both nozzle and bed - but these days, just do te nozzle. It gets a lot hotter than the bed and expands more.
That's the reason you can get away with no friction on your paper. heat the nozzle and you'd need the friction.

[jhenrikb]

Just have to point out. I have a digital caliper which is approved as a micro meter. It measures 20.02mm on the sides and 19.97 on top/bottom.

So that's pretty accurate too

[Bikeracer2020]

If you heat the nozzle be aware that it can melt the levelling paper supplied. You can heat the bed up to at least 95C witrhout it melting the levelling paper thingy.

It's 0.26mm thick or 8 thousands of an inch.