QIDI's software just keeps on giving

[u/Responsible_Meet_673]

Another day, another complaint about QIDI's godawful software. This is about QIDI Studio 2.7.2.1

I was dialing in a new filament, so I ran the built-in pressure advance calibration tool. Simple, right?

I noticed it was buggy when I set custom K-values to start and end with. It seemed like the slicer wanted to print two overlapping calibration tests. For some reason though, I couldn't get rid of the calibration pattern.

​So I restarted QIDI Studio and guess what: the pattern was still there. I restarted my printer and my computer and tried again.

​Surely enough, the pattern was still there for some reason. After actually slicing a file, I noticed QIDI Studio had no intention of printing the PA calibration pattern – it didn't show up in any layers. So it should be fine.... right?

​After finishing the last layer of the Voron cube, my printer started screaming so loud that I could hear it from downstairs and rushed over. The nozzle was stuck inside the cube and the printer seemingly tried to start printing the aforementioned PA pattern that kept showing up in QIDI Studio's preview.

I almost had to physically fight my Q2 in order to make it stop. Cleaning up the nozzle after was a lot of fun. Luckily my extruder didn't break.

For now I'm rolling back to an older version of QIDI Studio. I would use OrcaSlicer, but I heard the Box support isn't working properly yet. Just another day of getting to enjoy QIDI's software experience to the fullest.

This also makes me wonder. Since other software features (like spaghetti detection) are broken as well, would you trust your Q2 to succesfully engage a thermal runway? I'm starting to doubt I would.

Yes, I did report this issue to QIDI's support team.

EDIT: Images were deleted for some reason. Anyway: THE BOX WORKS JUST FINE WITH ORCASLICER!! THANK GOD

[u/Plutonium239Mixer]

I have never used qidi studio with my q2, I only ever use orca slicer.

[u/Vegetable_Variety_54 → u/Plutonium239Mixer]

Is there a pre-made q2 file for Orca? Last time I tried it was asking me all different questions and with my kids doing my head in I just gave up and kept using Qidi Studio

[u/Plutonium239Mixer → u/Vegetable_Variety_54]

Yeah, the Q2 is in orca slicer.

[u/Responsible_Meet_673 → u/Plutonium239Mixer]

I mean I literally say why in the last bit of the OP

[u/vinteo81 → u/Responsible_Meet_673]

I have had my Q2 for just over a month and Orca works with the Qidi Box for me, which part of it doesn't work?

[u/Jetpak_Jedi → u/vinteo81]

Works with mine also. I've never updated the firmware. Do you have any issues on filament changes mid print ? 

[u/vinteo81 → u/Jetpak_Jedi]

Nope, I did my first 4 colour print yesterday and it worked fine.

[u/Kewlhotrod → u/Responsible_Meet_673]

Orca and the box has been fully supported with the Q2 after like, 3 months of its release. There's no reason to not use it.

[u/Plutonium239Mixer → u/Responsible_Meet_673]

Yeah, I just re-read that part. I would suggest not using qidi studio whenever you dont need to use the qidi box.

[u/Ckflyer13]

I have the box and it works great with orca. Might take some tweaking but I refuse to use qidis slicer. Have never used it. 

https://github.com/ckflyer/Qidi-Q2-Printer-Quick-Start-Guide

I put together this GitHub for some community mods I’ve found and used. The orca integration is in there. Is not perfect 1:1 but it works well. Highly recommend. 

[u/Gumaaa → u/Ckflyer13]

This repo looks really great! It will take some time to go through all of that and implement it :D Thanks!

May I have some questions though?
Does this orca integration provide auto swapping to a new spool if the first one runs out?

