The Qidi Plus 4’s chamber heating and high-temperature direct drive system set this $799 printer apart from the rest of its midrange competitors. Positioned between Creality’s affordability and Bambu’s innovation, Qidi emphasizes material versatility, consistent print quality, and enclosure-driven performance. While some 3D printing enthusiasts are happy to stop with ASA or ABS filaments—popular units like the Bambu Lab A1 check most of the boxes for most people—others have projects that require higher-quality and more-durable materials like nylon and polycarbonate. For these and several other use cases, the Plus 4 represents an exceptional value and a solid upgrade from the more beginner-friendly A1. It wins an Editors' Choice award as the best filament-based 3D printer for hobbyists.

Qidi History: Advancing the State of the Art

Qidi entered the consumer 3D printing market in 2014, focusing on enclosed, user-friendly FDM printers at a time when most competitors—including Creality—were emphasizing open-frame, DIY-style machines. While Creality gained popularity with its budget-friendly, modifiable Ender series, Qidi built its reputation on plug-and-play reliability and sturdy enclosures, making early models like the Qidi Tech I and X-Pro popular in educational and office environments. 

As the industry shifted toward speed, automation, and high-temperature capabilities—especially following Bambu Lab’s 2022 launch of the X1 Carbon—Qidi responded with machines like the X-Plus, X-Max, and ultimately the Plus 4. For a while, I watched this evolution from afar, sticking with my finicky LulzBot TAZ 5 for the better part of a decade. (Oh, the fun of leveling a square bed that has only three leveling screws...but I digress.)

The mechanical engineer in me knew it was time for a new printer, and not an entry-level unit like the Bambu Lab A1 Mini (as venerated and reliable as it is). I wanted something with more ability than that; a class above it. I decided to see if the Plus 4 could fit the bill, and I purchased the unit I'm reviewing here, rather than receiving a loaner from Qidi.

Design and Specs: A Large Print Area

The Plus 4 weighs 60 pounds, which is definitely not in the featherweight class. Its footprint is no slouch either, coming in at 19.8 by 19.2 by 21.7 inches (HWD) compared with the Prusa Core One's 21.8 by 16.3 by 17.5 inches. (The increased size is partly thanks to the steel-frame enclosure.) While I had no problem finding room for the machine—I've got a dedicated maker space in my house—users with limited space will find it bulky to move or fit. Qidi compensates for this by building grab handles into the top of the unit, but it can be daunting for a single person to move. I needed my son to help me get it up the stairs. 

With a 12-by-12-by-11-inch build area, the Plus 4 supports large prints and multi-part assemblies, ideal for prototyping, making cosplay props, or short-run manufacturing. Dimensionally, the Plus 4 slightly outpaces its closest rivals, the Bambu Lab P1 and X1 Carbon, whose build volumes are 10 cubic inches.

The Plus 4 comes with an active chamber heater, which warms the interior to around 150 degrees F in about 8 minutes when it's running at 400 watts. (Early firmware versions let the chamber heater pull up to 800 watts, which exceeded the safety ratings of the included solid-state relay [SSR], creating a potential fire risk. While Qidi issued a firmware cap to 400 watts, many users still choose to replace the SSR or install thermal fuses out of caution.)

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

The heater promotes stable conditions for high-temperature materials like ABS, polycarbonate, and nylon. By circulating heated air throughout the chamber as opposed to passively retaining heat from the extruder or bed in the chamber, parts are surrounded by a uniform temperature, helping to prevent warping and lifting off of the PEI build plate. (Confused by some of this terminology? Check out our guide to 3D printing to learn the basics.)

The Plus 4 also comes standard with a high-temperature direct-drive extruder with a 0.4mm hardened steel nozzle, enabling the use of advanced filaments like polycarbonate, nylon, and carbon-fiber blends, as well as common lower-temperature PLA and TPU. The 80-watt nozzle has a 700-degree-F ceiling with a ceramic heat break to prevent heat creep. The maximum temperature limit means no burnt or malformed nozzle tips, even after printing with filament like polycarbonate.

