We keep expanding our coverage of the QIDI family, and today it’s the turn of their new pick for the high-performance segment with an active chamber: the QIDI Plus 5. If you’ve been following 3Dwork for a while, you know we’ve already covered the QIDI Plus 4, the QIDI Q2, and the QIDI X-MAX 3, so we have plenty of context to judge whether this generation delivers the leap it promises.
The Plus 5 arrives with four major upgrades over its predecessor: a larger build volume (320x320x300 mm), a new motion system with 1.5GT belts and upgraded linear rails to eliminate VFA artifacts, the active toolhead cooling system called Polar Cooler, and a refreshed software ecosystem with the QIDI Maker app. It sits in the segment of enclosed CoreXY printers for technical filaments, right where the Creality K2 Pro/K2 Plus and the Anycubic S1 Max compete.
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QIDI Plus 5
The QIDI Plus 5 is an enclosed CoreXY FDM printer built for users who work regularly with technical filaments: ABS, ASA, PA-CF, PC, PPS-CF. The concept hasn’t changed from the Plus 4, but the execution has. QIDI has reworked practically the entire motion system and thermal management, which were the two most critical weak points of the previous generation.
Build volume goes up to 320 x 320 x 300 mm, a jump of around 18% over the Plus 4 without increasing the machine’s external footprint, meant to stop you from having to split large parts into several pieces.
The bed is an aluminum-and-silicone heated platform, with a double-sided textured PEI sheet surface. Inside, it has a silicone layer covering the whole surface, with dense heating wires and insulating cotton, aiming for heating that’s as even as possible so first-layer adhesion doesn’t depend on which part of the bed the piece sits on. It reaches up to 120°C with a rated power of 500W; QIDI doesn’t specify the exact heating time in its documentation.
The Plus 5 keeps the CoreXY kinematics with a fully metal frame, but introduces two relevant changes over the previous generation:
- Custom 1.5GT belts with higher tooth density: the goal is to reduce VFA (Vertical Fine Artifacts), those wavy patterns that show up on part walls when printing at high speed. It’s one of the most common issues on aggressive CoreXY machines, and QIDI has tackled it directly in the mechanical design.
- Updated linear rails on the X axis with a lighter toolhead, which reduces inertia and keeps surface quality at high speeds without sacrificing acceleration.
- Z axis with dual motors and independent 10 mm lead screws and linear rails, same as on the Plus 4, which guarantees vertical stability and makes auto-leveling easier.
- High-temperature motors to prevent step loss when the chamber is hot. An important detail if you’re printing ABS/ASA with an active chamber for hours.
On paper this should translate into cleaner surfaces than on the Plus 4, especially on exterior walls with complex patterns. We’ll verify that in testing.
This is where the Plus 5 sets itself apart most clearly from the competition in its price range:
- Maximum temperature of 370°C, versus 300°C on the Creality K2 Pro or 350°C on the Creality K2 Plus and the Anycubic S1 Max. This opens the door to materials like PPS-CF that need genuinely high temperatures.
- Direct drive extruder with dual hardened-steel gears.
- Hotend with ceramic-plate heating and a bimetal 0.4 mm nozzle as standard (0.2, 0.6, and 0.8 mm also available).
- Maximum flow of 40 mm³/s, enough to make use of the 600 mm/s speed on standard materials.
This is probably the most interesting point of the Plus 5. The classic problem with heated-chamber printers is that heat rises toward the extruder and causes heat creep jams. QIDI solves it with the Polar Cooler: an active toolhead cooling system that acts like “air conditioning” for the extruder. The chamber heater, meanwhile, goes up to 550W of power, 37.5% more than on the Plus 4, to heat up faster during sessions with technical materials.
The idea is to keep the chamber at 65°C for technical materials (ABS, PC, PA-CF) while the extruder stays at an optimal temperature, unaffected by the ambient heat. In practice, this should eliminate the intermittent jams that many Plus 4 users reported during long sessions with a hot chamber. If it works as promised, it’s a real advantage in reliability with engineering filaments over machines that only cool the toolhead passively.
