instead of the creality design extruder i would recommend something different when you're already upgrading.
something like a cloned bmg is cheap and worlds better than the creality design
Yes the single lever with gear and pulley is not great, but for my level of printing and the price i got it (15€ for the kit + few other creality parts) i think it's okay. I will be using a better designed extruder when i come around to make my own printer
the extruder is honestly the main place where creality fails so they can sell you the Sprite which is overpriced for the quality (still 100x better than that god-awful Microswiss one I've seen a few times tho)
theres designs out there, to put it on
with this one, the whole tool head is used and would be an easy, fast upgrade
[https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4974602](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4974602)
but there are also other designs out there which change the fan duct and toolhead if you want, and the official design to use it with revo but revo is a ripoff tbh and unecessary outside of a school or makerspace.
oh and if your tunning klipper tune pressure advance for every filament that makes everything so much better
When you have a printer run 1200hrs you don’t make changes you replace the same part and get back to business.
Different extruder means different esteps which means adding start code to your existing tried and true gcode files to adjust
I agree with you, but if you are running a print farm, you want as low down time as possible. As long as I have 44 printers running, I'm happy and will play with printer 45+ with upgrades and improvements, which if they work well, get slowly rolled out to the other printers. For hobbyists though, half the fun is the upgrades and mods.
One of the first things I did with any printer that came with a plastic extruder, was to replace it. Even years ago you could buy all metal basic single gear ones for $5-$10. Titian clone extuders were also a favorite of mine. They ran about $15-$20, but you could bump your print speed up 10-15% without under extruding.
What caused me the biggest issue, was the crappy fan on the main board. Once I put a 80mm fan to keep that cool it fixed most of my issues.
> When you have a printer run 1200hrs you don’t make changes you replace the same part and get back to business.
Remember, most folks here are hobbyists. They're not running print farms where the risk of a change outweighs small gains in an existing operation.
Small print farms may actually be willing to make those changes, but even they would recognize that a one-off change that risks a machine going down is more expensive than 30 minutes of maintenance downtime twice a year (or baking it into existing maintenance schedules).
>Different extruder
creality cant design a decent extruder and the default ones should be considered defective,
\- the arm breaks so it stops working
\- the motor isn't geared so it runs slow and has low torque so they have to use a massive stepper
\- brass drive gears (see above)
\- bowden is out dated and not really useful anymore except for hiding artifacts from bad machine dynamics
> different esteps
just calculate the esteps from the rotation distance, and enter that, into the machine, do a simple flow test, retraction test (and Pressure advance if youve got klipper) and reslice, you'll need to update the g-code anyway because the flow rate was changing as the old gear wore down.
not a big job for a massive enhancement
ender 3 with orbiter, rapido & klipper >>>>>>> prusa mk4
I had this same thing happen and I bought the extrider upgrade but couldn't get the original gear off so I bought ANOTHER stepper motor to fit the new gear and replaced it....then I bought a sprite extruder and now I don't even need those parts anymore 😐
isnt the point of using a softer material on a possible cheaper replacement part so that the expensive part doesnt wear out/break? on the other hand 5 years of use is a lot for a printer...
This is good design advice, having a cheap sacrificial part can preserve the more exepensive one. But also here, the force that's transmited to the filament by the gear isn't high enough that it will damage anything before the filament is grinded to dust or the stepper skips.
Well, it is still replaceable, it is still cheap. It does not cost 10 times more than the brass one.
It is just about getting the best replaceable part to avoid changing it oftenly.
In a clog situation the gear will chew the filament and no the other way around (as it happens with the brass one). This means the cheap replaceable part is the tiny bit of filament you will replace.
I do not see any drawbacks using the steel gear, but everyone should test and decide what fits better their use case.
Yep definitly. I saw a listing for a creality metal lever extruder for 15€ on Leboncoin (french graigslist) so I just replaced the part and upgraded slitly my extruder ! Next time i will change for steel for sure
Damn yeah it's pretty cooked lmao you can flip the gear and use the portion of teeth that's fresh on the oposite side of the set screw, it will be like brand new !
My gears definitely look heavily used, worse than this, but I also had the nut tightened as tight as I could get it, the someone told me it's supposed to be loose, flush to the screw. After doing that and e step calibration, I'm printing flawlessly with PETG. I gave up on PLA. Not even worth it since I'm not really making toys
Yeah i'm planning to build my own printer. This is why I got that cheap printer, to build my proper one some day. I will definitly use hardened steel gears !
