Hey everyone, Tom here, and when you’re building a 3D printer, you’re going to be
faced with a lot of options when it comes to the core of the machine: Its extruder and
hotend.
So first off, the extruder and hotend are two distinct parts and their names often get
mixed up: The part up here that pushes the plastic filament is what’s called the extruder,
technically, it’s just a feeder, but “extruder” is the name that stuck.
The hotend - again, what a creative name - is the part that melts the plastic and provides
the fine nozzle for it to come out of.
In this video, we’re going start with the extruder and all the choices you have there.
Well, actually, before we get into that, there’s one crucial decision to be made overall: 3mm
or 1.75mm.
Filament comes in two different sizes, with 3mm being the more traditional size and 1.75mm
as the newer option, well, as long as you don’t count in tech years, and that size
can perform just as well with cheaper components, and we’ll touch on that in a second.
There is not much of a difference of the print quality you’ll get when it comes to the
two different sizes, but it’s looking like 1.75mm filament is becoming the more popular
and the new “standard” size.
The smaller 1.75mm filament relies more on the filament being pushed quickly and with
less force, while 3mm filament moves much slower and with a greater force from the extruder.
Both of these parameters are different by about a factor of 3.
The larger 3mm filament is better for super-soft flexible filament, but the newer 1.75mm extruders
can print it just as well as they support the filament path much more tightly now.
Also, of course, don’t get shafted buying filament by the meter - 3mm filament will
get you roughly 3 times more plastic per length as 1.75mm filament, but it should also be
3 times more expensive per meter.
Should.
Sometimes you’ll get charged just as much for 1.75mm per length, which is part of the
reason why buying filament by length isn’t really the best option anyways.
I personally run all my printers on 1.75 just because i tend to have filament in that size
and it just kind of stuck.
So, that’s the first option you’ll have to pick - while you can convert a 3mm extruder
to 1.75mm, which i show you how to do, here, you should get the right size right off the
bat, also you can not convert a hotend from one size to the other.
The next big choice is going to bowden or non-bowden.
“Normally”, you’ve got your hotend strapped right to the extruder, often even mounted
right in there, but, if you’re going for a bowden setup, you’ll have the hotend decoupled
from the extruder with a teflon tube.
This means there’s going to be less weight to lug around as the hotend moves, but it
also means that distance between the extruder and hotend is going to introduce some backlash
to the filament drive.
If done and set up correctly, it’s not going to be a huge difference for your print results,
but a bowden will always tend to print a bit sloppier if you give it the same starting
parameters.
Of course, the lighter carriage with only the hotend on it will somewhat make up for
it as it allows faster acceleration with weaker linear guides and belts, which, in turn, allows
you to get crisper results with the same parts.
So next up for the extruder, it’s geared vs. non-geared aka direct-drive.
And actually, that decision is rather simple: You # need a geared extruder for 3mm filament,
while 1.75mm works with a direct-drive extruder for 99% of all use cases.
Geared 1.75mm extruders that use the common NEMA 17 motors are rare, with the E3D Titan,
which i’m testing right now being a notable exception, but the gearing doesn’t hurt,
either.
You should keep the diameter of the filament drive gear in mind for direct-drive types,
as they act like a rack and pinion with the filament, so the larger 12mm gears will output
less torque before the motor stalls when compared to the smaller 9 or 8mm types.
You can’t just make the filament drive gear infinitely small, though, as that will reduce
the area the filament is in contact with it and just make it grind through the plastic
instead of gripping it.
Again, the 8mm types are a good middle ground there for both 3mm and 1.75mm filament.
The tooth profile also contributes a tremendous amount to the grip a drive gear will produce
- each gear should be sharp, not too deep and have reasonable spacing to the next one.
If the teeth are too sharp and deep, they will simply shave off plastic bits from the
filament instead of gripping it, if they are too dull, like regular spur gears that are
improperly sometimes used, they will just slip on the plastic.
And if they are too fine, like ones that are made with an M3 thread all around, they will
have a huge tendency to clog up with the tiny plastic particles you’ll inevitably create
when driving filament.
Coarser profiles tend to have a bit of a self-cleaning effect.
I prefer a profile that’s close to something like an M5 screw, but slightly finer or coarser
ones will also work just fine.
What also helps with filament grip are the trendy dual-drive extruders, inspired by the
Bondtech, that grip the filament from both sides with a driven gear instead of having
a flat idler bearing pressing on it from one side and the drive gear only on the other.
This tech is entirely optional for regular use, but if you do get an extruder like that,
you can be sure that you’ll never have grip issues that don’t stem from a clogged hotend.
So the rest of the extruder’s features are more or less comfort features that make life
easier.
One of the big ones is an idler that easily unlocks or swivels away and allows you to
remove and insert filament without unscrewing anything or having to drive the extruder motor
to pull in the filament for you.
What can also be helpful is easy access to the drive gear from a cleaning perspective.
While i haven’t had stripped filament for many years now, when you’re getting started
and maybe haven’t tuned in your printer all that well yet, you might end up grinding
through the filament a few times as the extruder fails to push it through the hotend for whatever
reason.
In that case, you really don’t want to have to disassemble the entire extruder, so a spot
where you can get to the drive gear just by opening up the idler or having the drive gear
entirely exposed somewhere might save you good bit of headache.
And the last bit should be size and mounting options.
While size typically doesn’t matter as long as it fits, you know, it’s more about technique
anyways, the mounting options of a particular extruder might be a big selling point.
While RepRap-style printers use a de-facto standard mounting pattern, newer designs often
can’t easily fit to that.
While these mount on top, some printers like the Prusa i3 family, have mounts from the
side, and unless your extruder of choice fits directly to those hardpoints, you’re going
to have find or design and print an adapter, which can be tricky without a functioning
3D printer.
Of course, bowden extruders typically mount to the printer frame somewhere, so that’s
a non-issue there.
Now, the good news is that there really aren’t all too many extruders out there that are
downright bad.
I’d even go so far and say if you’re going for a 1.75mm, PLA-only printer, your extruder
choice can be based entirely on comfort features.
Or looks.
Depending on what you’re going for.
OctoPrint is a powerful, free open-source print server that runs even on something as
small as a Raspberry Pi.
Check out Gina’s Patreon campaign to help keep the project funded now that her previous
sponsor has dropped all support.
Head over to patreon.com/foosel to learn more.
In the next video of this series we’re going to take a look at what options you have when
it comes to hotends and what you should know for picking the one that’s right for you.
Thanks for watching, please leave a thumbs down or thumbs up on this video, use the Amazon
and ebay affiliate links from the video description for your 3D printing shopping trips and don’t
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I’ll see you in the next one.