I'm surprised they're allowed to sell it in the UK, as there's no way that would have passed CE certification... (I've literally just done 6 products through it, so I know it veeeeeery well)
Like I said, my last 3D printer had a power supply like this: I think there was a mains socket with the kit, but it would have been an unswitched and unfused socket and bare exposed terminals on the PSU. The heater thing may well have been fixed, as it was noted very early on in the units sent to reviewers. There have been other hardware tweaks since launch that were based on user feedback, but a quick google didn’t confirm anything about the heater. Yeah it’s pretty poor from a “consumer products” point of view, I won’t disagree - especially if it still hasn’t been fixed nearly a year later. But it’s not something I’m overly concerned about - it’s not the first time I've operated something regularly that has live mains terminals exposed, and I usually make it a habit to try and keep my fingers away from heating elements .
For me, it's if they haven't applied safety to that, what other things is it missing...! You're not even allow to send it to reviewers in that state, it's basically illegal.
So.... I just dug into this a little more... and it seems like a storm in a teacup to me. While the chamber heater is deactivated, which is the default state, there is no voltage going through it. Even when the printer is actually running gcode and producing a print. When it's activated by the relevant gcode or firmware command, a mains-level voltage is detectable when the heater fins are probed. So to actually get a mains shock from it: the printer would have to be actively running a print the chamber heater would have to be enabled as part of the print you have to open the printer while it's running, thereby ruining whatever it is you're printing that needed a heated chamber (because what's the point of a heated chamber when you open the door and let all the warm out) you have to poke something far enough into the rear of the build chamber to reach the heater element, past the still-moving hotend and build plate you have to poke in something small enough (and conductive enough) to get through the guard and make contact with the heater element - which admittedly isn't hard, a screwdriver would do it The first question that comes to my mind is: is this any different to a toaster or a hairdryer? The heating elements in those will have a connection to mains voltage and they're a lot more accessible than the chamber heater in this printer. Presumably there's a good reason people are told not to shove a knife into their toaster to dislodge an uncooperative piece of bread... When I switch on my heat gun I can literally see the heating elements glowing; I know the only way you get small metal wires to glow and get hot like that is to dump a lot of power through them, so I have never in my life felt the compulsion to jam a screwdriver in it. Well... OK... I might have felt that compulsion, because I have ADHD and intrusive thoughts are much more of a thing when you have ADHD, but I've never acted on that compulsion . I don't know anything about CE certification or consumer product safety guidelines. But if a detectable mains voltage on a heating element is enough to make a product illegal, I would be willing to bet that a good chunk of 3D printers on the market would have even more egregious violations. I don't think there's been a hardware modification to use a non-conductive heater, but according to the Toms Hardware review, "QIDI has been made aware of the issue and stated that while their printer is FCC and CE certified, they will implement a more “touch proof” enclosure for future units and make a printable part available to anyone who currently owns a Q1 Pro." So it really does sound like a storm in a teacup to me. It's dangerous to go poking the chamber heater while it's active? OK, I won't try to do that then. I wasn't planning on doing that anyway, because... well... it's a heater... it gets hot... and hot things burn you... And if I was so inclined as to go poking around the printer while it's running, I'd be more worried about the ~190C-230C hotend whizzing about.
I do, it's my day job But the Low Voltage Directive, or I suppose the Machinery Directive could be applied to 3D printers, aren't my particular forte and I don't have official access to those standards. I'd be surprised if either don't require the use of 'finger' / 'tool' probes to judge the accessibility of sparky bits and to ensure they're correctly guarded.
That's the alleged offender, down in the back there Does that guard meet spec? F'ed if I know. The manufacturer says they've gone through the relevant CE and FCC certifications, but did they lie or hire a testing lab that's fond of brown envelopes stuffed with cash? F'ed if I know. Pick any relatively well-known 3D printer manufacturer who claims that their products have gone through the relevant CE and/or FCC certifications; did they lie or hire a testing lab that's fond of brown envelopes stuffed with cash? F'ed if I know. The point of all that waffle last night was: CE certification or not, you'd have to go well out of your way to even risk getting a shock from the heater element. My safety considerations consisted solely of: "I don't (and won't) have kids; the cat isn't allowed in here; this is a machine with very hot bits for melting plastic - therefore, I shouldn't poke around inside the machine with very hot bits for melting plastic while the machine is melting plastic". I still think it's a storm in a teacup. If it really is that bad then it should be reported to the relevant agency/authority to have the product withdrawn from sale in the UK/EU.