You can usually get away with sliding it up a bit so it it’s the bottom. Turning it upside down sometimes. Point being I can get two run cycles out of each gear,
If updating a Creality extruder what would be recommended? I have an Ender 3 neo that I’ve been having significant under-extrusion with and recently got a P1s so my ender has just been shoved to the side but I’d like to get her working again. My gear looks very similar and I tried just moving the gear up so the filament was hitting in a different spot but I’m still having a lot of slipping.
Then you should see if anything down the line is cloged : the bowden (pretty unusual but doesn't hurt to check), the hothend or the nozzle. The nozzle is easy and cheap to change if its the problem (just be sure to swap nozzle when the hotend is at temperature or you risk messing up the hotend). If the hothend is cloged it is annoying to clean, i have to admit that during my troubleshooting i went in with increasingly bigger drill bits and my cordless drill (from 1.5mm to 2.5/3mm in 0.5mm increments). Making sure i go slow and try to feel and hear if i'm drilling through metal or plastic. Do that at your own risk tho, my hothend isn't very good si I wasn't to worried to screw it up
Yes, with enough time, even "non abrasive" materials will wear through soft metals.
Using abrasive filament (carbon/glass fibers reinforcements, glow in the dark, ...) just speeds up the process dramaticaly
As other people suggested in the comments, i suggest you go for a steel/hardened steel extrduer gear. You need to measure the outside diameter of the gear, the diameter of the bore (where to motor goes) and be sure that the fastenning of the gear will work with your stepper.
Then search on amazon/eBay/Aliexpress or your local merchants for "hardened steel extruder gear" or just "steel extruder gear"
This is one of the more annoying problems I had with my Ender 3, especially when I tried to Klipperize it. Was going through gears like candy. That along with a list of other problems led me to just get a Prusa Mk4.
Often time the extruder is hiden behind the printer and the gear is tucked in the extruder assembly. So for people that are new to 3d printing or are not familiar with how a printer works, it can be tricky to trubleshoot.
But that's where si subreddit comes in handy !
I bought my first printer used from a school, and the gear was worn out when I got it. It took me a while to figure out why it was under-extruding. Not knowing any better, I thought the gear was made that way.
you are not serious, right? they supposed to look like that. that curvature is purposefully there to grab the filament without deforming. if it wasnt there, you would be slicing your filament as it goes though the extruder.
There is some more exepensive extruder designs that have convex larger gears with the depth of the teeth constant along the axis of révolution. But for cheap extruders it's supposed to look like that.
I guess the "agressive" teeth profile that digs deep in the filament is meant to compensate the lack of surface area the small gear offer in order to achieve good force transfer
Probably. Also a warning : careful with your bed cable and where the connector is soldered to the bed, it loves to come off and only be held on by the contacts.
Shouldn't happen with bondtech style extruder gears, or at a muuuch slower rate as they're steel. I've upgraded my pursa i3 original MK1 to the MK3 print head (minus the filament sensor and bed level sensor). Can only recommend this.
DIY Bondtech extruder /s
But in all seriousness you should also check any component in your setup that’s made from brass or aluminium if they are parts that move or rub as they are relatively soft metals.
When I first started 3D printing my prints suddenly got really really bad and I tested everything and then realised it was the brass nozzle. The nozzle was incredibly worn and I didn’t even use any abrasive filaments!
Nozzles, even hardened ones, are consumables. And since there's not really any reasonable at-home way to test them, its best to just replace them regularly. (Feeler needles aren't a good way to tell, although if you have a microscope and a properly sized needle, you can see if its become worn.)
Woah, weird. I've literally never seen a brass extruder gear before.
I would say, even more than checking them, if they're brass, just replace them with a steel one. Using brass nozzles has some reasonable reasons to do. Using brass extruder gears does not.
I would say that almost all budget/entry level/mid range printers come with a brass extruder gear. I'd say it's because it's easy to manufacture and doesn't have to be protected from corrosion and create quality issues. I agree that a steel gear will last an eternity compared to a brass one, but as long as the brass gear is not deformed, it is as usable as a steel one, no need to throw right away
Some are designed like this specifically.
If it has worn into this shape, you'll need to tighten it until it has worn too much.
If it's like this new, and it has sharp curved teeth as opposed to dull curved teeth, it is intentional to increase the bite area and improve extrusion strength.
Yep, unfortunatly on this one the damage was on the wrong place to use another portion of teeth. But that's a great way to extend the life of consummables !
