Using Octoprint and Cura With Your Qidi Tech X-Plus

You may be wondering why you might want to use OctoPrint and Cura with your Qidi Tech X-Plus. Here's the reasons I did it:

• Remote Monitoring (for example, using Obico with Octoprint will alert you if your print looks like its failing or failed)
• Frustration with the WiFi on the X-Plus (Using OctoPrint lets me switch off the WiFi on the printer). Also, the built-in WiFi is not very secure (it uses UDP Broadcasts with no authentication if you're interested - anyone on your network that has wireshark can capture and replay broadcasts).
• Cura is updated with new features quite regularly unlike Qidi Print (which is based on an old version of Cura)
• Ability to create timelapse videos through Octoprint if you add a camera

This tutorial will not cover the installation of Octoprint on the Raspberry Pi. For instructions on installing Octoprint on your Raspberry Pi, refer to https://octoprint.org/download/.

You'll need

• a 4-pin USB TTL Serial Cable
• A raspberry PI 3 or 4
• A microSD card
• Optionally, either a Raspberry Pi Camera or a USB Camera for remote monitoring

The first part is to connect the USB TTL Cable to the Printer. The TTL Pins are on the printer mainboard and located between the USB Port and the Ethernet port.

To access the TTL Pins:

1. Carefully flip your printer onto its side.
2. Using the Hex drivers that came with the printer, undo all the bolts holding the metal plate onto the bottom.
3. Once the metal plate is removed, locate the pins - they are right in between the USB Port and the Ethernet port that are on the front of the printer. Note that the pins are labelled.
4. Connect the TXD Pin on your TTL Cable to the RXD Pin on the Printer.
5. Connected the RXD Pin on your TTL Cable to the TXD Pin on the Printer
6. Connect the GND Pin of your Cable to the GND Pin on the Printer.
7. DO NOT connect the 5v pin of the cable. You'll find that you cannot power off your printer if it's receiving 5v from the USB Cable.
8. Re-attach the metal base plate to the bottom of your printer ensuring that your USB Cable is properly threaded through.
9. Turn your printer back onto its feet and re-level it.

Regarding step 7, you can optionally add a relay on the power wire of the USB Cable. This gives you the option of turning the 5v power on/off from Octoprint. Turning the 5v power on turns the whole printer on giving you the ability to remotely power your printer on. If you wish to do this, buy a relay board, cut into the USB Cable closer to the PI and wire it all up.

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Once you've got the USB Cable Connected to the Printer and Octoprint running on your Raspberry Pi:

1. Plug your USB TTL Cable into a USB Port on the Raspberry Pi
2. Click on the Spanner icon in the top banner:
3. Click on Printer Profiles
4. Edit the Default Profile or Create a new Profile
5. Provide a Name, Identifier and Model (note, if you are editing the existing default profile, Identifier will be greyed out).
6. Click "Print bed & build volume" tab and provide the following details:
   Form Factor: Rectangular
   Origin: Lower Left
   Heated Bed: Check
   Heated Chamber: Uncheck
   Width: 270mm
   Depth: 200mm
   Height: 200mm
   Custom Bounding Box: Uncheck
7. Click the "Axes" tab and provide the following details:
   X: 6000 mm/min
   Y: 6000 mm/min
   Z: 200 mm/min
   E: 300 mm/min
   Leave all 'Invert Control' unchecked.
8. Finally, click on the "Hotend & Extruder" tab
9. Set the Nozzle Diameter to 0.4 mm
   Set the number of extruders to 1
10. Click Confirm and then Click Save

When you first connect to the printer with Octoprint, you'll get warnings about the firmware on the printer being 'broken'.

To work around this, install the CBDFix plugin on Octoprint.

Once installed, you should be ready to connect to the printer and use OctoPrint to upload gcode to your printer.

If you want to setup Cura to connect to OctoPrint and your Qidi X-Plus, do the following:

1. Download and Install Cura - do not start Cura yet.
2. Download the Qidi Definitions Zip File from this GitHub Repository
3. With Cura closed, extract the files from the Zip file and place them in the Cura settings folder. The setttings folder will be dependent on your Operating System (replace 5.x with your Cura version):
4. Windows: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\cura\5.x\
5. MacOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Cura/5.x/
6. Linux: /home/<username>/.local/share/cura/5.x/
7. Start Cura - the 'Add a Printer' Wizard should start
8. Make sure you select "Add a non-networked printer" and then scroll down the list and select Qidi and X-Plus. You can give your printer a unique name here if you use multiple printers.
9. Click the Add button
10. Confirm the Machine settings by clicking Next
11. To enable Octoprint, go to Settings -> Printer -> Manage Printers and select your X-Plus.
12. Click the Connect OctoPrint button
13. Choose your instance of OctoPrint and then click the Request button
14. When you slice, you will now be able to send direct to Octoprint

Now that you've got Cura -> Octoprint -> Your printer set up, you've got lots of features & plugins on Cura and Octoprint that can help.

Here's some recommended ones from me:

Octoprint:

• Filament Sensor Simplified (check out https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4782714 as an example)
• Obico for Octoprint
• OctoApp
• OctoRelay (you can remotely switch your printer on with a relay and the 5V from your USB TTL cable using this)

Cura:

• Auto-Orientation - get your model in the optimal orientation for printing
• Calibration Shapes - lots of predefined shapes for calibrating
• Settings Guide - much better descriptions of each setting
• 3D Print Log Uploader - track your prints
• TabAntiWarping - adds tabs to the corner of your print to help tackle warping.
• ThingiBrowser - browse thingiverse and add them onto the build plate without leaving cura.