The 3rd-generation chamber reaches up to 65°C with active air circulation, versus 60°C on the K2 Pro. With materials like ABS, those extra 5°C make a difference in warping on large parts.
The Plus 5 uses the nozzle itself as the leveling sensor via a load cell. This eliminates the offset between the sensor and the actual contact point that exists in systems like the BLTouch or CRTouch. There are two advantages: absolute first-layer accuracy with no need to manually compensate for an offset, and immunity to vibration or the type of print surface.
It’s the same approach used by some high-end printers, and one that many Klipper users implement themselves via load cell probing. Having it as standard at this price point is a plus.
Beyond heating, QIDI made sure the enclosed chamber doesn’t turn into a box that traps particles and fumes. The Plus 5 has a 3-layer filtration system: a G3 pre-filter, a HEPA H12 filter, and coconut-shell activated carbon, which it claims captures 99.5% of airborne particles and dust. For anyone printing ABS or ASA in a room without much ventilation, that’s not a minor extra.
Air movement inside the enclosure is handled by a chamber extraction fan and an independent chamber heating fan (2nd generation), both with closed-loop control via several temperature sensors. The enclosure is flame-retardant by design, which makes sense for a machine that’s going to spend hours with the chamber at 65°C without direct supervision.
A small detail that’s genuinely appreciated in everyday use: the Plus 5 has a full-color status light on the front of the heated bed. It changes depending on what the printer is doing — sleep mode, pre-print preparation, or real-time print progress — so you can tell at a glance how a job is going without walking up to the touchscreen or opening the app. It’s one of the differences QIDI points to versus the Creality K2 Pro, which has nothing equivalent.
The Plus 5 has an HD camera (up to 1080P, with a low frame rate) that lets you monitor the print remotely from the app at any time and record timelapses of the process. Running on top of that feed is an AI anomaly-detection system, focused on catching the classic “spaghetti” failure (spaghetti detection) to warn you or pause the print before hours of material go to waste.
QIDI notes that the camera has capacity for future updates and expansion, though without detailing what exactly that future upgrade would involve. We’ll check on that once we finish testing.
The Plus 5 runs Klipper natively with a Fluidd interface, which is a big deal for advanced users. You can access the web interface from any device on your local network, adjust parameters in real time, use custom macros, and update the firmware without depending on the manufacturer’s updates.
In our experience with the Q2 and the Plus 4, QIDI’s Klipper implementation is pretty clean: pressure advance and resonance compensation profiles come pre-configured, and the official slicer (QIDI Studio, based on Orca) has profiles optimized for each material and each machine. You don’t need to touch anything by default to start printing well, but the door is open if you want to go deeper. If you prefer another slicer, QIDI Studio isn’t mandatory: the Plus 5 is also compatible with OrcaSlicer and PrusaSlicer, among others.
The novelty in this generation is QIDI Maker (qidimaker.com): a website and mobile app with a curated model library ready for their machines, with pre-configured print profiles and the promise of printing “with a single tap” from your phone.
The concept is reminiscent of other printer manufacturers’ apps, though it remains to be seen in practice how good and varied that model library is, and how active the community behind it turns out to be. QIDI describes it as a global community of engineers and designers with free access to optimized models. For users who don’t design their own parts and want to print straight from their phone, it could be a real improvement to the experience.
On connectivity, the Plus 5 covers what you’d expect: Wi-Fi 2.4GHz and 5GHz, Ethernet, and USB, with Windows, macOS, and Linux support on the software side. Nothing that sets it apart from the competition, but nothing missing either.
For multicolor and multi-material printing, you need the QIDI Box accessory, which according to QIDI’s documentation supports up to 16 colors and also lets you print with support filament. It has its own built-in chamber heating up to 65°C and an auto-refill function designed so you don’t have to keep an eye on swapping spools mid-print on long jobs.
When the QIDI Box is connected, the printer also gains a set of specific detections: filament clog detection, tangle detection, and run-out recovery, all designed so a long multicolor print doesn’t get ruined by a feeding failure.
