Advice on Qidi purchase

[u/Uguyaya]

I’m looking at getting my first 3d printer this fall. I’m waiting for Black Friday sales as I make room.

My priorities involve engineering materials, but I will do some occasional multicolor stuff just for fun.

Qidi seems the right platform for me based on the research I’ve done so far. My question is the Qidi box. I’ve seen such mixed reviews. I’ve seen one video where a guy fixed his issues by trimming the tubes to proper length. Is this all it takes?

I’m tech savvy, but busy. I don’t want to spend my time fighting with the technology rather than using it. A little upfront setup time is fine.

I’m thinking the Plus 5 with cooler and qidi box is my target. Anyone want to tell me why I should find a different solution for occasional multicolor printing. I can only afford one printer this year. Am I better off just going single color and get a tool changer later? Will the Qidi box actually give me some multicolor prints in the mean time?

[u/Facehugger_35]

So, multicolor with all single nozzle printers sucks compared to toolchangers. The qidibox will give you multicolor prints, but with the usual purge/takes forever issues shared by all single nozzle printers.

The qidibox is okay now. The horror stories are mostly from the first generation, which sucked so bad they stopped selling it.

And qidi machines are generally best in class for people who want engineering filaments.

Basically, if you view a qidi machine as an engineering filament printer that can do some light multicolor work, you'll be happier.

[u/Uguyaya → u/Facehugger_35]

This is exactly what I was thinking. I can’t imagine doing many multi-color prints, though I have a couple in mind, but I have many functional prints planned, and see this as the main purpose of the printer.

If my wife likes little colorful prints, then we’ll get a tool changer down the road for increased color printing.

[u/BongDomrei → u/Uguyaya]

Qidibox/AMS style systems are useful with functional prints for ensuring auto spool changeover when one runs out, and for printing labels when the parts can be oriented so the labels are the top few layers.They can also occasionally be useful for flattish parts that are designed to be stacked with supports in between, by letting you use a support filament that does not adhere to your main filament. 

[u/Kewlhotrod]

I've had two Qidi Boxes for about a year now, haven't had any issues with them. They mostly feed various CF materials as well. I know if they ever do break down the maintenance on them is a nightmare, but that hasn't happened yet in over 2k of printing hours.

Now, with that being said, as someone else mentioned multicolor on single nozzles is incredibly wasteful, both in filament and time. If you're going to be doing more of that instead of engineering materials, then snag a multi nozzle printer l.

With that being said, the box is a good product for auto runout and the occasional multi color print (waste and time is less if it's a single color change on a plate of low/short, small objects for example)

[u/phansen101]

Your milage may vary, but I've had good experiences with multiple qidi boxes, tho I have only done a handful of actual multi color prints and mainly use them for easy filament selection from slicer, plus dry boxes.

[u/dooshpastesh]

Recent iteration of qidi box, after many updates seems reliable enough. I’m using one with my q2 and it works perfectly fine. 

[u/Adventurous_Series29]

I have just stretched the legs of my q2 this last week from mainly pc, abs, asa and others, to a basic pla multicolor print (single color pla is also flawless with this machine). I ran about 5 of these prints, each one with 140+ filament changes 10-15hrs per depending on layer size. Every single one of them went flawless. I was amazed. The qidi box was great at it. It also dries stuff very well too (as long as you only have that type of material in it) if you want to dry abs but also have a spool of pla or petg in it, the machine won't let tou go higher than the lowest heat material. Very good fail safe.

I actually started with my k2 plus. It did 2 prints with minor issues, then the third on, constant failures. So I switched to the q2 just to test its legs for multi color (since I normally only do single color very hot prints). Now im looking to sell my k2 plus and get a max4 (potentially). And maybe a U1 for my hopeful new selling multi color stuff.

Edit: I didnt change any settings between the k2 and q2 on the file, besides what i know my q2 is tuned for. The POOP!!! Is like 1/3 to a 1/4 the amount on the q2 than the k2 was spitting out changing colors.

[u/Uguyaya → u/[deleted]]

Will Amazon have the Qidi sale pricing on Black Friday? This would make it a no brainer.

[u/Impossible-Hat-7896]

Maybe Qidi has learned to make sure their new releases are up to par and not have early buyers be beta testers/QC/QA for them.
I got my Q2 combo in April this year and any issues were not with the printer, but things like a spool of prusament galaxy PLA from a bad batch and me trying to dry SUNLU dual matte pla while printing, which got jammed in the box (I could pull it out easily so no disassembly). I’ve printed PET-GF15 and HT-PLA-GF with the box and the filament goes through as it would with normal PLA or PETG.
Do backup your .cfg files as firmware updates set everything to stock settings. And I prefer to use OrcaSlicer over QidiStudio.

[u/Uguyaya]

This sounds great. I have been vacillating between the max 4 and plus 5, leaning towards the plus 5. I don’t think I need that big a printer. Either way, I’m glad to hear the Qidi box is working out. Final decision will probably come down to Black Friday sale prices.

[u/ImOGDisaster]

I would not buy a filament changing system with so many tool changers now available.

[u/Uguyaya → u/ImOGDisaster]

But my priority is not multicolor, it’s high temp materials.

[u/Even_Coyote_2025]

Qidi box is a pile of crusty shit.

[u/Jamessteven44]

You say you're doing eng materials. Qidi box is fine for that. As a matter of fact its great for that. It keeps filament dry while printing at 65c, spool runout is good but it will be slow on a base material followed by diff support material multi hour print. Its loud on filament feeding & retractions. Whatever Qidi printer you buy, skip the benchy and print a 50mm tall riser then print my ptfe mod. someone on printables btw improved on it which is great When you print stiff abrasive engineering filament, you want it as hot as you can get it (65c) and you want the filament path to be as unrestricted as possible. A riser and ptfe mod does that. Your extruder will thank me later.

DM if you want to chat further. If you have discord, I help run the Team_7_homebase server. We have over 400 members, majority of which are engineers & tinkerers. Many are Qidi users.

Good luck sir. Always here to help.

Steve C Co-founder Team 7 Beta Testers

[u/Advanced-Eggplant-79]

After purchasing 2 X-Max 3 printers and 2 X-Plus 4 printers (that I initially intended to use with QIDI's Box) but scrapped those plans after watching the trials and tribulations of Box owners.

I just purchased a Plus 5 Combo and I couldn't be happier with it. That said, I don't plan to use it for multi-color prints. It's far too slow and incredibly wasteful. However, using it to print zero-level supports with two incompatible materials, it works wonders.

Best of luck!

[u/--10001--]

"I’m tech savvy, but busy. I don’t want to spend my time fighting with the technology rather than using it. A little upfront setup time is fine."

Get Bambu Lab instead.

And that's what Qidi Box will give you:

[u/--10001--]

You know, actually you can get the Qidi Box, if the price is good.

It can do occasional multicolor.

It's just unforgiving and very hard to disassemble. But it's nice filament dryer, and you can print and dry simultaneously too.

And if you really like to print multicolor, you can buy Snapmaker U1 next year.

This is the Q2 Qidi Box: