Vertex extruder front mount

thingiverse

It was always frustrating to deal with getting the filament in and out of the extruder/feeder piece. So I designed this part to relocate the extruder and motor to the front panel of the printer. You can use the original hex screws to secure the part to the front panel. The part fits snugly over the black corner piece, without needing to remove it. There is no thread in the 2 fixing holes, you will have to drill this yourself with a screw tap M5. The 4 holes for the motor are already done. Be careful of the rotation direction of the extruder/feeder motor. I placed mine on the same side (left on front panel) like the original, as shown in the pictures. Since my printer is enclosed, I had to keep the outer dimensions to a minimum. To do this, point the metal lever inward. With a dual head printer like mine, I used the black feeder piece of the second hot-end (extruder 2) for extruder 1. The problem was that the motor turns in reverse, so I had to switch the rotation direction. There are several ways to do this. One option is to change it through the software, by setting a flag in the firmware and flashing it to the mainboard. However, from experience, this can be tricky and tends to go wrong sometimes. I chose to use the hardware option, switching the pins in the connector. This way, you switch coil A with coil B from the extruder motor (see diagram). Another option is to mirror the part for printing, then you can use extruder 1 as is. There are of course other possibilities, just make sure the filament is going in the right direction.