No Fuss Flex Bowden Extruder

thingiverse

Well, I've never been a fan of the original drive gear that came with the FLSun Cube 3D. The hobbed gear just couldn't handle diameter changes in cheaper filaments, and even some expensive ones, resulting in prints that were okay but never great. So, I decided to change it because every extruder housing on Thingiverse didn't work well with our drive gears. I bought a MK8 Spur gear from Amazon, but still couldn't find an extruder that fit it well. So, I designed this one and since I didn't initially put a mount on it, I could just test them out without wasting too much material, so I decided to make one for myself that resembles one I've seen here, but I wanted to make my own anyway. This extruder is super simple - just push the filament into the opening and it will pull it through as long as it fits in that hole and has at least a 1.2mm diameter. I know she's not the prettiest or fanciest on Thingiverse, but she's one of the most simple with no tension adjusting required, and I'm happy because my prints have come out much better overall, even at higher speeds. This extruder will work with all filament types supposed to be 1.75 mm diameter, even from companies that are cheaper and have a wide varying diameter in their filament. In fact, a few rolls of filament I thought were dead because big lengths were 1.2 mm in diameter now work perfectly fine. What you need: 1 x MK8 Spur Gear 40 teeth 12mm outer diameter 5mm inner diameter and 12mm long - find it on Amazon easily, that's where I got it. 1 x 623zz Ball Bearing 4 x M3 Screws (1 x 20mm length 3 x 16mm length) 2 x 5mm Male Thread PC4-M5 Connector - thread the holes before attaching the connectors for a much better connection. I personally used a polycarbonate/carbon fiber filament from Priline which makes this very sturdy. I used a 20% infill. This mount is for a 20x20 extruded railing, and you will need to drill your own holes for the mount - either 4mm or 5mm hole and use either an M4 or M5 screw and nut to tighten the mount down to the 20x20 extruded railing. One last note: most likely, regardless of what printer you put this setup on, you will need to recalibrate your extruder step/mm if you're on the Flsun Cube 3D - I personally had to bring the steps per/mm down to 181.5. After doing several very long prints, a couple of them took 13 hours and one that took 28 hours, and printing Dragon Ball Z Models like One Goku, Frieza, and Beerus came out beautiful at 100mm/a with a .1 mm layer height - the layer lines sort of disappear. The layer lines are there but I have to say even with the way the machine flexes during those high-speed runs, any ghosting issues I had from the old extruder is now gone, as well as comparing models from my Qiddi X-one to the Flsun Cube 3D the results are pretty much the same and is what I expect from my 3D printer. I'm very happy I made this and hopefully any of you all who make it will be happy with it as well.