NEW Direct Drive Extruder for e3D v6 Hotend!

This is a model I've been testing for a while and works really good. It's strong and easy to assemble.

This extruder is really convenient when it comes to swapping nozzles or unclogging your hotend because you don't have to take apart many parts to access the hotend.

It's compact and well thought out for every important aspect so the hotend will remain very steady in operation and you will feel comfortable working on it ass well.

It can be light enough if you use a short nema 17 motor with its proper heatsink. Besides, I've printed TPU and TPE filament successfully, lowering the speeds accordingly.

Materials:

e3D v6 hotend with its 3010 fan, a 5015 blower fan, an inductive or bltouch probe and an Mk7 extruder gear or similar.

Screws for the extruder:
- 5x M4 by 20mm for securing the extruder body to the carriage and the hotend with the cap.
- 1x M4 by 35mm with a 20mm spring for the idler. That's my setup but they can be a little shorter if you want.
- 1x M4 by 10mm for your blower adapter.
- 1x M4 by 22mm or 25mm with some washers for the blower fan.
- 8x M4 nuts.

Screws for the nema 17 stepper:
- 2x M3 by 20mm, 1x M3 by 10mm and 1x M3 by 35mm.

Another M3 by 20mm screw on the back of your X-carriage for cable management as shown in the images.

You will also need a 686 bearing and a 6mm rod with 20mm length or just a piece of M6 screw without head which is my case. That's for the idler as you can see in the images.

Instructions:

First, you need to zip tie the X-carriage into your X axis linear bearings and prepare your idler installing the bearing in place with its 6mm rod.

Before continuing, insert all M4 nuts in place, there are 8 M4 nuts in total.

Then you can screw your stepper to the main body, placing the idler in place and checking the correct stepper orientation for later cable management (cable goes to the left side). Don't forget to insert the extruder gear.

At this ponit you can screw the main body to the X-carriage with 3x M4 by 20mm screws.

After that, it's time to attach the hotend (previously prepared with thermistor and heater cartridge in place) using the cap. to rotate your hotend almost 45°, this is IMPORTANT for this desing, check the images for details but the idea is that both thermistor and heater cartridge cables go backwards without bending them too much. This rotation is also important for the blower duct geometry.

Now you need to install the 3010 hotend fan. The orientation is important, the flat face of the duct faces downwards and I like to leave the fan cable in the right bottom part so it has enough cable to spare when you take it out from the hotend.

It is time for the probe and the blower fan, to leave some cable to spare (as shown in the images) for convenience.

Now you can start organizing your cables, to leave some length for convenience, it is important for better handling when you want to remove the fans to work on your hotend. On the X-carriage left side you slide the hotend fan cable, the filament runout sensor cable (check my profile to the parts) and lastly the stepper cable. On the right side you slide your blower fan cable first and then the inductive probe cable (or the bltouch cable).

The thermistor and heater cartridge cables need a curve for convenience as well (see the images).

Now you can use the last M3 by 20mm screw in the back side to secure all your cables in place with a zip tie.

After that you can wrap it all and you are all done!

One last thing is to and glue the “tension knob” part with the M4 by 35mm idler screw so you will never have to use a screw driver for that screw.

The very last thing (I promise) is to allign the extruder gear. Insert some filament from the top (previously prepared with PTFE tube as shown in the images), allign the gear and secure the gear with a little allen key.

Notes:

The hotend fan duct part (V6.6_duct) is from someone else, I ed it in case you don't have that part. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:340312

PTFE tube fits perfectly to the main body so use it according to your needs, you can use a reverse bowden configuration if you want.

PROBE OFFSETS:

For the inductive sensor version the X axis offset is 30mm and the Y axis offset is 0mm.

For the bltouch version the X axis offset is 27mm and the Y axis offset is 6mm backwards.

ABS