I’ve been working with Qidi Tech support for 2 weeks and we’re going around in circles, so I hope someone here can help. This started with a simple clog that couldn’t be fixed by simple efforts. So Qidi sent me a new nozzle piece. NOT so simple! It hasn’t worked since. The filament loads through the extruder but the hole between the extruder and the nozzle don’t line up so it clicks. Qidi keeps checking over and over and over for clogs. It’s not clogged! The holes simply don’t line up. If I hold a single extruder un-screwed in, I can get filament to come out of the nozzle, but when I add the second extruder or add a fan, it mis-aligns.
I’m at my breaking point. 2 weeks with no resolution. I’ve taken it apart so many times that I’m now missing a screw, I’ve melted a part, and my fingers are burned. I want to just cry. I have a Masters Degree in computers and I can’t figure this out. If anyone can help, please, please do. It’s for selfish reasons too. I loved this printer so much that I convinced my boss to buy one to demo as a possibility to equip all of our offices with. Now, I have one that’s not even working??
I’ll link all of the videos Qidi has asked for. They show detailed walkthroughs on how I’ve put the thing back together. I can ‘almost’ always get the left side to work at least once by way loosening the center screws to the point they almost aren’t even attached to that top plastic piece, but that doesn’t help much for stability.
Entire video on how I put it together :
Thank you so much for any help.
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This shows you how the hole on the extruder and the hole on the nozzle don’t even come close to lining up. I can’t get them to line up either.
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What is the diameter of your filament? It may just be the bright orange color, but in your video, it looks really thick for 1.75mm filament. Check it with digital calipers.
The individual heat brakes (the tube going down to the heater block) are held in by set screws on the back of the heat spreader bar. You could loosen both set screws, and slide each one down until the top is flush with the top of the heat spreader bar (maybe 1 to 1.5 mm down from where they are now), and re-tighten the set screws. That might give the filament just a bit more wiggle room to bend into the top of the tube.
Thanks for the reply. The filament is the one that came with the printer and is almost gone. It’s 1.75. I tried your fix with no luck.
Is the body of the stepper motor all the way flush against the heat spreader bar? For the nozzles to be that far off from the hole, you’d have to have almost 3mm of stuff between the heat spreader bar and the stepper motor. Do you have a washer or hex nut on the screw between them?
In your video, at 5:35, you can see a gap between the stepper motor and the heat spreader bar. There shouldn’t be a gap there. The screw through the fan, through the heat bar, and into the stepper, should sinch all that up. You might have some of your wires caught in that gap preventing you from screwing it tight.
There is a piece of teflon tubing in the nozzle, when you unscrew the brass extruder nozzle there is a piece of teflon tubing in it that seals against the top ot the tube and the nozzle, I have to replace this regularly, I just buy it(PTFE) a meter or several meters at a time and cut it to length, also the length is very important. I would buy extra nozzles by the dozen and most of the time if I have a clog like that I replace both… …you should be able to find them for less than a dollar…
Also I bought another MK8 that was supposedly the qidi brand, off of ebay ,but…it is just a little taller (off of the stepper motor) than the original that it needed a washer on each side for clearance…
but as a general rule I like to load the filament with everything loosely/snugged down then with it extruding tighten the rest of the way.
I can get that gap closed up on only one side at a time. I made sure the wires are out of the way but when I push the second extruder flush, it moves the original one back just a hair and it’s no longer flush. OMG this is frustrating. There’s also a gap between the two extruders and the middle long screws that run from the top plastic plate between and goes between them, if that makes sense. I can’t get those two flush either.
It’s flush against the inner sides but not the outer sides and I can’t seem to figure out why it won’t lay flat. It used to be flat.
I would back up, and disassemble to just the heat spreader bar. Measure that. it should be about 14.75mm front to back, 13.5mm top to bottom, and 87mm left to right. It should also be straight as an arrow in all those dimensions. Totally straight. I can’t imagine how you would have bent it, but it sounds like it might be bent. If it is bent, best order a new one. Take a good metal ruler, and hold it up along the length on all four sides. If it is bent, you’ll see a gap in the middle between the ruler and the heat spreader bar, and on the opposite side, you’ll see the ruler “rock” on a hump in the middle of the heat spreader bar, with gaps at either end.
Assuming I’m wrong, and it is straight. blot on the motors with the filament feeder assembly and the fan, but without the top black plastic plate, and without the two long center screws. Make sure you can screw that all in flush. All the screws should be tight, there shouldn’t be any gaps.
Once that is all set, then put the top black plate on top, and drop the two long screws through it. The back one has an extra washer and a ptfe washer. Again, all the screws should tighten and there shouldn’t be any gaps.
Then get the wiring back in place, zip tie it to the top plate’s back screw. It should work then.
I had a thought that I want to confirm before I try it and mess up anything else. No matter how hard I try I can’t get the left and right filament feeder assemblies into place at the same time. Someone on here mentioned the wires. I think it may be the wires, but there’s no where else for those to go. Unless… unless I put it back together incorrectly. Maybe in all of the fuss, Qidi just didn’t notice? When I put the hot plate on again, I strung the wires up in between the hot plate and the plastic base that runs along the track, instead of behind the plate. If I run the wires behind the track, the wires would be out of the way, but may be in the way of printing. Can you confirm or deny which is right? Does that even make sense?
Is the cooling bar upside down? Some are drilled and tapped for more than one application. It will only work one way.
In the video, you can tell the cooling bar is right side up.
It also looks like you were trying to test without the fans, but you would still need to bolt through the heat spreader bar into the stepper motors. You’d need shorter screws though. (Two M3x20’s maybe, maybe M3x25’s). As it is, you are trying to run with parts loosely. Nothing is holding the motors up to the heater bar.
As far as the wires, if you can’t get the steppers, heat spreader, heat sinks, and fans bolted together, you shouldn’t even be on X-axis tray. Once you get the print head assembly bolted together, the wires go up between the two steppers.
Video’s wouldn’t play for me! That at least takes that out of the equation!
OMG I could kiss you. That was it! I wasn’t putting the bolts through into the stepper motors. Something so simple took 2 weeks to figure out. What an idiot! I am so irritated that I didn’t see that simple thing. Once I re-assembled it once again on top of the printer and made sure the bolt screwed into the motor, things lined up and it printed. You are a life saver!