Qidi uses a 6mm-thick aluminum substrate for the heater bed, a sturdier build than the typical 3mm beds found on entry-level printers. This thickness promotes consistent, even heat across the entire surface. (Notably, the surface is capable of 250 degrees F, well above the requirements of most engineering-grade filaments.) The combination of the thick aluminum heater and effective chamber insulation helps heat soak and the filament maintain stable temperatures, which is crucial for consistent first layers.

Unboxing and Setup: Great Attention to Detail

The first thing you’re going to notice when you get the unit is its weight and size. This is one of the most important moments with a new product—how it feels when you take it out of the box. As I touched on above, the unit has thick, sturdy grab handles that are recessed into the frame of the printer. When you pull the machine out and put it on the stand or a nearby table, you know right away it is a heavy, sturdy unit. It feels like it belongs in a factory.

I thought, “Someone is thinking about the little things.”

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

I connected the filament spool holder, which goes in the rear left corner of the machine. This location makes sense to me, as I could get to it easily and see from a distance how much filament was left on the roll at any given time. 

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

Where placed, the printer felt like a piece of modern furniture. It looks sleek and futuristic, and from a few feet away, you can’t tell that the side panels aren’t aluminum. (You have to touch them to know for sure.) The machine also gets impressively bright via the internal LED; the powerful light makes it easy for my older eyes to work with the unit. 

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

I live with a spouse, who is very concerned about the fumes printers can produce and always quizzes me on my remediation plans. As such, I was happy to see that the chamber fans for the Plus 4 come standard with an active carbon filter pouch. It was just another smart touch that signaled attention to the user experience, and built my confidence in the machine.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

I was also very impressed with the guidance of the heated bed assembly. The four 10mm precision-hardened steel rods and two synchronized drive motors told me that Qidi had put a lot of thought into holding the print plane square. At the back of the build chamber, a horizontal stabilizer bar connects the tops of the two vertical Z-axis lead screw assemblies. This acts as a rigid crossbeam between the vertical linear rods and screws that raise and lower the bed across the rear of the printer for additional stability.  

The printer walked me through the calibrations on the display, including a bed calibration after the input shaping.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

The colorful 5-inch touch-screen display has an 800-by-400-pixel resolution, but it is laggy and unresponsive for a machine of this caliber. It can take several seconds for the preview images of the files you're loading to fully appear. This is one of the biggest disconnects in the experience, where you feel like the Plus 4 is cutting costs and not fighting in its weight class. 

The build plate level variance of my unit was about 0.21mm, which is definitely acceptable out of the box. Using four screws under the bed, you can fine-tune the bed height at the corners, but after printing my first-layer test print (shown below), I decided to use what I had and not adjust anything before getting started.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

One frustrating aspect of the Plus 4 is that it requires you to re-run mesh bed leveling every time you flip or swap the magnetic build plate. Since the Z-offset and mesh compensation are tied to the plate's exact thickness and position, even a slight change can throw off your first layer. Forgetting to recalibrate often results in poor adhesion or failed prints—an extra step that interrupts an otherwise streamlined workflow. Qidi could help address this via a firmware update, by sending the build plate to the bottom limits of the stepper motor each time.

I had one small tear line in the 0.2mm quality setting print using Prusa Galaxy PLA filament, though the rest of the first layer printed perfectly.

Features and First Prints: Everything You Need to Get Started

The Plus 4 comes standard with things other companies charge extra for, don’t offer, or rely on their community to design for them.

For one thing, the model has a stout wiper and nozzle-cleaning assembly that feels industrial and intentional. Listening to it load and clean the nozzle, I had no doubts that when it was probing for prints that the surface of the nozzle was clean. The Prusa Core One lacks this, instead requiring you to print your own or do the cleaning by hand.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

Customer support is also above average. Qidi has an official Wiki page, which felt very reassuring to me; no need to wonder where to go should a problem arise. I would later use the email support, and got an answer the same day from Qidi. That's an impressive response. 

