Greetings fellow nerds. I am needing a polycarbonate printer. Best I can tell is that the qidi 4 plus is the move. Talk me into or out of it! Thanks.
I have a Qidi Plus 4 and I’m very impressed with the print quality. The part tolerances and overall finish are better than my P1S both before and after calibrations. There are a couple of “standard” mods that most users do for improved consistency and longevity. Unless they’ve changed something, the main board fan is really ineffective, but there are many community developed designs that can improve that. And many users add a riser to create more room between the top glass and the extruder. Once again, it’s not necessary, but helpful. There are also some printer.cfg mods that add some QoL features. There’s a good GitHub with these mods listed.
The Plus 4 had a bad launch so you may find many older reviews that reflect that. But the more recent machines have had the issues addressed from what I can tell. Having said that, I would also consider the Q2 as well. It’s a newer model that has some QoL improvements from what I’ve read. If you don’t need quite that much build volume, the Q2 may be a better fit. Also, remember that the larger build volumes take more energy and time to heat. If you’re consistently heating your chamber to print small parts, then I’d definitely recommend the Q2 over the Plus 4. But I’m also terribly impatient and don’t like to wait for things like a chamber heating. Haha.
Resurrection of my QIDI Plus 4
The creator expresses significant frustration with his Qidi Tech Plus 4, highlighting its slow bed mesh process, truncated Klipper firmware that prevents modification, persistent Z-offset issues, and multiple hardware failures including a burned-out SSR and a non-functional chamber heater. Despite these problems, he still acknowledges some affection for the machine's appearance and general capabilities.
Looking for an engineering-grade printer under 1200€ – torn between waiting for the Creator 5 Pro or just buying something now
Q2 is fine, but if you really want to dip into engineering materials you want Qidi Max 4. It's totally different printer to Plus 4 for example. It's one of the few on the consumer market that can print PPS with its recommended profile. Even Bambulab printers can't do that. But if you don't use PPS-GF/CF then anything that goes to 300 /1¹0/60 is fine. U1 is an active toolchanger - each toolhead has its own board, extruder, hotend, sensors. Meaning you can prepare toolhead for the next change. Preprimed nozzle means you need only a few mm³ to get the pressure up for printing. That's why U1 changes toolheads as fast as X2D chances nozzles. I saw Creator 5 in action - I'm not impressed. A lot of manual work with loading, nozzles are not calibrated, surface quality was awful. 15s tool change and you need to heat it up and push out the stale material first. No thank you. With U1 I have almost 250k tool changes and it still prints like new.
Hardened nozzles are must. I wonder why they are not installed by default, but considering the set of them costs less than a spool of PA-12 it's a no brainer.
In summary - if you want to print PPS-CF/GF - Qidi Max 4 is the current standard. Nylons, ASA etc - U1. There is simply nothing close to it in that price range. You will especially appreciate it when you start to use soluble support materials. Anything with less than 2 nozzles will bankrupt you, dual nozzle means you will be printing whole supports from it, while toolchanger can print object using something expensive, supports itself from something cheap and support interface layer from soluble material. It doesn't look like much for pla/petg but if support material costs 70€/kg and print material 120€/kg, supports made from ABS for 9€/kg don't hurt your wallet too much.
Prusa Core One L vs Qidi Plus 4: Is Bigger Worth It
The Qidi Tech Plus 4 is a budget-friendly 3D printer with a 65°C heated chamber, offering a nominal build volume of 305x305x285mm. However, its effective Z-height is limited to 265mm due to a design flaw with the chamber heater.
What’s the best the 3d printer that’s not Bambu labs
We use Makerbot, Creality, Prusa, and Bambu, and I have a QIDI at home. I’ve never had an issue with a printer not working after sitting unused for two months. But I can say that the Creality printers have had the most problems.
The Ender 3V3 is a great little printer, but they are underbuilt and we have had belts snap and extruders come apart on all of them. They are MUCH better than our older V1s and V2s. Those were/are pretty terrible.
The QIDI Plus 4 has been good, but bed leveling has strangely been an issue. It is my current favorite. The larger build volume and actively heated chamber is awesome for a lot of projects.
Aside from the occasional bed adhesion issue, the Bambu P1S has done well. We use it only with the USB stick, so I can’t speak to the cloud experience.
The Prusa Mk3 (now a Revo Mk3S+) is old and slow, but it is my best TPU printer. If I have a difficult print ina tricky material it is my first choice because I know it best.
The Makerbot Replicator series are all hot steaming piles of garbage, but they are over ten years old now, so they can’t compare with anything released more recently.
