Bicycorn Bowden Tube Setup

thingiverse

If you enjoy this project, please consider leaving a generous contribution ---\r\n\r\nEver pondered whether you could repurpose the cable housing from your bicycle brake as a bowden tube on your 3D printer? The answer is yes!\r\n\r\nWhat began as a quirky idea surprisingly worked out. In fact, it now replaces my Capricorn bowden tubing because the bicycle cable housing significantly outperforms it. I've since developed adapters from PTFE bowden tube to brake cable housing, from extruder to brake cable housing and from M10 threading (V5 hotend) to brake cable housing. Someone once said: "If something looks silly, but works... it's not silly"\r\n\r\n!!!ONLY USE IN HOTEND WITH ALL METAL HEATBREAK!!!\r\n\r\nIf you want to insert the cable housing all the way into the hotend/extruder, first install the adapter in the hotend/extruder. Then push some regular PTFE tubing as far in as possible and measure how far the tubing can be inserted. Next, subtract 10 mm from that number. The remaining distance is the length of plastic you need to remove from the outermost layer of the cable housing. Underneath, you'll find a spring surrounding a PVC/PTFE liner. If you've measured everything correctly and removed the outer plastic layer, you can now insert the cable housing into the adapter and the stripped part of the cable housing will come to rest in the hotend/extruder.\r\n\r\nIf you don't want to insert the cable housing into the hotend or you don't have an all metal heatbreak, simply cut some PTFE bowden tubing to length, attach it to the cable housing and insert the PTFE tubing as usual. The same can be done for the extruder (see images).\r\n\r\nSome parts come in two varieties: standard and supportless. Ultimately, both are identical, but the supportless files contain either sacrificial layers or built-in supports. If you've got your bridging settings dialed in, the supportless versions will print smoothly.\r\nI also included a second nut that is slightly smaller than the normal one, allowing it to be used in tight spaces when necessary.\r\n\r\nI hope you have fun with this :)