Specifications table: QIDI Plus 5
| Build volume | 320 x 320 x 300 mm |
| Kinematics | CoreXY |
| Frame | Fully enclosed metal chassis |
| Hotend temperature | Up to 370°C |
| Maximum flow | 40 mm³/s |
| Bed temperature | Up to 120°C |
| Chamber temperature | Up to 65°C (active, 3rd gen, 550W heater) |
| Maximum speed | 600 mm/s |
| Maximum acceleration | 20,000 mm/s² |
| Extruder | Direct drive, dual hardened-steel gears |
| Nozzle | Bimetal 0.4 mm (options: 0.2 / 0.6 / 0.8 mm) |
| Belts | Custom 1.5GT, 9 mm wide, high density |
| Rails | Linear on the X axis |
| Z axis | Dual motor, independent 10 mm lead screws |
| Leveling | Automatic, nozzle as sensor (load cell) |
| Bed | Aluminum + silicone base, double-sided textured PEI sheet |
| Toolhead cooling | Polar Cooler (active) |
| Camera | HD up to 1080P, AI anomaly detection, timelapse |
| Screen | 4-inch touchscreen, 480×320 |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 2.4GHz and 5GHz, Ethernet, USB |
| Firmware | Klipper (open source, Fluidd interface) |
| Software | QIDI Studio (Orca/PrusaSlicer compatible) + QIDI Maker app |
| Storage | 32GB eMMC + USB 2.0 |
| Air filtration | 3 layers: G3 pre-filter, HEPA H12, activated carbon (99.5% particles) |
| Multicolor | Up to 16 colors (QIDI Box compatible) |
| Materials | PLA, PETG, ABS, ASA, TPU, PA, PC, PA-CF, ABS-GF, PPS-CF |
| Sensors | Filament runout, tangle, extruder clog, power-loss recovery |
| Safety | Flame-retardant chamber, closed-loop temperature control |
| Dimensions | 500 x 488 x 558 mm |
| Net weight | 29 kg |
If you already have a Plus 4 or are trying to decide between the two, here’s a summary of what changes:
| QIDI Plus 4 | QIDI Plus 5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Build volume | 305 x 305 x 280 mm | 320 x 320 x 300 mm (+~18%) |
| Hotend temp. | 360°C | 370°C |
| Chamber temp. | 60°C | 65°C |
| Belts | Standard | 1.5GT high density (anti-VFA) |
| Toolhead cooling | Passive | Polar Cooler (active) |
| Leveling | Inductive | Nozzle as sensor (load cell) |
| Software | QIDI Studio | QIDI Studio + QIDI Maker (app) |
| Max. speed | 600 mm/s | 600 mm/s |
The biggest leap is the increased build volume, the Polar Cooler, and the 1.5GT belts. If you’ve had jams on the Plus 4 during long sessions with a hot chamber, or if VFA artifacts have caused problems on technical parts, those are the two points that justify the switch. The volume increase is also meaningful (+18%), though not spectacular.
If your Plus 4 works well and you don’t need those extras, upgrading probably isn’t essential. But for anyone entering this segment for the first time, the Plus 5 is the version we’d choose over the Plus 4.
The Plus 5 competes directly with other enclosed CoreXY printers aimed at technical filaments. We compared it with the Creality K2 Pro, the Creality K2 Plus, and the Anycubic S1 Max, the ones that overlap most with it in the same segment:
| QIDI Plus 5 | Creality K2 Pro | Creality K2 Plus | Anycubic S1 Max | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Build volume | 320x320x300 mm | 300x300x300 mm | 350x350x350 mm | 350x350x350 mm |
| Hotend temp. | 370°C | 300°C | 350°C | 350°C |
| Chamber temp. | 65°C (active) | 60°C (active) | 60°C (active) | 65°C (active) |
| Bed temp. | 120°C | 110°C | 120°C | 120°C |
| Multicolor | Up to 16 colors (QIDI Box) | CFS up to 16 colors | CFS up to 16 colors | Up to 16 colors (ACE 2 Pro) |
| Firmware | Native Klipper (Fluidd) | Klipper (CrealityOS) | Klipper (CrealityOS) | Kobra OS (proprietary) |
| Camera / AI | Yes, 1080P, anomaly detection | Not included as standard | Yes, 2 cameras (nozzle + area) | Yes, 720P, spaghetti detection |
| Bed status LED | Yes | No | No | Not confirmed |
The clearest advantage of the Plus 5 over the K2 Pro is hotend temperature: 370°C vs 300°C, a decisive difference if you want to print PPS-CF or other high-temperature engineering materials. The K2 Pro also doesn’t come with a camera as standard or a bed status light, two details the Plus 5 does have.
