Thank you for this great video. Very clean and informative. I build mine while I watch. I build two of these and used MK7 and I can say they work genuine. This is simple but very effective bowden extruder. And I totally agree that using MK7 is the best choice. Thank you for this video and your precious effort.
Brilliant!! By removing the motor from the Y carriage, that reduces movement due to momentum. Also it seems very possible to have multiple nozzles in a tighter pattern. Bravo!
You should be teaching my high school class with the 3D printer.... Amazing job on this video. Love your hypercube design and I will be making one soon
Hey man, I've been following your channel for a year now and I feel you are one of the few people out there who genuinely give good advice, however this extruder may need a little fixing in my opinion, the design is pretty good but the part where the pneumatic push fit screws in, that part wears over time and the plastic threads get eroded away and later the push fit keeps slipping off, sometimes in mid print causing defects and artifacts, I suggest if you accommodate a cylindrical metal insert that has the same diameter as the threads of pushfit connector, but is smooth on the outside but has threads on the inside to provide a kind of bonding non eroding surface for the pushfit, I had to replace this extruder that I was using with a metal one off eBay for approx $10 USD, the metal doesn't erode away and provides a sturdier fit
Hey thanks for your comment. Did you try printing the extruder in a different plastic? I've used ABS and it has lasted over a year. I now have it printed in PETG and so far it seems ok. Either way this design isn't mine originally. You can ask the author of this extruder to redesign it with your recommendations.
+Tech2C I had my part printed in ABS too, maybe the issue is with the quality of filaments, here in India we don't have standard filaments only individual manufacturers claiming theirs is the best :( yeah I guess I'll try to redesign it myself see how it goes together, anyway continue with your good work mate! Love from India!
Thanks yet again for an easy to understand tutorial!! I seem to be getting pretty good results with the standard BQ extruder but I guess its only a matter of time before the quest for Ultimate perfection Kicks in!! Your Peon230 print has turned out far better than I had ever expected, also due to a heated bed conversion I have just fitted to get over frustrating base distortion!! many thanks Jules UK
Hey man, i have followed your channel and seeked advise when i got my E3Dv6 on my hictop prusa i3 model.... Following your current extruder calibration here, i managed to get my steps per mm to be 102.... I had same NEMA17. same bowden mount, same Mk7 drive gear, same filament dia. etc. Worked ok, but i was under extruding BIG time... had quite a few failed prints before i figure out what was going on... Following Thomas S. instructions, i went ahead and calibrated my E steps by his method and it now works perfect. Here is the deal... using your method, i got perfect 50mm extrude "travel" out of my bowden tube every time!, and i did this like 6 times. Now, this isnt the same as the expected extruded amount for plastic out of a hot nozzle. So once i started calibrating for the extrude amount thru the hot end, i found out my steps per mm is really 124!!! that's 18% under extruded! Big difference and the results show it. Not saying your wrong, just saying it didnt work for me and it may not for others. Have a good day sir!
That's interesting, as when you measure through the hotend, if the hotend is partially clogged or not enough heat, then measurements can be larger. Either way I'm glad you fixed the issue. Thanks for sharing :)
I like my Bowden printer. It also uses 6mm rods and bearings.The whole carriage is light even being dual extruder. Doesnt ghost much and can print pla pretty fast.
I appreciate the detailed list of required vitamins on the thingiverse page for this extruder. This is a very cool part! ...No it isn't. The teflon tube holder fuckup thing won't screw into the hole provided for it. That's what I get for listening to someone on the internet.
just printed this for my e3d lite6 i got yesterday. love your videos and all info. also have a prusa i3 but the chinese one. really needed this tutorial! thumbs up!
thank you for the clear video! I have almost everything ready to assemble. Only,....... Now I'm sitting there thinking to even build a second printer;-) I have almost everything doubly, so.......... HMMMmmmmmm only it is so that with this system have less power. normally you still have a delay of two gears (more power) I'm wrong? I also asked myself you could not get better with this system: have a reduction gear? (a delay with more force gears) I hope it is clearly written, Friendly greetings from the Netherlands (Rotterdam) and once again glad that you share it! Rob.
Awesome help mate :) thank you very much - my cheap printer had terrible settings - I had to bump my settings by 1,617 but it printed :D magic :P the only thing is try not to use bowden tube for this as it moves can give you different readings ;)
Thank you for an EXCELLENT!!! tutorial video. I am printing this for my Anet A8. Is there an existing video t 'properly calibrate' my direct extruder? Using CURA and stock board.