When I loaded the unit with filament and turned it loose, I was immediately struck with the speed and the lack of vibration of the unit, compared with my 10-year-old LulzBot TAZ 5. Minutes later, I was staring at an Owl staring back at me.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

The machine also made fast work of the frog test file on the USB key that comes with the unit. Speaking of which, the Plus 4 allows you to connect and load your prints via USB key, Ethernet, or wirelessly through Wi-Fi, which is what I chose to use for all my testing. The Wi-Fi option was helpful for me, as I could monitor the status of my print from afar with a feed from the included camera, which will also record a time-lapse video of each print. 

I experienced no plate adhesion issues with the small toe footprint of baby Kermit...more reassurance. With the Plus 4, parts always come loose from the flexible metal plate easily with minimal flexing to coax the parts away.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

Next, I printed a set of PETG water cups to impress my wife, and noticed the distinct lack of VFAs, the virtual fine artifacts that are the bane of 3D printing hobbyists. The 0.35-inch-wide 1.5GT timing belts and high-impact fiberglass pulleys—paired with an effective VFA resonance compensation algorithm—kept a tight grip on that extruder at high speeds, with less room for the belt to slip on the pulleys as it moved. Other printers from Bambu, Creality, and Prusa use 2GT belts and have more noticeable VFAs. 

The end result: near-perfect surface finishes on the cup.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

I ran the next print using Prusa Galaxy Black PLA in high-speed mode to print a vase. No VFAs here, either. The lines were barely visible at the 0.2mm high-speed quality tier. It all looked so slick that my wife thought I had bought the vase from a local plant store until I told her it came out of the printer.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

Heat Management: Correcting an Early Oversight

As mentioned above, early batches of the Plus 4, including my unit, were shipped with an underpowered SSR board for the chamber heater that was prone to overheating. The board's choke coil was undersized, leading to burnt components, melted insulation, and in rare cases, fire hazards. Qidi acknowledged the issue and began shipping upgraded SSR boards with improved thermal capacity and thicker components, offering replacements to affected users.

While the new board resolved the overheating problem for most, some users have opted to install higher-quality aftermarket SSRs—such as those from Omron or Fotek—for additional safety. The incident highlighted a serious early oversight in power handling, especially for a machine marketed with industrial-grade features.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

I opted to contact Qidi, which immediately shipped me the new, tested SSR board shown above. The company also offered very clear instructions on the Wiki page about how to remove the board and swap in the new one. I was very satisfied with how quickly I was able to reach out, make contact, and receive my replacement part. I wanted this fixed before I used what I had bought the machine for: the active heat fan (shown below).

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

Would it be able to get the chamber heated quickly, and maintain a homogenous block of stable air surrounding the parts I wanted to print? 

Benchmark Print Quality: Uniformly Excellent

My very first print was an ABS Benchy. It was at this moment that I understood the Plus 4 is an ABS-eating monster. What PLA was for other machines, ABS was for the Qidi. I showed it to a friend, who thought it was PLA at first and couldn’t believe the quality of it. Print time was close to 15 minutes for each of my three attempts, which is about normal for a machine in this price range. 

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

The Plus 4 is capable of speeds up to 600mm per second, though that maximum requires resonance tuning and other optimizations. To avoid print degradation, the printer is best used at 200-to-300mm per second.

Next, I wanted to test detail and retraction at speed to see if the Plus 4 could keep up with the quality of machines like the Prusa Core One.

I loaded a hexagonal organizer cube and, with the ABS still in the machine and with the chamber heater set to 55 degrees C (131 degrees F), I printed out the box for comparison.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

This was an undried spool of filament, with some visible stringing but impressive quality for detail at that level. There were no elephant feet or lifting from the PEI build plate. The bottom was flat and stacked perfectly with the other box.

