I’m considering a new printer this winter. I’m looking to replace my trusted Prusa Mk3S. And I’ve whittled it down to 2.
First is the Qidi Q2. I’ve been eyeing Qidi printers for a couple of years now. I like the enclosure and the high temp printing ability. The heated chamber works well for engineering filaments by all accounts. And it comes with MET certified filtration system already installed. I would buy it without the Qidi box because my A1 Mini has taught me that I just don’t do a ton of color prints much beyond some signage. And I’m unsure of just how much I would be using high temp filaments beyond PETG and ABS/ASA due to the costs.
The contender is the Elegoo Centauri Carbon 2. I like the price, even with their Canvas 4 color printing, it’s still $100US cheaper than the Qidi. But it doesn’t have a dedicated chamber heater or air filer system as standard installed either. Both can be worked around as dyi add-ons though with extra effort and money required.
While things like how much and what filaments I would use that require heated chambers and fancy air filters is something only I can decide, there is the matter of reliability and repair ability.
As someone who had to design and build machines and then often needing to be the one that has to fix things when it all goes bad, I value reliability and repairability very highly.
So which printer can be relied upon to just work and is easiest to maintain and repair when needed in your opinion. How is manufacturer support? Is the Carbon 2 really as quiet as advertised?
No printer air filter at these low prices is worth a damn so you can remove that from your list of concerns. If you’re printing materials that affect air quality you need to vent it outdoors. Included air filters are a placebo.
+1
Tiny filters are a scam in the soldering world too. A few mm thick sheet of carbon impregnated open-cell foam isn’t going to have even a 50% impact on the fumes. Proper rated fume filtration systems are between the size of a large dog and a washing machine; and cost crazy amounts of money.
Plumbing it outside is cheap, extremely effective, small and if something breaks you can tell immediately.
Also what they don’t tell you:
Thin, carbon, exposed-to-air filters literally get saturated within a few days (a week tops, not even in use) and are useless after.
I wish I had saved that research paper into it. It pretty much said those large, enclosed, forced air Weller good filters should be replaced yearly and the higher ambient airflow and moist air-exposed filters like the sheet filters found in 3D printers and soldering are pretty much just bad HEPA filters after they saturate after a few days. Might as well only have the fan and no filter.
When temps hit -20F, you ain’t venting anything outside. The heat loss becomes too expensive.
For what it’s worth, I’ve got a Qidi Q2 that’s a few months old at this point. I print ABS occasionally, and I don’t vent it outside. The filter does fine on its own. You can smell a bit of plastic fumes if you’re in the same room, but it’s pretty light. I work on the computer next to it with no issues.
I still probably wouldn’t put it in my bedroom or in a space where kids are going to be hanging out 24/7, especially if I was planning on printing a ton of ABS/ASA. But in general, it’s pretty effective.
The FUD around ABS and ASA is really intense for some reason.
Yeah, I wouldn’t want to print much of those materials either. But being able to do so when needed as safely as I can matters. Perhaps I can find other materials that would be suitable replacement in those moments. The Q2 would certainly broaden the material choices I could use. PLA, PETG, and TPU can do a lot. I’ve been using them for years. But there are times when I need something different.
Then you probably shouldn’t be printing.
So I shouldn’t print for 6 months out of the year?
Not if you need to print materials that put dangerous chemicals into the air you breathe. Especially if you’re exposing other people in the household like children.