Hi, thanks a lot for such a useful video! I have a question...what you meant when you said: "Set the driver stepper trim pot to 3/4"..."? Is there any specific value I should set there? The point is, my trim pot looks a bit different than yours and I'm in trouble to set it up at 3/4... I set everything else as you said an my Bowden system was working great until it stopped extruding filament...and I think the reason is that my trim pot is not set correctly so the stepper is not getting enough current and is getting overheated ... Thanks for all your help...
Where do you get the screw, springs, etc. from to attach the Bowden Extruder? I know where to get everything else like the bearing, the tube, the MK7, but not the screws, bolts, springs, etc.
you fitted the stepper motor of the extruder some other place and and the main heater was at the other place ...... wud it be a priblm while printing ??? i mean .... for instance if the extruder goes down and the and the filament gets short .... will not the filament get out of the extruder (heater) ???
My Bowden coupler that came with the monoprice select mini v2 quite literally exploded. The coupler's teeth that were inside exploded out and the guide tube came out mid print. I bought a new setup and the drive gear setscrew was stripped out. Drilling the screw out doesn’t work because it is like the drive gear is welded into place
After using this design for about a year now, I've been having to replace the bearing arm every week or so because it bends over time. PETG lasts longer than PLA but I'm seriously considering casting in aluminum if I don't upgrade to a zesty nimble. Do you have this problem as well? How often do you replace your parts?
My board is different than your board. Mine is the MPX 1.3. I have the same extruder and the V6 head. My Marin listed this for the Esteps (4962144) Your saying change it to 100. Think I'm gooing in the right direction? Thanks
What voltage is your stepper driver reading, I know you said 3/4 but was wondering if you can check the voltage with a multimeter. I have had to crank mine way up in order for it to extrude properly. I think I am going to try a Wade Extruder but in a Bowden setup to give me more torque
Chris Griffin 1.3v. If you're using 3mm filament then you must gear it down, like with the wade gears. 1.75mm should be fine without extra gearing. Make sure your stepper motor is the nema17 4kg torque version, not the shorter lower torque version.
Liked and subscribed. You said in the video that you found the mk6 gear to cut into the abs too much. Do you print mostly in abs? What did you print your parts for this project in?
excellent video. just what I needed. have you used PLA or ABS for printing the parts? I built a basic Prusa i3 with direct drive and have now caaught the bug of improvements!
just curious what kind of caliphers you are using. also, i got a prusa i3 with a bowden v5. it should be relatively easy to upgrade to a v6 bowden no? will i need to purchase a "whole kit" or can i just exchange my head with a v6 head and should adjust fine?
I´ve got some problem with bridging since i´ve changed to the bowden setup with the E3D V6, do you have any tips? or perhaps a printscreen on your settings? :)
just for concidertaion. when you take the load of the filament driver of an i3's print head, the limiting factor becomes the weight of the y-carriage and bed. is there a similiar modification to take care fo that?
Hi! First off thanks for this! I've used this setup for a project of mine, but I'm having a slight problem with the motor. I'm using a NEMA 17 Motor (42BYGHW208) but does not provide enough torque to overcome the friction between the filament and bearing (which is actually pretty easy to overcome manually) would you have any idea on how to deal with this? Is this particular nema17 model too weak?
***** Certainly you need a NEMA17 with enough torque for a Bowden extruder. I quickly googled your model number and it is one of the lower torque NEMA17 motors. A larger NEMA17 torque motor should fix it.
Hii Tech2C! I loved this setup and made one for me but I'm with a little problem: The holes from your support and the X Carriage don't match :( Can you disponibilize the file of your X Carriage? Since I'm trying to do it with Graber i3, I need the support with 3 LM8UU in the X Carriage
Stupid question maybe, but when you put the PTFE tubing into the hot end, how far to do you put it in? Does the PTFE tube go all the way to the heat break? Or is it just through the locking mechanism on the top of the hot end? Thanks guys.
That depends on your hotend. I use a genuine E3D v6, which allows the PTFE tube to go in about 1 inch. You want to push the PTFE tube as far in as possible to assist in guiding the filament.
That sounds right, the problem I have with my printer right now is that the filament will not make it to the hot end because the change of diameter on the hot sink causes the filament to be stuck. Its shipped from China so I don't think its genuine. Plus the bore size isn't big enough to take the 4mm OD, so I bought new tubing with a 3mm OD hoping that that fixes it Thanks for the response.
Hello!!! I Love your videos and... o make me finally decide to buy my first 3D printer!!! ;) I bought a I3 RepRap of sorts! can you tell me the software that you use in this video at 11:09 more or less? to control the printer over USB cable... Thanks a lot a good luck to your new 3D printer that you are making... it's awesome!!!
