Qidi Tech 1 - Replicator 1 clone

[DarkAlchemist]

Black, bright green, yellow, white, clear, red then in crystal - red blue yellow.

WOW, you went hog wild.

[DaveB]

Black, bright green, yellow, white, clear, red then in crystal - red blue yellow.

Wirlybird been berry berry good to MG. Enjoy!

If you don't have a dry box ready for these, you may want to visit your local food store and pick up some 2.5Gal zip lock bags. Hefty makes some @ 12/box. A spool of filament will fit in nicely along with a bag or so of desiccant.

Here are some spacers to extend the Qidi's metal spindle length. Sometimes they are handy. Right now I've got two 5's and a 2.5 on each shaft. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1530944

And if you've not run across them already, here is a customizable hub size adapter. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:735213 It works well to fill out that 17mm deep 85mm hole on the one side of the MG spools that is inevitably facing outward so it fits the 51mm Qidi shaft. This arrangement will allow the spool to fit on either way with no change but plugging in the adapter.

I don't have easy access to the rear of my Qidi, so I've found it easier to leave the metal spindle shaft (including 3 spacers) attached to the printer and just remove the short conic thingy on the end to mount a new spool.

I'm sure there are a million or so different ways to solve this, and I've probably totally missed the obvious solutions. Love to hear from folks with a perfect solution.

[cncartist]

I'm sure there are a million or so different ways to solve this, and I've probably totally missed the obvious solutions. Love to hear from folks with a perfect solution.

I'd definitely recommend the filament dry box with PTFE tubes leading all the way from the dry box to the filament feed on the extruder. I have 2 boxes with ports built and 2 others just to hold filament.

As an update to my creaking bearing fix that I outlined way back in this post, I had to re-apply the sewing machine oil at approximately 1300 hours since the creaking started to come back. It was quick and easy to do again and the creaking went away immediately. Hopefully this fix lasts for another 1000 hours and I'll be real happy!

The creaking happened about 100 hours after my longest print ever at 62 hours. I'd estimate that print put a decent amount of stress on the machine in a single stride and the heat probably dried out the oil more than it would with a shorter print. For the 62 hour print, the support turned out really malformed but the print came out fine and the support was almost an inch off the build plate in the front! I only printed it in the orientation I did because I wanted the grain structure to go horizontal on the bridge and it would probably take less time if printed sideways.








It took up most of the build area and is easily my largest print (~200m) to date.

NOTE: This time I did the oiling to both sides of the printer, all 4 corners with 2 bearings for each corner.

[DaveB]

I'd definitely recommend the filament dry box with PTFE tubes leading all the way from the dry box to the filament feed on the extruder. I have 2 boxes with ports built and 2 others just to hold filament.

For the 62 hour print, the support turned out really malformed but the print came out fine and the support was almost an inch off the build plate in the front!

What on earth happened to get that weird globby thing lurking under the bridge? "Really malformed"??? More like mutant from planet 9...

I like a dry box as well. I'm rather space limited so I made a smaller one than yours. I like the quick connect's and remixed one of those to use my 1/8"NPT thread quick connects for 6mm PTFE. The box is an Ikea Samla.

[cncartist]

I have no idea how the support stayed at the proper level and somehow crept out on the front + back almost an inch over the whole build time.

It's not too much smaller since you have 3 rolls (mine only fits 4 max even for storage) but wow, those dry box setups looks awesome!

[DarkAlchemist]

I wish we didn't need to worry about moisture in our filament as it is the biggest pain in the ass to deal with if you live in a very humid part of the world.

[DaveB]

I wish we didn't need to worry about moisture in our filament as it is the biggest pain in the ass to deal with if you live in a very humid part of the world.

Annapolis, MD gets pretty wet some days. The dry box with PTFE interconnects to the printer was the only solution I could come up with. I found an eBay PTFE supplier that sent me 10M of 6mm od x 3mm id PTFE for $14 w/ free shipping from the PRC. Is the PRC's govt subsidizing their shipping? I can get stuff from China for 2$ including shipping and it arrives in about a week! What's even more bizarre is that once this stuff hits the US it goes via USPS, and I can't ship that same package that arrived on my doorstep to somewhere else in the US via USPS for 2$, let alone whatever was in it.

[DaveB]

I have no idea how the support stayed at the proper level and somehow crept out on the front + back almost an inch over the whole build time.

It's not too much smaller since you have 3 rolls (mine only fits 4 max even for storage) but wow, those dry box setups looks awesome!

These will hold 4 MG reels for storage, kinda tight but they fit. Only 3 for spooling though. I've been visiting Ikea a lot lately. Every time I go I've been getting more of these boxes. My excuse is I'm using them to store stuff rather than old cardboard boxes. Of course I'm actually consolidating the stuff from the cardboard boxes to make room for more 3D printer stuff. It's a vicious circle.

[DarkAlchemist]

Annapolis, MD gets pretty wet some days. The dry box with PTFE interconnects to the printer was the only solution I could come up with. I found an eBay PTFE supplier that sent me 10M of 6mm od x 3mm id PTFE for $14 w/ free shipping from the PRC. Is the PRC's govt subsidizing their shipping? I can get stuff from China for 2$ including shipping and it arrives in about a week! What's even more bizarre is that once this stuff hits the US it goes via USPS, and I can't ship that same package that arrived on my doorstep to somewhere else in the US via USPS for 2$, let alone whatever was in it.

Yes, anything China is subsidized and we help them (our govt) since 2012 I believe. Until Jan 1, 2015 I believe it was free shipping now it is so minimal it is insane (the smallest packages are still free though) and no American can ship the same item across the street for as cheap. It seriously made eBay into Chinabay when that subsidizing started and ever since.

Look at this Qidi printer. To me 130 dollars shipping but me to them 1100 dollars roughly.

[wirlybird]

WOW, you went hog wild.

Yea! Got things to do!