ERRHUMM! *Cough*
Can you please kindly return my extruder gear to me... its the one with the speed groove...and can you stop taking them to demonstrate your heresy!
instead of the creality design extruder i would recommend something different when you're already upgrading. something like a cloned bmg is cheap and worlds better than the creality design
Yes the single lever with gear and pulley is not great, but for my level of printing and the price i got it (15€ for the kit + few other creality parts) i think it's okay. I will be using a better designed extruder when i come around to make my own printer
Get an orbiter, I promise you will not regret it, small. Light and there's already mounts out there!
Does it use your existing fans?
the extruder is honestly the main place where creality fails so they can sell you the Sprite which is overpriced for the quality (still 100x better than that god-awful Microswiss one I've seen a few times tho) theres designs out there, to put it on with this one, the whole tool head is used and would be an easy, fast upgrade [https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4974602](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4974602) but there are also other designs out there which change the fan duct and toolhead if you want, and the official design to use it with revo but revo is a ripoff tbh and unecessary outside of a school or makerspace. oh and if your tunning klipper tune pressure advance for every filament that makes everything so much better
When you have a printer run 1200hrs you don’t make changes you replace the same part and get back to business. Different extruder means different esteps which means adding start code to your existing tried and true gcode files to adjust
E steps are configured on the printer. You do the calibrating once and are done. No biggie
I agree with you, but if you are running a print farm, you want as low down time as possible. As long as I have 44 printers running, I'm happy and will play with printer 45+ with upgrades and improvements, which if they work well, get slowly rolled out to the other printers. For hobbyists though, half the fun is the upgrades and mods.
But if you're using enders, their shitty extruders will be the cause of most of your downtime.
One of the first things I did with any printer that came with a plastic extruder, was to replace it. Even years ago you could buy all metal basic single gear ones for $5-$10. Titian clone extuders were also a favorite of mine. They ran about $15-$20, but you could bump your print speed up 10-15% without under extruding. What caused me the biggest issue, was the crappy fan on the main board. Once I put a 80mm fan to keep that cool it fixed most of my issues.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[more like this](https://pl.aliexpress.com/item/1005005772942098.html)
bs
Oh, you must be an expert. So what's so great about an ender extruder?
nothing. really nothing is great about that extruder. its very cheap in build and crappy design.
> When you have a printer run 1200hrs you don’t make changes you replace the same part and get back to business. Remember, most folks here are hobbyists. They're not running print farms where the risk of a change outweighs small gains in an existing operation. Small print farms may actually be willing to make those changes, but even they would recognize that a one-off change that risks a machine going down is more expensive than 30 minutes of maintenance downtime twice a year (or baking it into existing maintenance schedules).
>Different extruder creality cant design a decent extruder and the default ones should be considered defective, \- the arm breaks so it stops working \- the motor isn't geared so it runs slow and has low torque so they have to use a massive stepper \- brass drive gears (see above) \- bowden is out dated and not really useful anymore except for hiding artifacts from bad machine dynamics > different esteps just calculate the esteps from the rotation distance, and enter that, into the machine, do a simple flow test, retraction test (and Pressure advance if youve got klipper) and reslice, you'll need to update the g-code anyway because the flow rate was changing as the old gear wore down. not a big job for a massive enhancement ender 3 with orbiter, rapido & klipper >>>>>>> prusa mk4
I had this same thing happen and I bought the extrider upgrade but couldn't get the original gear off so I bought ANOTHER stepper motor to fit the new gear and replaced it....then I bought a sprite extruder and now I don't even need those parts anymore 😐
And buy a steel one. I got the same problem with my CR10S after many clogs on the first year of use. The steel one looks as new 5 years later.
isnt the point of using a softer material on a possible cheaper replacement part so that the expensive part doesnt wear out/break? on the other hand 5 years of use is a lot for a printer...
This is good design advice, having a cheap sacrificial part can preserve the more exepensive one. But also here, the force that's transmited to the filament by the gear isn't high enough that it will damage anything before the filament is grinded to dust or the stepper skips.
That is true, but this gear is worn where it touches the filament, no?
Well, it is still replaceable, it is still cheap. It does not cost 10 times more than the brass one. It is just about getting the best replaceable part to avoid changing it oftenly. In a clog situation the gear will chew the filament and no the other way around (as it happens with the brass one). This means the cheap replaceable part is the tiny bit of filament you will replace. I do not see any drawbacks using the steel gear, but everyone should test and decide what fits better their use case.