With the ABS still in the machine, I ran the next print at the 0.2mm-layer height, with the bed chamber set to the same temperature. This is the Kickstarter/Autodesk “torture test.” We’re looking for dimensional accuracy, and watching filament-flow control, fine features, bridging, and overhangs.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

All the towers printed (I broke one moving it from the machine to the photo table) with mild stringing that went away with a pass of the heat gun. All of the tolerance dowels immediately fell from the holes when I removed the part from the plate, from the 0.5mm down to the 0.1mm clearance tests. The surface finish was perfect and appeared to have come from a much more expensive machine.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

The Plus 4 showed its strength with the bridging test section, having no issues cooling the overhangs over larger and larger spans, with the cooling fan doing well beyond the minimum and passing this test with flying colors.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

The overhangs hung in there up to the 80-degree mark, where they printed with noticeable layer line pronouncements. Again, using ABS filament and getting acceptable overhangs in a heated chamber, with no cooling issues, surprised me.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

I then used the digital caliper to measure the calibration disc at the base of the block: 25.75mm on the 25.00 datum. It was 24.75mm all around the disc, with a near-perfect concentric circle that had no egg shape. This is a better result than the Creality K1 achieved with this challenging print when we tested it.

The second-to-last calibration revealed the same repeatable concentricity, with squares measuring equally across the entire matrix of cubes.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

This geometrical panel test showed fine detail maintenance up until the smallest “Test” text outcroppings, where the “s” and “t” had difficulty printing.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

I compared these results with those of notable printers like the Prusa MK4 and found them to be in line with the accuracy and precision of these old-school legacy printers, which impressed me even more. (The MK4 has been replaced by the MK4S since we tested it.)

Finally, I performed a popular tolerance test with a go/no-go gauge from Cults3D.com, this time in Prusa Galaxy Black PLA with 0.2mm layer lines and the glass lid removed. The circle fit into every hole, including the 0.00mm hole. The square gauge stopped at the 0.05mm gauge hole.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

Real-World Use Cases: Need Something? Just Print It*

Finished with my testing and benchmark prints, I set out to use the unit for some real-world projects with engineering-grade materials.

With the Polymaker black ABS still in the machine, I made a hard case I downloaded from Printables.com for a portable ham radio measurement device. Taking advantage of the heated chamber, I wanted to see if the planar case surfaces would lift up from the build plate. To my surprise, everything printed perfectly, with the case easily mating and closing perfectly square.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

Next up, a print-in-place pair of ABS vice grips, also with Polymaker black ABS. I chose a 50% infill for strength with a 200mm-per-second max speed and 55-degree-C chamber temperature.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

The grips and sliding parts easily broke open, and after a firm twist on the adjustment slide, I could use it to clamp small parts on my desk.

Encouraged, I moved on to ABS carbon fiber, downloading a 0.177 air rifle suppressor from Printables.com. I target practice in my backyard, and the supersonic rounds always "cracked" when I fired, like a gunshot. The threads printed perfectly, and I saw no artifacts on the sides of the barrel. After firing several dozen rounds through the suppressor, it had no noticeable breaks or degradations in the surface from the heat or pressure from firing.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

With the ABS carbon fiber still loaded, I set about making a larger set of prints to really spread out in the large build chamber.

First, a wall-mounted holder for my Starlink power supply and router. I’ve been using the Starlink Gen 3 router, but I never liked the way it sat on my shelving, and wanted a more permanent place on my wall to mount the pair of components. The Plus 4 went through this print like butter. I’d seen this file printed by a Creality K1 with noticeable warping on the corners, and I was curious how it would lay on the Plus4 build plate.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

The holder did have some noticeable artifacts on the surface, which I noted were exactly where the infill lines were terminating. But when I showed the parts to my wife, she asked me if I had ordered them from Amazon or Starlink directly. She couldn’t believe that I had made them at home.

