u/1ts-just-me

Today marks 1 week of owning the Q2 (first Qidi product) and just hit 120 hours of printing ABS and PC-ABS. Had a little downtime for changing the bed and going back to 1.1.1 firmware and a few failed prints after I let it update, oops. I have Ultimaker, Prusa, and Creality printers, so I am used to bad updates lol.

After reading countless posts, I think a lot of people forget this is a $500 printer that has added features not offered in $1000 machines. If you have to invest a little to time and money to perfect a few flaws, it is worth it.

So far after some filament calibrations the Q2 (for a total of $700 invested) has performed and printed within the same tolerances and quality of the Ulti S5 ($2800+ invested). Can't be disappointed with that.

Did notice the Z motors get a little warm and louder if sitting idle for a short period, so I added a macro to gcode to lower the bed to the bottom followed by 'M84 S30' to disable all motors after 30 seconds. Within 60 seconds, depending on temps, you even hear the fan on the PSU turn off, not that it gets much rest.

Only thing I would consider a weak point (so far) other than the taco bed is the flex in the bed frame front to back. While swapping the bed to the r3men we took measurements to see what it would take to stiffen it up without affecting the Z0 and Z1 independence.

Any suggestions from longtime users, usable physical mods or config changes that is useful, or things to know, I would be grateful.

Core One+

Printer is 3 -4 months old and for 2 months has been printing PC-ABS with almost perfect prints. Finally, I got tired of hitting the "continue" button on the screen saying there was a firmware update, so I downloaded 6.5.3, updated, ran calibrations (including input shaper and phase stepping), checked belts (no adjustment needed). Power cycled the printer and first print failed with a Z axis misalignment. So, I did what it recommended and ran all the calibrations again, now it prints but the VFAs are horrible (visible from across the room-bad).

This is using the same settings, .stl file, and filament as before the update.

If I revert back to the original firmware 6.4.0 and do all the calibrations, the VFAs go from looking like ripples on a lake to almost being perfect to the point of needing to reflect the light just right to see them.

Just checking to see if others have noticed this or there is something I am missing.

This build is to show haters what a capable machine the K1 SE or K1C can be.

First one we built has outperformed a $6500 Ultimaker S5 and was on par with a S3 for quality and was finished printing 32 minutes sooner - same file, same slicer(Cura), same filament (PEKK). This by no means has any hate or negativity towards Ultimaker as I believe them to be the absolute best of the best. It all comes down to the right parts with the right tuning, and they have done their homework.

Reason I chose the smaller K1s is because of the short XY rails being the same diameter as their larger sibling and have little to no movement with a lot less VFA issues than larger printers. 90% of my printing is in PC-CF, PC-ABS blend, ABS, and PEKK. Most items are smaller than a coffee cup but need to have tolerances of +-0.002 or better.

Everything here can also be applied to the larger K1 Max and my daughter is currently applying it to the K2 series.

To start, if you really want a little monster of a printer. This is my shopping list.

Everything including printer can be had for under $500

K1SE (used can be had for $75-80),

R3men bed (has 120V heater),

solid state relay (for bed),

Microswiss replacement heater for K2 Plus (gives you 100-Watt heater),

Microswiss K1 series heatsink adaptor,

K1 series upgraded heatsink,

(2) 0.9 4248 stepper motors for X and Y (I went with LDO),

(2) 20T x 5mm drive gear,

BTT Manta + CB1 control board,

TMC2209 V1.3 drivers,

EBB36 CANbus V2 (for printhead),

1 additional printhead cable,

Cartographer and CANbus cable

BTT touchscreen (I'm using a Pad7+CB1 as this will be 2nd build and can be controlled from the same pad)

Using the R3men bed opens up extra wattage from the stock PSU allowing the use of the 100-watt hotend, this hotend says 350°C but I have had no problems turning it up to 380°C for printing PEKK or PEEK and bed has no issues hitting 135°C. With the thicker bed and longer hotend you do lose about 8-10mm of Z. The LDO 0.9° 4248 steppers are just an insane improvement to print quality.

Factory 1.8° steppers (200 steps per 1 rev) use a 32 micro step multiplier giving you 6400 steps per 1 rotation, the new 0.9° steppers (400 steps per 1 rev) increasing that to 12,800 per 1 rotation. The TMC2209 drivers are capable of using 8, 16, 32, or 64 micro-steps per 0.9° step, this get the print to the point of inspecting with a magnifying glass to find minor defects.

You could stay with the stock steppers, but they have been found to not track micro-steps very well above 32 and for $25 for better motors with more torque, why not?

I will update this as the build proceeds, but for now it is waiting on the ordered parts to arrive.

Edit: add quantity to motors and gears