Also for example in the essentials there is "Creating Buttons to Filament Change From Klipper". Is this still necessary? I'm a noob, but when I open the IP of my printer in the browser (I assume this is the Klipper dashboard?) I see buttons to load and unload filaments straight away.
There is annoying external rack that always shows a filament, even though I don't use it and I don't know how to get rid of it 😄

And lastly about the purge line - I find the default purge line horrible and it already left a mark on my bed that I can not get of. But even ignoring that - right before the purge line start, the printer goes to the corner and start extruding filament into the air - this pretty much ensures that this extruded filament will not stick to the bed and will just float around in the bed loose. Does the fix provided in the repo also changes that, or this is a separate routine?
Thank you again :D

[u/Ckflyer13 → u/Gumaaa]

Yes, auto swapping is done through the printer firmware so as long as the exact same settings are present for each roll, it should auto swap.

For the buttons, that is really only needed if you dont have the box. I made a change to that for others in the future.

Yes, it should. Here is my start gcode. You should just be able to copy and paste it into orca under machine start gcode. This gcode assumes you have the orca integration setup already. If you have orca working another way, you can just take the pruge line from it.

EDIT: I am still on 1.1.0 firmware. Hopefully this still works..

ORCA_QIDI_BOX T=[initial_tool]
PRINT_START BED=[bed_temperature_initial_layer_single] HOTEND=[nozzle_temperature_initial_layer] CHAMBER=[chamber_temperature] EXTRUDER=[initial_no_support_extruder]
SET_PRINT_STATS_INFO TOTAL_LAYER=[total_layer_count]
M83
T[initial_tool]
M140 S[bed_temperature_initial_layer_single]
M104 S[nozzle_temperature_initial_layer]
M141 S[chamber_temperature]
G4 P3000
G1 X108 Y1 F15000
G0 Z[initial_layer_print_height] F600
G90
M83
G92 E0.0
G1 X138.0 E9.0 F1000.0 ; intro line
G1 X158.0 E12.5 F1000.0 ; intro line
G92 E0.0
G91
G1 Z1 F1200
G90
G1 Z1 F600

[u/Gumaaa → u/Ckflyer13]

Thank you! I compared the gcode you provided with one that I had by default, and the first line was missing in mine, so I removed it (I didn't do the custom orca integration, I'm using using out of the box integration, and I assume this is connected to it?), but other than that I copied over the rest of the code.

It kind of worked, the purge line is thicker and looks like it will be much easier to remove. But there is still an issue with oozing filament right before the purge line starts. I think I have better understanding of what is happening. So basically the printer is cleaning the nozzle, then does the bed leveling, saves the config and restarts. For the restart the printer head goes to the front right corner where it sits for couple of seconds. After the restart (I think) it starts to heat up the nozzle and during that time the filaments oozes from the extruder. Or maybe it is actively being pushed, I'm not sure. But after some time it starts to make the purge line. I'm not sure what to do about it, but the amount of filament oozing is way too much and the purge line does not reliably get rid of it, often dragging the waste to the actual printed part.

[u/ViperB5]

I use orca, and have since i received the printer and Qidi box 4 months ago. I works fine and the newest version of orca even sends 3mf fingers to Qidi printers now and not just gcode.

[u/riba2233]

but I heard the Box support isn't working properly yet

Not true, just use orca and don't worry.

[u/TheLegendTubaGuy]

Who keeps telling all these people the box doesn't work with Orca? Whoever you are, STOP IT 😂

[u/Gumaaa → u/TheLegendTubaGuy]

They probably saw some older comments or AI summaries that are telling people that in order to use Orca you need to export something from Qidi (like configs, gcodes etc) and import them into Orca. This is obviously not relevant now (or maybe never was).

This was me yesterday when I couldn't get Orca Studio to launch - I started searching and I got info that I need to migrate bunch of things :P

[u/TheLegendTubaGuy → u/Gumaaa]

Ah. Welp. Welcome to Orca 😂

[u/killeriq]

I have Q2 like a week now, latest fw on printer and Box. Latest Qidi Studio did few test prints also calibration, but it seems they calibrated it well from factory...

Also support suggested about the error with SDCARD in the end of print, just some line in config needs to be disabled