The new QIDI Q2C is now available from their official website with a discount.
Major difference seems to be lack of chamber heating, no active filtration and no camera.
More suitable for non-engineering filaments and more competitive/comparable to the Elegoo Centauri Carbon.
Having bought into the Qidi system a few years back… I'd buy a Bambu if I had my time again. The ongoing software/firmware support just isn't there and they will leave you on dated tech the moment they have a new model.
What kind of issues did you have with software/firmware?
Haven't bought a printer yet, was monitoring Q2 page for a sale.
They advertised the units as using common open source tools, but failed to mentioned that they were heavily customised and required additional components from Qidi that were not made available. The tools (Klipper, Moonraker etc) you got on the units when you bought it were already out of date and then they never provided any major updates. There are known security vulnerabilities in addition to just a lack of feature updates too.
The hardware is reasonably good though and thankfully there is a community project to replace the Qidi software so you can use current tools, but the support from Qidi for their products was pretty poor IMHO.
Qidi firmware is always their crutch.
Thankfully it's pretty easy open so able to be DIY fixed if you're willing. But not for everyone…
Hardware for the money is great though.
This isn't exactly a deal, Qidi's '$819' MSRP is very much fake for the Q2C. I mean, the regular Q2 has a 769 dollar MSRP for comparison's sake.
589 when converted is very close to the US MSRP of 399 though, so I suspect this is going to be the Australian MSRP for this model.
Not bad for an enclosed core XY printer.
Would put it up against P1s at $599