How to Create Custom Filaments or New Processes in QIDI Studio?

To create a custom filament in QIDI Studio, open the filament settings, switch from System Filaments to Custom Filaments, click Create New, and enter the vendor, type and serial. Then edit the temperature, cooling and flow parameters to match the spool's data sheet. Process presets are saved the same way, from the process settings panel.

QIDI Studio's built-in filament and process profiles cover most printing. The moment you buy a spool from a brand QIDI has never heard of — or you want a support-heavy process you can reuse without rebuilding it every time — you need your own presets. This guide covers creating them, filling in the parameters that actually matter, and exporting them so you only do the work once.

Filament preset, process preset, printer preset: what holds what

A preset in QIDI Studio is a named bundle of settings you can select from a dropdown. There are three kinds and they answer three different questions. Mixing them up is the usual reason a saved setting seems to disappear.

A custom filament preset is bound to the printer and nozzle it was created under. Change the nozzle from 0.4 to 0.6 mm and your preset will not appear until you create or copy one for that combination — it has not been lost, it simply does not apply.

1. How to create custom filaments

(1) Follow the steps in the picture below to open the filament creation interface.

(2) Choose "System Filaments" first and look for the filament you need in the red box. Check here before creating anything — QIDI ships profiles for a wide range of materials, and an existing profile is always a better starting point than a blank one. If it is not there, continue with step (3).

(3) Choose "Custom Filaments" and click "Create New". Fill in the filament vendor, type and serial. If your filament's vendor is not listed, tick "Can't find vendor I want" and type a custom vendor name.

The type field is the one to get right. It tells the slicer which family of behaviour to assume, and it is also what the printer uses to decide whether the material is compatible with an enclosure or a multi-colour box. Setting a nylon to "PLA" because the name looked close will cause problems later.

(4) For example, to add a QD UltraPA CF-25, you would add it as follows.

(5) After creating a custom filament, you must edit the parameters to match its characteristics or it will not print correctly. If you are unsure what to enter, ask the filament vendor for the technical data sheet.

Which parameters actually have to be right

A new preset inherits defaults from whatever it was based on. Most of them are harmless. These are the ones that decide whether the print works.

Density and price are bookkeeping. Temperature, cooling and max volumetric speed are the three that turn a working profile into a failed print.

Sensible starting points by material family

If a vendor gives you nothing but a spool, start inside the range for its material class, print a small test, and adjust. These are typical published ranges for each family, not a substitute for the data sheet that came with your spool.

Two things this table cannot tell you. First, any filament with carbon or glass fibre in it is abrasive and needs a hardened nozzle — a brass nozzle will wear out of round in a few spools, and every symptom after that looks like a slicer problem. QIDI's tungsten carbide bimetal nozzles exist for exactly this. Second, PA, PC and PETG absorb moisture from the air, and a damp spool will not print well at any temperature — see our guide to drying filament properly before you start blaming the profile.

All current QIDI machines run a 370 °C hotend and a direct-drive extruder, so the upper end of these ranges is well within reach across the printer lineup.

2. How to create and save new processes

If you want to create and save a new process, follow the steps below.

For example, to save a process with support enabled and the support type set to tree (auto), do it as shown in the figure.

Note: use a descriptive name for the new process so it is easy to recognise and find later.

A naming convention pays for itself the first time you have eight presets. Something like 0.4n 0.2mm Tree Support PETG tells you the nozzle, the layer height, the reason the preset exists and what it was tuned for — all four things you will want to know in three months. Presets named "test", "test2" and "new process final" are how people end up rebuilding settings from scratch.

Processes worth saving as presets rather than re-entering by hand:

• A draft process at a larger layer height for test fits and first prints of a new model.
• A fine detail process at a smaller layer height with more walls, for figures and text.
• A tree support process, so support-heavy models are one dropdown away — the settings themselves are covered in our guide to adding supports.
• A strong functional part process with higher wall count and infill, for brackets and mounts.

3. How to export and import presets

If you want to migrate or share your filament or process presets, use the export and import functions.

(1) Follow the steps below to open the "export preset bundle" interface.

(2) Choose whether to export the filament or the process preset. For example, to export the filament preset of the QD UltraPA CF-25 filament, do as follows.

(3) To import preset files, use the "import configs" function following the steps in the picture, then find and select the preset file on your computer.

(4) If the "import result" pop-up appears as shown, the preset file has imported successfully.

Export a bundle whenever a profile finally works. It is the difference between reinstalling the slicer being an inconvenience and being an evening of recalibration.

FAQ

Where are QIDI filament profiles stored?

System profiles ship with QIDI Studio and update with it. Custom presets are saved in your QIDI Studio user configuration on your own computer, which is why they do not follow you to a second machine unless you export a preset bundle and import it there.

Why does my custom filament not show up in the filament dropdown?

Almost always because the preset was created for a different printer or nozzle diameter than the one currently selected. Presets are scoped to the printer and nozzle combination they were made under. Switch back to that combination, or create a copy for the new one.

Do I need a separate profile for every QIDI printer I own?

Yes, in the sense that a filament preset belongs to a printer and nozzle. The values you worked out — temperatures, cooling, flow — transfer across, so the fastest route is to export the working preset, import it, and adjust rather than start from a blank one.

Can I use QIDI filament profiles in Orca Slicer?

QIDI contributes machine, filament and process definitions for its printers to the Orca Slicer profile repository, so Orca ships its own QIDI profiles. They are not the same files as QIDI Studio's, and preset bundles do not transfer directly between the two. QIDI Studio and Orca Slicer are siblings — both forked separately from Bambu Studio — rather than one being a version of the other.

Is QIDI Studio free?

Yes. QIDI Studio is free to download and open source under AGPL v3; the code is public in the QIDI Studio repository. There is no paid tier for custom filament or process presets.

What should I do if a custom filament keeps under-extruding?

Check max volumetric speed before anything else — it is the parameter people leave at the inherited default. If the hotend cannot melt plastic as fast as the process asks for it, the part starves at high speed and looks exactly like a clog. Lower it, reprint, and then run the flow-rate test.

In the end

Creating custom filaments and processes in QIDI Studio is a short job once you know which fields matter: type, temperatures, cooling, and max volumetric speed. Everything else can inherit. Export the result and you never have to do it twice. Full software documentation lives on the QIDI wiki, and QIDI's own materials — including the PET-CF and the rest of the filament range — arrive with profiles already built.

Read more 3D printing tutorials

• How to Add Supports to Your Model?
• How to expand your QIDI Plus4 3D Printer?
• How to Print PPS-CF Filament Perfectly?
• How to Print UltraPA CF-25 Filament Perfectly?
• 3D Printer Filament Types: A Complete Guide