QIDI Q2 Review

I’d consider the QIDI Q2 if you want to print useful parts in materials that need more heat than PLA, the plastic commonly used for basic prints. Its actively heated enclosure is a good reason to choose it for ABS and ASA, heat-resistant plastics used for functional parts, or selected nylon and polycarbonate filaments.

Reported tests show that it can produce clean, usable parts. Getting there may involve adjusting print settings, carefully drying the filament—the plastic strand fed into the printer from a spool—or clearing a jam.

I’d recommend the standalone Q2 to someone willing to learn those jobs. I’m less convinced by the Combo for a beginner whose main goal is colorful models. The optional QIDI Box can keep several spools ready and dry filament while printing, but repeated color changes add waste, waiting and more opportunities for feeding trouble. Tests with revised hardware have completed multicolor prints, but they don’t establish that it can reliably finish long jobs.

Will Your Parts And The Q2 Fit?

The advertised build space is 270 × 270 × 256 mm: roughly 10.6 inches square and 10.1 inches tall. That’s useful room for organizers, brackets, small housings and batches of smaller pieces. It doesn’t guarantee that a model with those exact dimensions will fit.

QIDI Studio, the software that prepares models for printing, includes a set of Q2 settings called a profile. Its standard Q2 profile reserves approximately 11 × 16 mm in the front-left corner for the filament cutter. There can also be a little less usable height because the nozzle needs room to lift between movements. If your model comes close to a size limit, load it in QIDI Studio with the Q2 profile selected to check whether it fits before buying.

Allow room around the model, too. Supports hold up sections that would otherwise print in midair. A brim, a thin border printed around the bottom, can help hold a part down. Multicolor jobs may need a separate printed tower used to prepare the nozzle after a color change. Rotating a model may help, but check that the model and everything added around it fit within the available print space.

The printer itself measures 402 × 438 × 494 mm, or about 15.8 × 17.2 × 19.4 inches. Those are cabinet dimensions, not the size of the shelf you should buy. Leave access behind it for filament tubes and cables, space to open the front door, and room above for the sliding glass lid.

The Box adds a 357 × 300 × 234 mm enclosure. Placing it above the printer saves desk space, but raises the spools and lid you need to reach. Beside the printer, it takes more bench space.

Either way, allow gentle bends in the filament tubes and access for clearing them. A cubby that only fits the printer’s cabinet won’t leave enough room for this setup.

What The Q2 Can Print Well

The Q2 can handle ordinary PLA decorations and useful parts made from PETG, another common printing plastic. But its maximum advertised speed isn’t necessarily the speed that gives the best finish. The temperatures and speeds in your printing profile matter.

In an early hands-on test, PETG parts developed uneven surfaces around horizontal holes and places where the printer slowed down and accelerated again. A replacement print file supplied by QIDI used slower speeds and removed the main problem, although some surface ripples remained. Reducing speed may therefore help if your prints look rough where the printer speeds up or slows down. That early result doesn’t establish that every current default profile has the same fault.

In a separate test without the Box, the Q2 scored 29 out of 30 on a print designed to check how well it reproduces shapes and dimensions, including full marks for dimensional accuracy. Measurements of the printed part differed from the intended size by about 0.09 mm on average in the two horizontal directions. This was one test with its exact material and settings unspecified, not a check across the whole build plate or every material.

That’s encouraging for pieces that need to fit together, but it doesn’t mean every part will be within 0.09 mm of its intended size. Before printing a large housing, print a small sample of the areas that need to fit together, including screw holes, and check the fit.

The heated chamber is the stronger reason to buy the Q2. It warms the air around your print, helping materials that shrink as they cool stay attached and keep their shape. QIDI specifies chamber heating up to 65°C, a nozzle rated to 370°C and a print bed—the surface the part sits on—rated to 120°C. Heating the nozzle alone can’t prevent a large part from curling off the bed.

A reported PA11 carbon-fiber nylon vise print used a 295°C nozzle, 120°C bed and 65°C chamber, with the Box also set to 65°C. The black parts finished without reported warping in 2 hours 44 minutes at a reported average 100 mm/s. A PolyMax PC polycarbonate screw took just over an hour at 75 mm/s. These are useful examples of functional printing, though they don’t provide a measured load rating or prove repeatable strength.

For ABS and ASA, another several-week test reported good results with a 65°C chamber. The settings were adjusted using test prints, so these weren’t simply prints made with the default settings. ASA’s resistance to sunlight also makes it useful for outdoor housings.