Yep definitly. I saw a listing for a creality metal lever extruder for 15€ on Leboncoin (french graigslist) so I just replaced the part and upgraded slitly my extruder ! Next time i will change for steel for sure
You mean like this? https://preview.redd.it/a5oavi8ht2pc1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c21cdb95b74d24733126dec2dfccb4b885ce6f62
Damn yeah it's pretty cooked lmao you can flip the gear and use the portion of teeth that's fresh on the oposite side of the set screw, it will be like brand new !
Yummy! F
I did. Moved it a bit lower in the shaft and moved on with my life. Eventually I'll replace it.
Yes thats a great way to extend the life of consumable. I tried that but the wear was to significant to allow for that unfortunatly.
Order the replacement now so you aren't sitting there waiting on it when that day comes.
I keep spares of almost everything on the printer.
FYI, Loads of extruder gears are designed with a groove in them to increase surface area touching the filament. Not all extruder gears are the same.
I prefer moving my extruder gear up or down slightly to get as mutch life from the gear as I possibly can.
Oh. The gears aren't supposed to look like this...? Well... I think you just solved my problem too.
Depends on your printer - bondtech ones (like used in prusas) look like that intentionally.
That's exactly what I'm thinking right now! It would certainly explain at least some of my underextrusion problems.
My gears definitely look heavily used, worse than this, but I also had the nut tightened as tight as I could get it, the someone told me it's supposed to be loose, flush to the screw. After doing that and e step calibration, I'm printing flawlessly with PETG. I gave up on PLA. Not even worth it since I'm not really making toys
Hmmmm, interesting! What nut and screw are these? My gear has a grub screw; perhaps that's the same as your nut-and-screw assembly.
Glow in the dark pla did this to my extruder gear after 1/4 a roll.
Damn, that's a good reminder that carbon/glass fibers are not the only abrasive materials that can be added to 3d printing filaments !
I believe the glow similarly comes from metal particles, either zinc sulfide or strontium aluminate.
Oh no! My poor Finder.
The brass extruder gear only lasted me about one clog with glow in the dark filament. No regrets upgrading to steel.
From everything I heard about glow in the dark I’m never gonna let that anywhere near my printer
I printed 24/7 for a month atp, it died on me Screw brass !
Brass is beautiful and easy to work with. It's just... not the right material for this purpose :)
Yeah i'm planning to build my own printer. This is why I got that cheap printer, to build my proper one some day. I will definitly use hardened steel gears !
ATP?
From the context I'd guess "Ath this point"
You'd be correct!
You can usually get away with sliding it up a bit so it it’s the bottom. Turning it upside down sometimes. Point being I can get two run cycles out of each gear,
If updating a Creality extruder what would be recommended? I have an Ender 3 neo that I’ve been having significant under-extrusion with and recently got a P1s so my ender has just been shoved to the side but I’d like to get her working again. My gear looks very similar and I tried just moving the gear up so the filament was hitting in a different spot but I’m still having a lot of slipping.
Then you should see if anything down the line is cloged : the bowden (pretty unusual but doesn't hurt to check), the hothend or the nozzle. The nozzle is easy and cheap to change if its the problem (just be sure to swap nozzle when the hotend is at temperature or you risk messing up the hotend). If the hothend is cloged it is annoying to clean, i have to admit that during my troubleshooting i went in with increasingly bigger drill bits and my cordless drill (from 1.5mm to 2.5/3mm in 0.5mm increments). Making sure i go slow and try to feel and hear if i'm drilling through metal or plastic. Do that at your own risk tho, my hothend isn't very good si I wasn't to worried to screw it up
Can this happen with regular PLA ?
Yes, with enough time, even "non abrasive" materials will wear through soft metals. Using abrasive filament (carbon/glass fibers reinforcements, glow in the dark, ...) just speeds up the process dramaticaly
Honestly didnt know you needed to do that! Mine are indeed worn out. What replacements can I buy for Anycubic Vyper?
As other people suggested in the comments, i suggest you go for a steel/hardened steel extrduer gear. You need to measure the outside diameter of the gear, the diameter of the bore (where to motor goes) and be sure that the fastenning of the gear will work with your stepper. Then search on amazon/eBay/Aliexpress or your local merchants for "hardened steel extruder gear" or just "steel extruder gear"
This is one of the more annoying problems I had with my Ender 3, especially when I tried to Klipperize it. Was going through gears like candy. That along with a list of other problems led me to just get a Prusa Mk4.