The comparison with the K2 Plus is tighter. The Creality has a notably larger build volume (350³ versus 320x320x300 mm) and a hotend that already reaches 350°C, so the real difference with the Plus 5 comes down to that extra 20°C on the hotend and 5°C on the chamber. Where the Plus 5 does stand out is the bed status LED, which the K2 Plus doesn’t have, and the fact that Klipper runs in a more native way, without the CrealityOS layer on top.
Against the Anycubic S1 Max, something similar happens: in volume and temperatures they’re practically neck and neck, with the Anycubic even ahead on raw volume (350³). The real difference lies in the firmware: the S1 Max runs Kobra OS, Anycubic’s own closed system, while the Plus 5 uses open-source Klipper with a Fluidd interface accessible from the browser. For anyone who wants to tweak macros, pressure advance profiles, or simply not depend on whatever updates the manufacturer decides to release, that openness outweighs a few millimeters of volume; with the S1 Max, on the other hand, you’re at the mercy of whatever Anycubic decides to unlock, or whatever the community manages to unlock on its own.
QIDI Plus 5: unboxing and first impressions
Unlike the QIDI Q2, which we reviewed with the QIDI Box included, the unit we have of the Plus 5 is just the base printer: no extra Polar Cooler, no QIDI Box 2, for now. This first part of the unboxing focuses on the machine as it arrives from the factory.
As always with QIDI, the packaging protects the machine perfectly, and it ships with all the accessories and tools needed for setup and maintenance.
The first step is removing the toolbox (and the QIDI Box, if the version you bought includes it) and powering on the printer following the on-screen instructions, which walk you through removing the rest of the transport anchors, both on the Z rails and the bed.
Once the anchors are removed, it runs the usual heater tests, homing, input shaping, and leveling… a process that takes 15 to 20 minutes until the machine is ready to use.
Before getting into the initial tests, we’d like to go over a few aspects of the machine we found interesting.
Z axis with dual motors and independent 10 mm lead screws and linear rails, same as on the Plus 4, which guarantees vertical stability and makes auto-leveling easier.
The dual independent motors let us use Z-TILT, a process that helps align our Z motors relative to the XY axis/gantry (CoreXY). This ensures our Z is always perfectly aligned, automatically and precisely.
Using a leveling sensor, besides the accuracy, we can also use it for manual bed leveling, gantry/axis adjustment, and bed meshing… which means leveling on this machine is almost completely automated.
Custom 1.5GT belts, 9 mm wide (versus the 2GT 6 mm that’s the industry standard), with higher tooth density: the goal is to reduce VFA (Vertical Fine Artifacts), those wavy patterns that show up on part walls when printing at high speed. A wider belt means more tensile strength and less deformation on sharp direction changes.
Updated linear rails on the X axis with a lighter toolhead, which reduces inertia and keeps surface quality at high speeds without sacrificing acceleration. And on the Y axis, radial rails for better structural consistency.
As has become a QIDI trend, there’s an accessible tensioning system for the XY belts… which we think is a smart solution compared to other brands’ systems.
On the electronics side, QIDI stays in line with the tech used in previous machines. The main board runs the embedded Linux operating system and the full Klipper ecosystem with all its components. Although there are no official specs, here’s what we managed to find out:
- Storage (ROM): 32 GB eMMC soldered directly onto the board (skipping internal micro-SD cards, which prevents data corruption and speeds up boot times).
- CPU: Allwinner SoC (ARM Cortex-A35 architecture), Quad-Core (4 cores) at 1.1 GHz, and RAM: 512 MB DDR3/DDR4.
Everything is accessible from the back of the machine, along with the power electronics and a cooling system for the electronics.
We have one auxiliary layer fan, and here’s one of our big gripes with this machine: it only has one, on the left side, which in some cases can limit finish consistency on certain parts. There’s also the chamber filtration system, with a closed air-loop design to prevent heat loss.