You still need settings suited to your particular spool and part. For nylon and polycarbonate, check the filament maker’s required nozzle, bed and chamber temperatures against the Q2’s limits; a successful sample doesn’t establish support for every blend.

For rubberlike prints, QIDI recommends TPU filament with a firmness rating of 95A. Ordinary 95A TPU isn’t supported by the Box’s feeding system, so plan to use an external spool. A reported external-feed TPU cup sleeve finished with a smooth surface at 0.2 mm layers in 5 hours 17 minutes, averaging 45 mm/s.

Drying removes moisture that filament has absorbed from the air. In the hot nozzle, that water can turn to steam and form bubbles in the melted plastic, leaving a rough surface on the print. Drying before printing helps avoid these moisture-related defects.

For some engineering filaments, QIDI’s material guidance calls for drying temperatures above the Box’s 65°C limit, so you may need a separate filament dryer. Heating the air around the print doesn’t dry the spool, and a successful nylon sample doesn’t mean you can load damp nylon and expect the same result.

Getting From Setup To A Successful Q2 Print

The Q2 arrives largely assembled. You’ll attach the screen, connect the filament guide, remove shipping restraints and follow the startup checks. Follow the unboxing sequence closely: the bed is secured for transport, and the instructions walk you through releasing it and removing the packing around it.

Automatic leveling handles one of the trickier setup jobs for you. The nozzle touches the build plate to measure its surface, allowing the printer to adjust as it lays down the first layer. You still need a clean plate and the right material settings. If a first layer won’t stick, running automatic leveling again won’t necessarily fix grease on the surface or an unsuitable bed temperature.

Start with a small, single-material print from the external spool. That gives you a chance to learn loading, unloading and plate removal before adding the Box’s extra tubes and motors. Watch the first layer: the lines should join into an even surface and stay attached as the nozzle moves away.

QIDI Studio is the simplest software to start with because it includes Q2 profiles. It’s a slicer: it turns your model into instructions for the printer and previews the supports, time and material required. QIDI also lists compatibility with two other slicers, OrcaSlicer and PrusaSlicer. Normal use doesn’t require customizing the firmware, the software running on the printer itself.

For PLA on the standard Q2, open the top cover and follow QIDI’s door and cooling guidance. Trapped heat can soften filament before it reaches the part of the nozzle assembly where it should melt, causing a jam. Enclosed doesn’t mean every material should print with everything shut.

QIDI offers a separate Polar Cooler for the Q2’s filament-feeding area; it isn’t part of the standard printer, and its instructions still limit the chamber to 45°C for PLA.

You can print offline from USB or send jobs over your local network. QIDI documents a LAN-only mode for use on your local network, and Fluidd lets you control and monitor the printer in a web browser. For access away from home, newer Q2 firmware supports the QIDI Maker app; QIDI Link is being discontinued. Follow the app instructions for your installed firmware rather than an older setup video.

What The QIDI Box Adds To The Q2

The standard Combo combines the printer with one four-spool QIDI Box and the connection hardware. Four colors is the starting configuration. The advertised 16-color capability requires additional Boxes and expansion hardware, so don’t mistake it for what one Combo includes.

The Box can dry filament, keep spools ready to feed into the printer and switch colors. You may find one job more useful than the others.

The Box can dry filament while feeding it into the printer, but it can’t replace a separate dryer for every material. Compare each filament’s drying instructions with the Box’s 65°C maximum. If a filament needs a higher drying temperature, you may need to dry it separately before putting it in the Box. When loading different filaments together, don’t heat them all to the highest temperature one of them needs.

For feeding, keeping several compatible spools ready can save handling between jobs. If a spool runs out, automatic refill can continue the print from a matching backup spool. QIDI’s documented matching rules include the filament manufacturer, type and color. With third-party filament, enter the material information yourself rather than expecting automatic identification.

Check your spool sizes before ordering: QIDI specifies 195–202 mm diameter and 50–72 mm width. It advises adapters for cardboard spools.

Material compatibility is narrower than the printer’s, too. Alongside ordinary TPU, exclusions include QIDI PAHT-CF and some silk or glow filaments. A material being printable on the Q2 doesn’t make it suitable for the Box.

Color printing uses the Q2’s single nozzle. At each change, it cuts and withdraws one filament, loads another and pushes out leftover material to clear the previous color. It doesn’t print four materials simultaneously. Hundreds of changes can make a modest model take most of a day.

