That’s my concern. But if it is honoring the USB e-tag on the cable and restricting power to the head, maybe it is helping by reducing power to the head so that it doesn’t get as hot?
If I used a different cable than they provide, I’d think about measuring power consumption preheating while I was present, and feeling the cable to make sure it wasn’t overheating.
well, Im using this cable for over a month now with no issues. I will further exame it next print, search for warm spots. I email Qidi asking about this 60W cable, I’ll let you know about their response.
Qidi replied today, the 60W is no Good. I’m
Replacing it with the cable they sent.
In my opinion, I believe the cable is not the problem, the adapter plate getting too hot is.
I only have this MCU error when printing with heated chamber on.
I think you are right.
I basically only ever print with chamber heat on. I did only a test print with PLA; the rest has been mostly ABS and a little PETG.
Thanks for the thorough review!
I am considering getting this printer and the toolhead issue is kind of concerning. This is a bit of a stretch but I wonder if the design of the hotend + chip thermals + chamber heat = accidental reflow oven under the toolhead cover or at least just enough heat to soften the solder under rapid accel/decel.
Oh, it’s clearly not that hot.
And in my case, I’ve had the MKS_THR error it has been after a print has completed, while the printer is cooling down. It might not happen as much if I’d leave the printer open to cool; I like to leave it closed so that I can start the next print without first walking over to the printer.
It might work to change the heater_fan hotend_fan’s heater_temp to a lower temperature, because the fans in the hot end shell piggy-back off the hotend cooling fan.
It ships like this:
## FAN0 喉管风扇
[heater_fan hotend_fan]
pin:MKS_THR:gpio1
max_power: 1.0
kick_start_time: 0.5
heater: extruder
heater_temp: 50.0
fan_speed: 1.0
off_below: 0
I’m thinking of running the fan all the way down to 30° as the printer cools after I finish a print.
## FAN0 喉管风扇
[heater_fan hotend_fan]
pin:MKS_THR:gpio1
max_power: 1.0
kick_start_time: 0.5
heater: extruder
heater_temp: 30.0
fan_speed: 1.0
off_below: 0
Because it became much less frequent when I put the new shell with the fans in place, I might need to go several weeks before having any confidence that it was an effective change.
I figured it was a bit of a stretch, it’d be a hell of a bug though 
Sounds like your fan solution is the best bet. I did notice the board has an RP2040 on it which has a builtin temp sensor (as does the max 6675 but no idea if that would be accessible via the canbus), could use that to monitor and tie it to the hotend fan with temperature_fan.
I won’t hold you to this but from what you’ve seen does the X-Max 3 seem like it has potential decent long term reliability?
I like the question.
I’ll answer it from the standpoint of someone (me!) who has built his own printer from scratch and heavily modified all his others. I think of it primarily mechanically, secondly electronically. And given that I’m expecting Qidi to be around at least as long as the warranty period (they’ve been around for a while), I’m going to assume that I can get warranty service during the warranty period.
I think that not using carbon fiber for the gantry rods is a good idea for longevity. The hollow hardened steel rods should last longer than carbon fiber, and by being hollow they still support 20m/s acceleration. I think that the core mechanism is good. Looks like real Gates belt so I would expect that to last, and uses a belt-driven synchronous Z (my personal preference).
It uses sensorless XY homing. I have heard suggestions that this is less accurate than probes, but I don’t really care. Microswitches that aren’t there can’t fail!
I love that mine came with high-temperature rare earth magnets and bl-touch. They sent me a soft magnet and inductive sensor set as a replacement to change to the current shipping configuration, but I have been liking the bl-touch enough that I was considering changing my other printer from an inductive sensor to a bl-touch and high-temperature rare earth magnets, so I haven’t installed them.
After it is out of warranty, if the electronics go kaput, klipper config makes it easy to move forward with replacement electronics if I ever need to. The only real question is how to drive the display; worst case, just ignore it. In the out-of-warranty case, I’d consider replacing the 24V heated bed with an AC heated bed, which would let me remove one of the two 24V power supplies underneath. I’d also consider moving to a larger cable chain and running more wires instead of a head-mounted control board, in which case I would also probably redesign the head to further reduce mass.
So I am expecting its usefulness to outlive its warranty.
Thanks for the response! I just placed an order for one.
I started out with an ender 3 that has long since stopped being an ender, prints beautifully, fast, and took entirely too much time but I wanted to learn so time and money well spent. This time around I figured I’d treat myself to something that doesn’t require quite so much time to bring up and I can continue to prove that perfect is the enemy of good enough when it comes to the ender without the downtime.