Fine, I’ll make my own magnetic cable management arches… with blackjack, and hookers! The design calls for 10mm x 3mm magnets. I had assumed that there would be enough variance in the dimensional accuracy that I would have to force the magnets in and they’d stay in place through friction alone. Recently I tried printing a calibration piece for a gridfinity case, I feel like it’s something that needs a bit more strength than PLA has, so I tried it in Sunlu PETG. It was off by quite a margin; not a total deal-breaker, but at the time I just couldn’t be bothered with the faff of adjusting the Fusion360 model parameters. I printed these cable management arches in Qidi’s own PLA, assuming I’d have similar tolerance issues. The magnets are more or less a perfect fit… But because it’s accurate enough that I don’t have to jam the magnets right in there, the magnets pop right back out when you try to take it off a metal surface because there’s not much friction holding them in place. So now I have to glue them in place, which will be tedious AF for all 20-something of these things. Honestly, I’m damned impressed with this so far. Granted, that isn’t a very high bar to clear: a £170 Bambu A1 Mini would utterly spank the last printer I had in terms of quality and reliability. I’m a bit annoyed that the PETG I have isn’t quite as accurate, but it could just be a poorer-quality filament. I tried running all the calibration tests with the PETG filament and I ended up with worse tolerances on the calibration piece! I’ll still find a use for it, but I’ll likely be switching to Polymaker filaments in the future. They come very highly recommended by an acquaintance who runs a print farm of 20-odd Prusa machines, and they’ve got some lovely colours available. I haven’t yet been brave enough to try some of the more exotic “engineering” filaments this printer is supposed to be capable of, like carbon/glass fibre!
Sounds like it's going well Byron I'll be asking about getting something printed once my new camera soon. Someone on Reddit has created a very specialised lens adaptor which I didn't think anyone would be mad enough to, and would like to try it out some time. The only thing I have had printed was a 92mn fan adaptor for the Cryorig C7 CPU cooler
I almost exclusively use Ultimaker Tough PLA at work, it's fantastic, so maybe one of the stronger PLA's will work better for you in future
If you look hard enough there's a sub-reddit for everything. And I do mean everything . Fire over a link, I'll see how complex it is. If it's holding up a lens, it might be something that you want to get done in a more robust material than PLA. Something like PETG, nylon, ABS, or even resin. PLA in a decent printer is pretty good these days, but it's brittle and at about 50-60C it will start to warp. That sounds like a high temperature, but in direct sunlight I wouldn't want to chance it, especially if it's a darker colour. ABS isn't really affected by such low temperatures, but the UV in direct sunlight will weaken and damage it over time. Aye, I only went with Sunlu 'cos I'd seen it mentioned quite often as being a relatively cheap and "good enough" brand. But Polymaker (who also do a 'tough' PLA) isn't that much more expensive, and the recommendations for Polymaker come from sources I trust much more than random internet strangers on Reddit! Like I said, I'll definitely find a use for the PETG I already have. I'm not abandoning the idea of making the aforementioned cases with it - it'll just have to wait until I've finished the current round of 'make things tidier and organised-er', when I'll have time to faff with tolerances in 3D models . The Qidi PLA, on the other hand, has been damn good so far. I printed these painting handles for miniatures recently using that filament and the surface finish is absolutely spot on.
So... This calibration piece... The designer advises that if you can fit a piece of filament through +0.1 horizontal and +0.3 vertical then the files provided are good to go with no modification. Very first attempt at printing it came out like this; OK on the vertical, but the horizontal was out - in fact even +0.2 horizontal was a struggle to get the filament in, +0.3 was much better. The other day I noticed this label. I knew the door & cover had to be open for PLA & TPU, but I didn't know - or had forgotten - that this applies to PETG as well... So I tried the calibration piece again today. Spot on. And this is just the basic OrcaSlicer/QidiStudio "Generic PETG" preset, no tweaking or calibration. Although I did have this roll of filament in the dryer for a good 6 hours yesterday, so that probably helped. So... the Sunlu PETG filament is actually fine, it was just pure user error . Most of the print time this week has been spent making this lot - a bunch of gridfinity organiser stuff for Citadel paints & minis for my brother. That's about 600-700g of bloody PLA in there... Last time I had a 3D printer I don't remember ever getting through an entire roll of filament. I burned through the Qidi "Rapido" PLA in less than a week!
