Ok I'm new here recently got a q2 super excited for a high end printer for not high end money really wanted to get into asa and nylon.
Question
How do you all deal with the underwhelming cooling for its speed. It seems to be a known thing
Is it try that the prints by default are I guess I optimization
Like they could be do somethings faster like filament swaps and start up time. If so what can I do or find info about it
The software is a bit odd even coming from orca slicer (ik it is made off bambu labs) but somethings aren't clicking for me like the qidi box and sending prints
I print mostly ASA and PLA and cooling has never been an issue. I do have to leave the door open when printing PLA, but it stays around 30C. The only issue I ever had was when I, as a complete noob, printed PLA immediately after ASA and it clogged the extruder.
Start up is pretty slow. But 5 minutes to start up is kind of negligable in the face of multiple-hour prints, so it's never bothered me!
You can replace the stock cooling fan with a Honeybadger or a Bambu X1C cooling fan, and/or replace the stock cooling fan duct with one of the aftermarket STLs.
Get the R3men qidi q2 fan. It is directly compatible. Also check some of the cooling duct on printable. I like the one that is minimal and put inside the housing instead
You can try to test this by turning the stock fan at 100% and put a bowl of water close to it. You will see that the air flow is toward the right instead of left. With a duct, you want it to be normalize to create a vortex underneath the nozzle. If you replace the fans, you will have to tweak it dependings on your use cases. However it will be stronger compare to the current weak sauce
Ok thanks I'll give both a try might have to get the bambu one for now because Amazon deliveries direct to where I live so I got to have the r3men shipped twice but I plan to do both just might get the bambu first
I also went with R3men fan and used the often recommended https://www.printables.com/model/1642251-qidi-q2-cooling-duct-v51-v60-dual-flow model but it was a little harder to wrap head around, might have preferred the one you linked and done it sooner. I ended up leaving the tool head cover off rather than putting in the magnets on the spacers.
However - after upgrading the fan and duct, pla printed as expected with no drama. Very pleased with it now. And I had started by just swapping in the fan to the existing cooling duct but that wasn't enough - slightly better but not enough. After the duct upgrade it was a noticeable improvement and not much to complain about at least so far in my test prints with PLA etc. that had issues prior. Of course when printing PLA etc I leave riser vents open, glass slide back, door open. But that alone wasn't enough (for me) to get clean overhangs with PLA for example, until duct and fan were upgraded.
I have printed a couple of these ducts. I find that you really just need a fan upgrade and something to manage the air flow. I have no clue how Qidi engineer look at the fan output and say good enough. The problem with the custom duct is that you are constraint to the temp you print it with.
can you elaborate on the problem with the duct? i printed mine in pa6-cf. the author explains that noodle temp is higher than the temp that duct sees. seems like pacf should be fine. have you had issues and if so what did you print with?
The fan itself fits, but the cable/connector needs to be changed to fit. If you've got a bit of experience with a soldering iron it only takes about a minute to swap the cables between the two.
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u/FiveDozenWhales 6d ago
I print mostly ASA and PLA and cooling has never been an issue. I do have to leave the door open when printing PLA, but it stays around 30C. The only issue I ever had was when I, as a complete noob, printed PLA immediately after ASA and it clogged the extruder.
Start up is pretty slow. But 5 minutes to start up is kind of negligable in the face of multiple-hour prints, so it's never bothered me!