Qidi is sending me a new adapter plate and usb Cable(3 time now) this time they ask me to install a grounded wire to the Bed and Replace the chamber heater. One thing is certain, the after sales department is super nice!!
One complaint is that you can command moves on the printer without first homing, making it easy to crash. I personally am OK with this (so far 
) but someone has posted a replacement configuration that enforces homing. I have not reviewed that configuration for differences from the original, nor have I installed it on my printer.
I also found two replacement cover models:
https://www.printables.com/model/656620-qidi-x-max-3-toolhead has an option to use a different fan and has a different part cooling air nozzle design
https://www.printables.com/en/model/648511-qidi-x-max3-front-and-rear-head-casing uses the original cooling duct
The camera has horrible glare. I plan to print https://www.printables.com/model/654081-qidi-x-max-3-camera-glare-reducer and hope for a substantial improvement 
So I decided instead of the X-Max 3 I went with the X-Plus 3. Made a last minute decision to move the printer to another spot and realized the max was too big.
Seems like the plus only differs on the bed magnet and probe being the inductive sensor and from what I can see the plus is shipping with the fixes to the toolhead and cable so hopefully I won’t have to send for the new parts.
Should be here mid-week next week, I’ll report back on if the fixes are present and if anyone wants me to check anything let me know.
I think the X-Max 3 is also shipping now with the soft magnet and inductive probe, based on what I heard from support.
Also, I’ve learned that the carriage cover is the same between the X-Smart 3 and the X-Plus 3, and different on the X-Max 3.
Please feel free to share here — or start a new “Qidi X-Plus 3” thread with your own experiences.
I hadn’t thought to measure the resistance of the heater but now I know why a 60W cable didn’t melt… It probably didn’t average much over 60W draw. Like Koz, I just assumed it was a normal 115W like I have on other printer.
I saw the same about the hotend, I might print the covers you found but I’ll see if any issues crop up first as stock but I am for sure testing the grounds right off the bat.
As for the thread I feel like you’ve done 95% of the work with your post on the X-Max 3 as far as I can tell from videos and photos so I think just adding on to this thread and have it be a Max/Plus thread would work but I am fine doing either.
Hello guys, found this YouTube channel with some mods to the X-max. The language didn’t help(German) but with some subtitles is easy to follow.
Hello Guys, some parts arrived this week. There is a new adapter plate, now the small fans connect directly to it. Grounded Usb-C cable and a ground wire for the heated bed. So far printing abs at 55c chamber temp for the past two days with no problems.
Im probably switching back to the strong bed magnets, this soft magnetic rubber sheet doesn’t hold the Plate down enough. The PEI plate keep getting lift/pull from it, I believe its because the contraction from the ABS.
I was wondering if it’s possible to add one more led strip in the back of the printer, Do you guys think it could overload the power supply?
Does it look different from the original? I haven’t replaced mine yet with the one they sent.
Would you mind showing pictures of how it connects?
Thanks for validating that!
Note that if you do that, you also want to use the bltouch because the varying magnetic field will confuse the inductor.
No.
Just make sure the voltage is right. You need a 24V strip. It’s the big green connector a the bottom right hand side, marked LED PC7 here:
I am thinking of doing the same, and of using an LM2596 module board (as I used for my quieter cooling fan) to reduce the voltage to dim them. I would connect from the LED connector to the input of an LM2596, then connect the output of the LM2596 to both LED strips. Then I could dim them until the cameras get best overall exposure.
Note that you want to mount the LED strip to metal. LEDs produce heat and die by overheating, so you don’t want to just stick them to plastic. You might want to get a strip of aluminum, or buy extruded aluminum channel intended for this purpose, with a diffuser panel.
The USB cable looks exactly the same as the old one.
There is a metal part of the Frame in the back side of the printer, I believe it’s the same part of the frame where the front led is installed.
This link was sent by QIDI, instructions on how to install the ground wire for the Heated bed.
Thanks on how to wire the extra Led strip. Have a great weekend.
I am finally, today, for the first time, using this printer with an “engineering” filament; Qidi’s PET-CF 15% carbon fiber PET. Note, not PETG, PET. PETG is modified to melt at a much lower temperature. PET is stronger than PETG, but hard to find without filler. This is the first time I’ve printed anything with the hot end set to 320°C (626°F) — that’s really hot!
To print this abrasive filament, I swapped out the hot end for the one with the hardened nozzle in it. Swapping hot ends is more of a pain than swapping nozzles. I think in the future I’ll just swap nozzles instead. Swapping hot ends involves removing the rear cover of the carriage and swapping three cables. And I temporarily lost one of the M2.5x6 screws that hold the back cover in place inside the printer.
So now I really want to print as much as I can that would benefit from being printed in PET-CF before swapping again. 