Even though this QIDI Plus 5 is aimed at technical filaments, it’s not limited to them, and it has a ventilation and heat-evacuation system for when you want to print “low”-temperature filaments like PLA.
Another thing worth highlighting is the evolution of the printer’s on-screen management interface. Gone are the days of QIDI’s limited, slow, glitchy interfaces… now we have a modern, intuitive system, full of options, and even with an AI assistant that helps out when the printer runs into errors.
Lastly, and related to the machine’s practical usability, worth pointing out is the system for tilting the screen to a certain angle, which is really useful depending on where you place the machine, or the sturdy latch on the front door, which might sound trivial but on many printers is a real headache with sagging and breakage.
Also, and this one’s a favorite of ours, the LED at the base of the bed, which besides giving it a great aesthetic touch, is genuinely useful for visually showing machine events or print progress percentage… a real win from QIDI!
As always, the first thing we ran was the included benchy test to see how the initial quality looked. Even though it printed fine with no adjustments, it’s not among the best out-of-the-box results we’ve seen on a first print, so, at least for this filament, we’ll need to fine-tune some slicer settings if we want to match that result on parts we slice ourselves.
As we always suggest, before running “real” prints it’s worth going through the default profiles’ calibration tests from the slicer itself (temperature, flow, retraction, VFA). Factory profiles usually work reasonably well out of the box, but fine-tuning them with these tests makes a real difference on technical parts.
Testing and hands-on experience
We’ve spent a few weeks printing on the QIDI Plus 5 and, overall, the experience has been good. Without the Polar Cooler or the new QIDI Box, we still can’t talk about the machine at full performance, but even so, with the base printer, its behavior with PLA, PETG, ABS, and ASA has been consistent, with no unpleasant surprises.
With filaments like PLA, the machine performs really well, but, as always with these kinds of machines, you need to open the top lid so the temperature doesn’t climb too high. Without that airflow, jams can happen. Although the default profiles work quite well, if you want better finishes, running fine-tuning tests is essential.
PETG is another filament where the machine’s solid engineering really shows. We got excellent adhesion; retraction, thanks to the extrusion system, is very good and controlled, which is especially useful with this kind of filament, and we got clean surface finishes. It’s one of the materials where the QIDI Plus 5 performs most predictably and feels most comfortable, though it’s still worth running a few minimal tests to fine-tune the settings.
ABS/ASA is where the QIDI Plus 5 really shines. Thanks to its active chamber and overall design, we got parts with excellent interlayer adhesion and no warping issues.
Even with the default profiles you get good results… but spending a few minutes fine-tuning the slicer for each filament, the result is excellent.
We’re currently working on other projects with other technical materials to keep building our experience with the QIDI Plus 5.
Here’s a reference table as a quick summary:
| Material | Hotend temp. | Bed temp. | Chamber | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PLA | 210-220°C | 60°C | Top lid open | ★★★★☆ — Good, you need to open the top lid |
| PETG | 235-245°C | 80°C | Optional | ★★★★★ — Excellent, very predictable |
| ABS | 240-260°C | 100°C | 65°C | ★★★★★ — No warping, very reliable |
| ASA | 245-260°C | 100°C | 65°C | ★★★★★ — Excellent |
On the noise side, we have to say that, for what this machine is, it performs quite well at around 45-55 dB at full load… though that’s without the Polar Cooler or the QIDI Box installed.
As for reliability, the QIDI Plus 5 hasn’t given us any problems, other than something we already mentioned… if you’re not using the QIDI Box, the machine doesn’t detect filament jams.
In this case, it was our own fault: we ran a test to “force” the machine using PLA without any minimal profile adjustments, combined with leaving the top lid closed… the perfect recipe for a jam.
Something else that caught our attention is that, even without the QIDI Box, the amount of purge during a print is quite large, wasting a significant amount of filament at the start of every print, as well as during any load/unload process.
We couldn’t find a setting anywhere on the machine to adjust these purge volumes, so if we want to optimize them we’ll probably have to dig into the slicer profile settings instead.
