Micro Swiss Direct Drive Extruder for Creality CR-10 / Ender 3 Printers

thanks

First of all it was an involved install on the ender 3 v2. The good 1. Beautiful milled pieces of aluminum 2. great dual feed extruder and easy to adjust 3. No more clicking when adjusted (Z offset) 4 Best nozzle or at least it looks better with this setup 5 Given the standalone nozzle price this is cheap Install 1. Plenty of videos online plus good PDF online 2. Everything included 3. Fit perfectly 4. Had to adjust PDI (heater temp) which eas easy using the Jyers firmware in Git Hub which puts that option on the board and on the screen. 5. Had to adjust x and y offsets approx -12. Easy done with Jyers. 6 Z-offset adjust. The somewhat bad 1. Printed shrouds for the e3V2 are garbage (not a Micro Swiss issue. 2. Purchased a standard ender fan shroud which was much better smaller and easer to use the original BL Touch mount for the E3 Pro 3. I still have to work out the wiring as the motor on the top of the z axis is so close to the top extrusion. Putting the wires under the motor will touch the rollers. I think I might loose some height but not enough to bother me. All in all a great upgrade for any printer and given the quality it might just be the best deal.

Listed as a bolt on, not a bolt on. Now Im going to have to pay someone to print me a EZABL mount for it.

Great addition to my modified Ender 3 Pro. Not a single jam, no slipping, and helps reduce the tuning required between material changes compared to the original hot end setup. Would buy again in a heartbeat.

The nozzle that came with my kit was just a brass nozzle and not a hardened one. Just printing PETG and its already having major issues.

It is great if your filament is getting jammed and /or your extruder is dripping

Big improvement over stock (had oozing with PETG) and one of the first modifications I made to my Ender 3 Max. Retraction distances greatly reduced (~1.0mm now) and lower hotend temps (210 degrees now vs 235 before on PETG), along with faster print speeds and higher quality.

Overall, a huge step up over the bowden if you want to check out hotter or flexible plastics, or just want to try moving away from the bowden setup. Installation is easy, but be sure to read the instructions carefully. A lot of people go on the message forums asking why their new extruder isnt working because they didnt read the part on the new gear ratio rate. Its all listed in the instructions on how to change that. :) A couple of things.. The use of a small section of bowden, on two of mine didnt quite line up properly. As such, feeding the filament through and past the gears resulted in the filament sitting just a tiny bit to the right of the capricorn tube that leads to the hot end, needing help to be pushed over and in. Cutting the plastic like a needle edge helps sometimes to steer it in, but for some reason its set just slightly too far to the right.. If the tube was ballooned out just a tiny amount there rather than cut in the cross pattern they chose, it would fix everything. Ive had some brittle plastic break there several times, and its literally because theres a slight mis-alignment. Shouldnt be a problem with most, but, when things dont line up flawlessly, theres a fault zone for everything, even healthy plastics.. Flexibles too will spool out at a lower speed than they need to at that point if it isnt aligned correctly. Perhaps making it slightly adjustable there would be more effective than trying to mill everything to perfection? If I could move that tube over to the right 1mm, it would be perfect. As it is, Im going to replace the length of tubing and flare out the end to aid it in alignment. The bowden above the extruder that feeds in filament is held in place with a small E-Clip. With the continuous back and forth jostling of retraction, it continually pushes out and ultimately onto the build plate. Ive heard from several other owners who simply stopped using it, but some kind of more traditional holding method for the bowden should be here when this doesnt work. Toothed couplers work well on regular setups, so I dont know why they arent used here. Ultimately, without it, the bowden can be pulled out, which isnt the worst thing when it comes to simplifying filament changes, especially when the plastic doesnt quite line up as mentioned above. You can assemble a line of filament, then push the tube in to secure it for the print after its all secured. Retraction is set so low on direct drives that it wont come out through regular printing, but its a little sloppy. I heard that they were working on a more effective clip and would send me one, but they never did. I feel a rounded edged surround for the tube there made from nylon would make a much better overall solution to using a bowden that were trying to remove anyway to continue to guide the plastic to the gears. That way its gone, and like most direct drives, plastic can feed straight in without hitting a sharp metal edge. What with the stepper being mounted onto the bracket, it is heavy, and you may need to slow down your print or suffer some noise in your prints. Fix the E-Clip slipping and bowden alignment/add actual couplers overall, and this would be a 5 star item. The feeding accuracy and ease of feed to the bowden after the gearing is by far the most important issue to fix. All in all though, I like it. Im not going to swap back.

I like the quality of both the direct drive and all metal hotend. It has also increased the quality of prints in an already quality product. Thank you Micro-Swiss. You rock!

My prints were mostly coming out fine, as long as I was using PLA. But once I started using PETG, I started having issues, mostly just prints not completing. After this upgrade, I can start a PETG print and just walk away. Adhesion is perfect, and the rest of the print finishes flawlessly. Make sure to adjust your refraction settings to 1.5mm as the instructions say, and you should have no issues.