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

I dont have this product but did need to remove a pressed on gear on my ender. You can pick 1 of 2 ways. If you are smart print out a puller for this easy to print and find the nut and screw needed for assembly. Or if you like me and everything is in pieces. Wrap the motor in a plastic bag and poke the extruder gear out of the bag. I wrapped a paper towel around the shaft too just to be safe. Take a dremel and a fine cutoff wheel cut a line in the valley between the extruder teeth. Cut down as far as you feel safe closer the better. One cut then another 180 degrees on the other side. Then put the brass gear on hard surface with motor in your hand. Put a chisel in the grove you cut and a light tap with a hammer splits the gear. I wasnt going to buy a new stepper and not going to pull it off with screwdriver or hammer

Quick install. Just change your esteps and replace gcode on slicer for start offsets. If your current extruder has the pressed in gear you will need a new motor with a flat on the shaft for the drive gear. I went with a pancake stepper to save weight. And decided to not use a Bowden tube.

If you want to be totally unable to print PLA, get this. It clogs all the time. Heat creep is a major issue and the hot end is completely worthless. So either get a bimetal heat break or stay with what you have. The direct drive bracket is kind of nice. Light and solid. Im unsure about the extruder since the clogs stop me from using it. Worst upgrade Ive ever bought.

Looked like a logical upgrade. Dont know, because I never got it to work, turning the whole printer into junk.

Mounted on an older CR-10. Perfect fit and the benefit of a full metal hotend for abs printing.

This was one of those improvements that I curse myself for not doing sooner. I upgraded to the microswiss as it seems to back the classic tried and true direct drive setup with the only downside of adding a bit more weight, though I already added a second z screw so that hasnt been an issue for me. The only downside of this hotend is it can cause a bit of ringing though that can be clean up with input shaping ( assuming your running klipper- why wouldnt you?). I can run max speeds of 120mms and 250mms infill and get quality prints when printing at .16 layer height with a .4mm nozzle. The microswiss nozzle included is still serving me well many months later and my machine runs almost every day. My only regret is that eventually I wanted to do linear rails and this specific x gantry mount is only compatible with rollers for if that is something you are interested in I would recommend upgrading to linear rails first and buying the other hotend by microswiss that supports them.

Worth the purchase

Used this for about a month with constant print failures due to leaks at nozzle. Tried all correct methods for securing nozzle, losen a turn and then tightening heat break - BUT!!! The heat break is then tight against the block - and when hot this is loose and leaks (both nozzle and heat break fully-seat in heat block). Bought the clone - was able to secure heat break and nozzle correctly (shows small gaps at both heat break and nozzle) and no longer have leaks. Would like the option to at least buy a heat break with sufficient threads / until then I’ll just buy clones.

Extremely well documented. The build quality is fantastic. if you can pay attention to the instructions and set your slicer accordingly, your good.

One reviewer mentioned it didnt improve print quality. I would add that if you work with nothing but PLA, you dont really need this. But I did notice a very slight improvement with PETG (less stringing). Most importantly, I bought this so I could print with flexible filament, as from what Ive read its not recommended to use a bowden extruder for that. My only criticism is that for 100$ current price, they probably could have included a temperature probe and heater cartridge.