QIDI Studio works quite well, and the factory profiles are reasonably well-tuned, on top of syncing with the machine, the QIDI Box, and QIDI Cloud for remote management. Although it hasn’t always worked smoothly, with occasional sync issues with the QIDI Box or QIDI Cloud outages.
Although we always like adding mods or extra tips to get more out of a machine, that wasn’t possible this time, since the machine hasn’t even hit the market yet and, due to time constraints, we haven’t been able to implement any slicer/firmware tweaks, like a mod to improve the electronics cooling.
Final verdict on the QIDI Plus 5
On paper, the QIDI Plus 5 is the most complete iteration QIDI has launched in the segment of active-chamber printers for technical filaments. The improvements focus on the weak points of the previous generation: VFA, heat-creep jams, and first-layer accuracy. On top of that, details like the status LED or the relative openness of the firmware are worth factoring in.
What’s left to verify is whether those improvements translate into real print results, or whether, as we’ve seen with other machines, the specs on paper are more optimistic than reality. We’ll check and update this article.
With the base printer now thoroughly tested on PLA, PETG, ABS, and ASA, the QIDI Plus 5 leaves us with a positive impression. As tends to be the case with these QIDI models, where the leap really shows is on ABS and ASA: the combination of the 65°C active chamber and the 370°C hotend produces large parts with no warping and good interlayer adhesion, exactly the territory where QIDI has stood out for generations. With PLA and PETG, performance is solid, though as with any enclosed-chamber machine, you need to open the top lid for PLA if you don’t want to risk a jam.
Not everything is a win. The single auxiliary layer fan (instead of two) is a decision that raises some doubts for us on parts with complex geometries, the filament purge felt high to us with no easy way to adjust it, and without the QIDI Box the machine has no filament jam detection. And as we’ve said a few times now: without the Polar Cooler or the new QIDI Box in our hands, judging the machine at its full performance is still pending.
It strikes us as an ideal machine for anyone who regularly uses ABS, ASA, PA-CF, PC, or PPS-CF filaments and wants a genuinely capable active chamber. On top of that, having access to Klipper to customize things to your liking with fewer limitations is always something we consider a big plus. Also, if multicolor or multi-material printing is something you’re interested in, this is a machine that can have those options available.
Where to buy the QIDI Plus 5
QIDI has its own official store where you can buy the Plus 5 directly.
| QIDI Plus 5 |  |
During the launch period (through August 31) QIDI has special introductory prices for anyone buying the Plus 5 through that link, with different discounts depending on whether you’re a new customer or already have an account in their store.
QIDI Plus 5: Frequently Asked Questions
Does the QIDI Plus 5 use Klipper?
Yes, the Plus 5 runs Klipper natively with a Fluidd interface accessible from the browser. It’s standard Klipper with full access, not a locked-down version.
What’s the main difference between the QIDI Plus 4 and the Plus 5?
The most relevant changes are: a larger build volume (320x320x300 vs 305x305x280 mm), the Polar Cooler for active toolhead cooling, 1.5GT belts to reduce VFA artifacts, and the load-cell leveling system using the nozzle as a sensor.
Can the QIDI Plus 5 print PPS-CF?
According to QIDI, the hotend reaches 370°C and the system is designed for high-temperature materials like PPS-CF, ABS-GF, and PA-CF. We’ll verify this in real-world testing.
Does the multicolor system require the QIDI Box?
Yes, printing up to 16 colors requires the QIDI Box accessory. The printer prints with a single filament out of the box, though it’s ready to connect the multicolor system.
Is it compatible with the Plus 4’s QIDI Box?
QIDI hasn’t confirmed yet whether the existing QIDI Box works without changes or whether the QIDI Box 2 will be required. It’s one of the points we’ll verify once we have it in the workshop.
What’s the heated bed LED for?
It’s a full-color status light on the front of the bed that changes depending on what the printer is doing (idle, preparing, or printing), so you can tell how a job is going at a glance without looking at the screen or the app. The Creality K2 Pro and K2 Plus have nothing equivalent.
When will it be available in Europe?
As of this review, QIDI hasn’t confirmed an availability date for European stores. We’ll update this section once there’s official information.
