I bought a new Qidi X-Max 3 on their BF sale for 500EUR, which seemed like a great deal and I’ve been wanting an enclosed klipper core-xy printer for some time for more demanding prints in engineering filaments, so I pulled the trigger.
I’ve now had the printer for two days, and it’s somewhat of a disappointment unfortunately.
The printing speed and quality of the prints are good, nothing to complain about here.
My issue is with their bed meshing and first layer. The bed is crooked as hell with a massive 0.45mm deviance from lowest to highest point, but it should not be a big issue with bed meshing because it should compensate. But it just seems like it’s not compensating at all, the parts of prints that are closest to flat plane have great first layer, all other places are either way too squished or not squished at all. This means I can only get a proper first layer on about 1/3 of the bed, either front, middle or back part.
This is in stark contrast to my semi-custom anycubic bedslinger with klipper, which lays down near perfect first layer every time, without adjust Z-offset across the entire plate. And I was honestly expecting the same from the Qidi.
I have run their calibration routine multiple times. I’m fairly well versed in the 3D hobby. Is there some setting in the Qidi that I’m missing? It’s running their own dirty klipper version, who knows what they’ve changed/missed from newest mainline. I am already considering returning as I was expecting more of a turn-key printer that my experience so far.
I don’t own a Qidi, but I do like them.
Some cheap and easy checks to try.
If you have a decent straight edge, (wood and plastic rulers need not apply), check to be sure your bed isn’t warped. The heat bed is only 6mm aluminum and it might be warped. It does happen with Qidi machines. That’s a warranty issue.
It can also be that one of the nuts on one corner of the bed isn’t clocked in unison with the other 3. Multi start screws can have this timing issue. And the only way to fix it is to figure out which is the offending, disassemble the machine just enough to remove the screw, and turn the nut to try a different start. Then test the machine to see if that fixed it. Again, it’s not common, but it does happen.
Yeah warped bed was already checked (it’s reasonably straight at 60°C after 10min of heat soaking in 40°C chamber temp) and it’s straight enough, just slightly tilted along the X-axis so the front is higher than the back.
I suspect the stepper screws of not being properly timed then.
I’m not sure just how the bed homes top or bottom, but I would home the bed, shut the printer off so the steppers are off and not locked, then turn all the screws by hand to deadhead against a hard stop to even them out. The bed should be as level as it can be then.
Pro way: Use a test indicator solidly attached to the print head and move it around the bare heat bed by hand. Turn the screws until they are all zeroed out. I did that to my Prusa Mk3s when I first built it years ago.
Is that over kill? Yes, yes it is. But as an old toolmaker, I have the tools to do that kind of super fussy inspection. I also used a granite surface plate and precision squares to build the frame on to ensure prefect alignment of the frame. Ahhh the boredom of being quarantined.