I then turned the printing speed down to 60mm per second and started aiming higher on the difficulty chart. I loaded a spool of PolyMide PA6-CF. PA6 is significantly harder to print than its PA12 counterpart due to how PA6 absorbs much more water. (Up to 10% by weight if left exposed, compared with 2% for PA12.) If the Plus 4 was going to struggle with this grade of material, it would happen now. PA6 will also shrink and warp more than PA12, which is more dimensionally stable and easier to keep stuck to the build plate. It was the perfect challenge for this unit. 

I put on a layer of PA Magigoo to help prevent any layer-adhesion issues, set the bed temperature to 50 degrees C and the build chamber to 55 degrees with the cooling fan off, and set out to print a display holder for my Xbox controller, which had no real home on my desk.

The designer-style base came out fantastic. It had no surface issues whatsoever—no warping at the edges or lifting, despite the wide first layers that, notoriously, shrink in open-air units like the Prusa MK4.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

Not wanting to stop, I looked around my office for other expensive homeless devices, and decided that I would make a mount for my Meta Quest 2 headset with the same settings as the Xbox holder at the 0.2mm layer line height. The chamber was still hot, like a warm oven accepting the second batch of cookies. 

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

My first layer was a little wonky. I could have slightly raised the gap of the Z-offset during the first layer, something I later learned how to do, and appreciated the ability to change. Once the second layer covered the fibers from the first layer, though, the issues evaporated from my mind. 

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

Weeks later, I had a real-world application unexpectedly arise. We have chickens in the backyard, and the night before leaving for a vacation, my wife informed me that it was going to drop well below freezing temperatures while we were gone. The watering system I had in place was my summer/fall system, and the water would freeze if I didn't modify it.

I had the necessary components to fix it: a pump, a reservoir, and a heater that came on below 38 degrees F, but after a trip to Lowe's, I found that the ABS adapters I needed to connect the pump to the pipe where the bird-feeder nozzles would go were out of stock. 

I sat down with my copy of Fusion 360 to design the part that would attach the hose to the 2-inch PVC pipe that chickens would be drinking from, and loaded it into the Qidi Studio Slicer.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

I stopped the first print 20% in, to validate that the threads were accurate and would fit, which they easily did.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

The full-size final print, at 100% infill with ABS set for 0.2mm, worked brilliantly. By 11:30 p.m., I had the cold water system in place and could go on our trip with peace of mind I wouldn’t have had without the quick change enabled by the engineering-grade-material abilities of the Plus 4.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

I also tested the Plus 4's ability to print with pure polycarbonate, arguably one of the most difficult materials to print. I started simple with parts like the ham radio wire spool handle shown below. I used a 300-degree-C nozzle temperature, with a 100-degree heated bed and a 65-degree heated chamber for a perfect first-time print, with the Magigoo PA bed glue wiped on first. (I was sure to dry the roll completely first in my Sunlu filament dryer box.)

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

I’ve also tested carbon-fiber nylon, with the exact same results. This time, I designed a dry-erase marker holder for my whiteboard, completely overdoing it with the filament choice, but wanting to see if the parts would warp, and what the surfaces would look like after the print completed.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

Once I had a database of the good settings for these different filaments, I started to lean on the Plus 4 for more everyday items and challenges. For example, I downloaded a replacement chicken feeder port that has saved me about 20 pounds of waste feed falling out of the container from the stock feed port:

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

The new feeder port falls deeper into the crumbles, and the chickens were unable to scrape it out of boredom into the dirt around the feeder. That one print alone has saved me hundreds of dollars in feed, and the parts are in the sun all day, every day.

Having access to these durable filaments lets me protect expensive gear as well. I made a set of rails for my portable ham radio that protect the nearly $1,200 radio and its sensitive knobs from bumps and bruises while in the field. The Plus 4 made easy work of the files, giving me way more peace of mind than ASA or even ABS would have given me with printers incapable of using these more durable materials.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)

When that project finished, I of course had to print this ABS glass fiber holder for my Ryobi pressure washer wands and nozzles, just because I could.

(Credit: Michael Lydick)