Can I use the old stepper motor that was connected to the hotend and fan, so I don't have to change the setting? What's your recommendation for the hotend? Thanks
Thanks for this video - very useful. I followed the steps described but still seem to have issues. Most notable are that my top and bottom layer fill has gaps. I tried following the reprap wiki calibration fine tuning steps but despite increasing the e steps value by a few points I still have these gaps. Any suggestions on what else I may need to tune? I didn't have this problem before switching to the bowden extruder.
Justin Fielding Yep, this setup produces very fine layers, which is great for detailed prints. First set your e-steps back to their calibrated value. In your slicer program, increase the top/bottom infill percentage by 20%. In Slic3r, I set it to 120%. See my Slic3r videos for the explanation.
I'm fairly confused on how you attached this to the printer. What is this mysterious diagonally affixed z rod? Could I simply attach the extruder assembly on the top piece of the frame?
+Ratchet Russian You can attach the Bowden extruder anywhere on the printer you like. I added the z-axis rods for extra support. Checkout my earlier videos for that upgrade.
thanks for your great work. is there any trick how to screw the Teflon tube fitting in? i destroyed 2 parts already but ist will not fit. Material is pla with propper calibration.
MrAppleTricks The spool holder I use I've quickly knocked up in a CAD program specific to the spool size I use. There's plenty of generic spool holders on Thingiverse. I recommend using bearings on the spool holder as well to remove any tension on the filament feed. Anyways I'll upload another short video with my spool holder setup shortly.
Still trying to find the X carriage that this mounts to. Don't suppose you have a link to the one you have, or did you just drill new holes in the old one?
Oldenglishshifty My printer kit is the Prusa i3 Rework. If yours doesn't fit you can try the x-carriage part from the Rework kit www.thingiverse.com/thing:119616
Hello ! Greetings from Chile, great job, I made your extruder, can you give me your configuration of slic3r to print in excellent quality? I would greatly appreciate it. Beforehand thank you very much. regards!
How do I check if mine is the 4kg version? It says .55N/m on it. I had mine turned up to 1.3V but the heat sink on the stepper driver was very hot and the stepper motor was getting quite hot also. The stepper driver came set at .8 V.
Chris Griffin Simple google search will help ;) If the motor is getting hot, there's too much resistance to drive the filament. Check your entire Bowden setup for binding and sticky spots. Also calibrate the extruder steps without going through the hotend.
quick question I did mount the Bowden setup and its printing really good except I just have the standard teethand i am gating layer binding issues i wonder if it could be the grinding of the filaments did print out your setupdid not mount it I'm scared about turning the stepper drivers .
Here's some tips - Calibrate the extruder steps again, increase hotend temperature, remove plastic grinds from extruder gear, replace the extruder gear with not as sharp teeth to prevent grinding, clean out the hotend nozzle, be brave.
What Prusa do you have? I think there are a few Prusa i3s out there like Prusa i3, Prusa i3 Hephestos, Prusa Mendel, and Prusa Steel. How do you like yours? and if you dont mind me asking, is this your first printer? How hard was it to build and get to the point it is now?
+Brennen Patel Yeah this is my first printer. Choose a printer with a metal frame. Most printers are derivatives of the original Prusa i3. Basically any printer you choose will print fine out of the box, and you be lucky that it produces absolute rock star parts. Otherwise as I've shown it's quite simple to modify your printer as it's all open source. Checkout the reprap forums too.
+Adrian Quesada Hello Adrian, yes the fans are a must when printing very fine layer heights, especially with PLA. I plan on changing the fans to a more compact setup and will post a video of that final result once I've made the switch.
Can I use mechanism from direct drive (the one with big gear, yea :D ) for bowden? Just modify it a little bit to fit in teflon tubing and screw it externally on the frame
Hey there, I curently have chinese MK8 direct drive extruder on my I3 and I'm not really happy with it. I'm planning on some major revisions(wooden enclosure to the whole printer, adding a print cooling fan etc.) And I was wondering, would you recommend bowden extruders? On one hand reducing the weight on the x carriage sounds good, but changing filaments looks to be quite a chore with this setup. I also heard that you can't use flexible filaments with them(not that I print with anything other than ABS and PLA but still) and retractions are problematic with them from what I understand. On the positive side, I really like the look of bowdens compared to the bulky direct drives. Once I finalize my enclosure design; I could have a compartment for extruder motor and never have to see it again :) Anyway thanks for the great video. Cheers.