One revised-Box test completed four PLA penguins with 360 filament changes. The models used about 71 g of filament; material pushed out to clear the nozzle, plus the tower and supports, used about 196 g. Completion took over 21 hours against an estimate of 17 hours 46 minutes. That specific job shows why you should examine both the waste estimate and the number of changes before pressing Print.

Early testing found severe friction as filament moved through the Box. Owners reported that later Q2-specific kits included a part to raise the lid and changes to the path the filament follows. A raised lid alone doesn’t establish that feeding problems are solved.

Testing of the revised Box that completed the penguins still found broken filament and blockages on other jobs. Those mixed results don’t establish how reliably a particular Box will finish your jobs.

I’d consider the Box for occasional color work and convenient feeding if you’re comfortable investigating a stopped job. For a steady supply of multicolor models, one completed long print isn’t enough reassurance. Printing colored pieces separately and assembling them can also avoid repeated nozzle changes when the model allows it.

Q2 Maintenance, Noise And Reliability

Put the Q2 somewhere its noise won’t interrupt you. Reported testing describes audible fans even when idle, with movement adding noise during printing. The Box adds distinct loading clicks and cutter sounds. Opening the printer for PLA also leaves less between you and those noises. I wouldn’t choose it for the desk where you take calls or a room where you need to sleep.

Without matching microphone distances, rooms and settings, the reported noise measurements can’t tell you exactly how the Q2 ranks against other printers. Its enclosure doesn’t make it a quiet appliance.

Maintenance includes cleaning away filament debris, caring for the build surface and lubricating moving parts according to QIDI’s instructions. High-temperature use adds another task: QIDI documents replacing the heat-transfer grease around the heater assembly when the grease no longer transfers heat effectively. Follow the Q2 service guide for that job; don’t improvise while the printer is hot.

Jam recovery can require tools. QIDI’s blockage guide covers removing the extruder, the mechanism that pushes filament into the nozzle, and opening its cover. Filament trapped in its gears can require taking it apart further.

A stopped print may therefore mean more than tapping Resume. The Box adds places where filament can break or stop moving, which is another reason to learn the standalone printer first.

You can buy replacement heating assemblies, called hotends, and cooling fans from the US store. QIDI also publishes illustrated repair instructions. Check the exact model on spare parts: QIDI advises against swapping Q2 and Plus4 nozzles because their lengths differ.

In one early Box test, a replacement Box from QIDI still had feeding trouble. Getting help doesn’t always mean getting a quick fix.

For US consumers, QIDI’s published printer warranty is one year. It excludes normal wear on listed parts, including nozzles, cutters, belts, tubes and build plates. Claims require purchase records and evidence of the problem. Keep the packaging, and contact support before an uncertain repair: the policy also excludes unauthorized work and damage from unofficial firmware or modifications.

Plan ventilation before choosing materials: printing releases particles and gases. The Q2’s filtration system includes a prefilter, HEPA filter and activated carbon, but having those filters doesn’t establish that the air in your room will be safe to breathe.

Use a separate, well-ventilated workspace and consider exhaust that captures emissions near the printer and carries them outdoors, especially for regular engineering-material work. Opening the glass lid for cooling doesn’t replace room ventilation.

When The Q2 Is Worth Choosing

Choose the standalone Q2 if you have specific parts in mind that benefit from its heated chamber, enough workspace, and the patience to adjust a profile or follow a repair guide. The combination is appealing for someone moving beyond basic prints into ABS, ASA and selected engineering filaments. A beginner can learn on it, but should expect printer care to be part of the hobby.

If you’ll mostly print PLA and PETG, the closest cheaper alternative is QIDI’s Q2C. It retains the same advertised build size but leaves out active chamber heating; its camera and filtration are optional. Compare the two printers with the accessories you need included before deciding how much you’d save. The Q2’s extra heat capability is worth paying for when you’ll use it, not simply because you might someday.

Skip the Box initially if color is an occasional curiosity or your essential filament isn’t supported by its feed system. Consider it when keeping spools loaded and making occasional multicolor prints would help enough to justify the extra cost and troubleshooting. Don’t buy the Combo solely to get a dryer for materials that need hotter drying temperatures.

If long multicolor jobs are your main purpose, compare printers that use separate nozzles for different colors before committing. Their material waste and time spent switching colors differ from printers that feed every color through one nozzle, so compare those costs for the jobs you want to print.