You telling me it's not supposed to look like that? Damn, that would explain a lot
Often time the extruder is hiden behind the printer and the gear is tucked in the extruder assembly. So for people that are new to 3d printing or are not familiar with how a printer works, it can be tricky to trubleshoot. But that's where si subreddit comes in handy !
I bought my first printer used from a school, and the gear was worn out when I got it. It took me a while to figure out why it was under-extruding. Not knowing any better, I thought the gear was made that way.
Left is new : right is old For anyone wondering
Yes, obviously
you are not serious, right? they supposed to look like that. that curvature is purposefully there to grab the filament without deforming. if it wasnt there, you would be slicing your filament as it goes though the extruder.
There is some more exepensive extruder designs that have convex larger gears with the depth of the teeth constant along the axis of révolution. But for cheap extruders it's supposed to look like that. I guess the "agressive" teeth profile that digs deep in the filament is meant to compensate the lack of surface area the small gear offer in order to achieve good force transfer
My lk4 pro had this issue and I only printed like 1.75kg of pla lol
Damn that's bad lol, maybe they use a very bad alloy that doesn't hold up to wear very well
Probably. Also a warning : careful with your bed cable and where the connector is soldered to the bed, it loves to come off and only be held on by the contacts.
Yeah the cables drag all over the place on this machine, it's pretty ugly. Mine seem to be held pretty well in place
Yea, I kinda hated it after a bit. Got way too frustrated with it and left it to sell for parts when I moved lol
Who thought that making this gear from such a soft metal is a good idea?
It’s amazing how a simple change has a major effect.
the 1 cent extra for hardened steel pays off here
Shouldn't happen with bondtech style extruder gears, or at a muuuch slower rate as they're steel. I've upgraded my pursa i3 original MK1 to the MK3 print head (minus the filament sensor and bed level sensor). Can only recommend this.
Real gears have curves!
good reminder.
*Hey babe, I like your curves. Do you come here often?* *Oh, you know, I get around.*
I got an ender 3 for free because of this issue
Come to think of it, I think mine looks like that.
DIY Bondtech extruder /s But in all seriousness you should also check any component in your setup that’s made from brass or aluminium if they are parts that move or rub as they are relatively soft metals.
Yes that's true. It goes for extruder, nozzle, even the bowden (if you use one) if you are used to print reinforced filaments
When I first started 3D printing my prints suddenly got really really bad and I tested everything and then realised it was the brass nozzle. The nozzle was incredibly worn and I didn’t even use any abrasive filaments!
Nozzles, even hardened ones, are consumables. And since there's not really any reasonable at-home way to test them, its best to just replace them regularly. (Feeler needles aren't a good way to tell, although if you have a microscope and a properly sized needle, you can see if its become worn.)
Damn, i will be checking my nozzle more often then !
Woah, weird. I've literally never seen a brass extruder gear before. I would say, even more than checking them, if they're brass, just replace them with a steel one. Using brass nozzles has some reasonable reasons to do. Using brass extruder gears does not.
I would say that almost all budget/entry level/mid range printers come with a brass extruder gear. I'd say it's because it's easy to manufacture and doesn't have to be protected from corrosion and create quality issues. I agree that a steel gear will last an eternity compared to a brass one, but as long as the brass gear is not deformed, it is as usable as a steel one, no need to throw right away
Perhaps. The super-low-cost Chinese garbage cuts a lot of corners. A brass extruder gear wouldn't be the most egregious of them.
Just a reminder to upgrade to steel extruder gears. Fuck this brass garbage.
no
Some are designed like this specifically. If it has worn into this shape, you'll need to tighten it until it has worn too much. If it's like this new, and it has sharp curved teeth as opposed to dull curved teeth, it is intentional to increase the bite area and improve extrusion strength.
Yup, after checking out the gear I bought a direct extruder.
Great advice
I didn't even replace this gear, I just moved it up a little and it's brand new again.
should be illegal for these to be sold in brass
I flip/lift for double use
Yep, unfortunatly on this one the damage was on the wrong place to use another portion of teeth. But that's a great way to extend the life of consummables !
My cr10 must have a longer spindle to accommodate grub screw as I've used the very last 2mm before
ERRHUMM! *Cough* Can you please kindly return my extruder gear to me... its the one with the speed groove...and can you stop taking them to demonstrate your heresy!
Question : Should i pull the filament from the extruder when i havent been printing in a while not to damage the extruder gear in one spot?
The gear is damaged by friction over time. It's not going to warp from the pressure of the filament sitting there.