+flanker Hi there. Well, please check out my newer video's. I go over printing flexible filaments with this Bowden setup, and switching filaments isn't as cumbersome as you'd think. Cooling fans blowing on the printed part is a must at finer resolutions or small print parts. My print quality improved dramatically once I switched so I have nothing but praise for it ;)
Ratchet Russian Terrible. I don't know if it's the cheap Chinese E3D v6 I'm using or something else, but I can't feed filament faster than 5mm/s before grinding starts. For reference, with direct drive, I could easily reach 20mm/s feedrate. Not only that, but retraction has also became a big problem. 8mm seems to cured the worst of the "blobs" but it introduced bunch of new problems. I've had few jams too. I never had those with DD setup. As for the advantages, I don't see any. I switched to bowden to increase printing speeds and to make the printer look nicer. It looks nice to be sure, but the speed took a big hit. Sure I can move E3D around faster compared to whole stepper motor, but since I can't get high enough feedrate for the filament, it's kinda pointless. I suspect problem is the tiny heatblock (16x17) That thing can't keep hot enough to melt fast moving filament. I've ordered a bigger heatblock. If it doesn't perform, back to direct drive for me. Seriously though the hassle of the bowden setup just isn't worth the advantages for me.
Your video are great! this is what i'm looking for. But i have a question, can i do this with Zonestar P802QS Printer? because i don't have it now, and i'm a noob in 3d printer, but i'll buy it soon. I hope someone will answer me, thanks.
Go to reprap.org forums and search for your printer. There may be others whom have changed the extruder to Bowden or similar. Otherwise you can start a new thread and someone with your printer may answer.
+Tech2C, good idea! now i know.. reprap.org is a big community for prusa 3d printer, thanks! My english is not very well, but i'll try your idea, because the community is always useful, thank you! Greeting from Indonesia :D
Hi Tech2c, I have an Anet A8 Prusa i3 clone with skynet3d software 2.3.2, I recently upgraded the hotend using your bowden upgrade video, this of course places the nozzle in a different location. My question is, what is the code (m206 ?) to reset the position or how to use the arduino configuration.h to set the new location. Everything I tried does not seem to work. I turned off EEPROM_SETTINGS and CHITCHAT and re flashed, but it always goes to the same spot after a G28 followed by G1 x110 y110.
My original mount has the nozzle about 20mm to left of centre of the bearings, the bowden one is in centre of bearings but about 15mm further forward, I cannot find how to reposition the bowden one to the same position as original. Perhaps I am completely misunderstanding what is going on.
Roostono D'martono No software required. All you need to do is calculate your extruder steps and re-compile Marlin with that setting. Measure and repeat the process until it's calibrated. It's in the video...
Hey, what do you think of your prusa i3? Thinking of getting one for my first 3d printer but buying everything separately so i can have a few upgrades like the extended bed kit and this bowden. What do you think? Thanks Luke
TheLukey21 The Prusa i3 is a great printer for beginners and hobbyists. Plenty of support online, plenty of variations and mods too. Building one yourself would also be very rewarding and cost effective.
Tech2C like this one? pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=111660669265&alt=web. Sorry if im asking to many questions but this will be my first 3d printer and you know alot more about then i do. Thanks again I've subbed now :)
TheLukey21 Woah that's a great price for an E3D v6! Good find! Is it the real deal or a knock off? The only thing that's suspicious with the photos is the top of the hotend. If you go to the E3D website there isn't a PTFE push fit connector on top. That ebay hotend shows one on top.
@@zzing one thing to be said for the man, he did create a very good corexy hypercube 3d printer using this method did he not? Some of the videos i have watched on things like how to calibrate your extruder that are on youtube that i have watched for my self, have been some times a bit un-noob-confusing; for me that is. But the way tech2c explains the math is nice and simple if you look at it from my noob standpoint, so say raise the flag for tech2c, not only was he helpful with his nice and simple teaching. No piss taking at all intended in my reply what so ever so please people please don't get the wrong idea form what i have just replied. P.s. i am printing with my own tech2c huypercube 3d orinter as i type this, nice one tech2c it works great.
rct2 I am in fact in the process of building a hypercube Evo. It is definitely good work, and looking forward to being able to use it. The main concern here was something like measuring filament sloppily can mean you are off by over a mm. On longer prints that adds up a lot. But carefully measuring you get easier results.
hey thanks for the great tutorial but on marlin the gcode to allow cold extrusion (at any temp) is "M302 S0" the S0 is required. reprap.org/wiki/G-code#M302:_Allow_cold_extrudes could you please edit the description because annotations are no longer creatable.
1.75mm: Φ2 x 4mm (inner diameter is 2mm, the outer diameter is 4mm) 3.0mm: Φ4 x 6mm (inner diameter is 4mm, the outer diameter is 6mm) Temperature range: -190 ℃ ~ 280 ℃ Long: 1M Nozzle type: 1.75mm, 3.0mm (optional)
Tunc Angin X-Carriage is part of the Prusa i3 Rework kit: www.thingiverse.com/thing:119616 Tech2C Thingiverse designs: www.thingiverse.com/Tech2C/designs
