What makes a 3D printer a 3D printer?
Well, it’s the filament-pushy bits and the filament-melty bits, also known as the extruder
and the hotend.
On cheaper machines, those are often the parts that get replaced and upgraded first, because
they’re likely a limiting factor in what the machine can do or a reliability issue
when they’re not built well - and, frankly, many aren’t.
Microswiss is one of the options to go to then, and I think they’re going about it
with some really unique solutions.
They asked if they could sponsor this video here from ERRF, and by the way, if you’re
watching this early, ERRF is happening right now, so if you’re in the area, definitely
check it out if you can.
Okay, first really unique solution: Their NG extruder.
It’s… on an angle.
Now, typically, extruders are all built with pretty strict 90° angles, so when you use
them in a direct-drive setup, you’ve either got the extruder motor hanging super low,
which ends up restricting how well you can get to the print with part cooling fan ducts,
or it’s going to be mounted further up than it could be otherwise, which increases the
length between the drive gears of the extruder and the nozzle, and in that section the filament
is going to be under compression.
Why is that bad?
Well, parts under compression like to buckle, and especially with softer and flexible filaments,
your filament will too, and rub against the sides of whatever is guiding it, leading to
friction and worse control over the filament flow.
Now, with the NG, Microswiss simply took that motor and swiveled it out of the way, making
for a super open and accessible hotend and what they’re claiming is the industry’s
shortest filament path at under 41mm long.
And as a bonus, this is also getting the weight of the motor closer to the extruder’s center
axis.
Smart!
Now, if you don’t care about the super-short filament path and you actually prefer super-fast
nozzle swaps, Micro Swiss are collaborating with E3D and now also have a version of their
NG extruder in development that fits E3D’s entire Revo hotend system - including the
ObXidian, which is finally available now.
The thing that Microswiss is really good at is making sure their extruders and hotends
are easy to use and a drop-in replacement for tons of machines.
The NG for example directly fits the Creality Ender-3 and CR-10 and any other printers that
share that geometry, and it converts them from a Bowden setup to a direct-drive.
That adds a little bit more weight on the toolhead, which the machines can handle, but
just like I talked about the distance between the extruder and the nozzle being important
for extrusion control, well, going from Bowden to direct-drive reduces that length to about
1/10th of what it used to be.
The NG is geared down 3:1, their classic direct-drive extruder is a 1:1, but both are dual-drive
setups that really grip onto the filament they’re driving.
And both of them work with Microswiss’ hotend, which looks a lot like the stock hotend from
Creality, but it’s not, and here’s the second part where Microswiss are doing things
a little differently.
So, first of all, this is an all-metal hotend, of course.
The original Creality hotends use the plastic bowden tube going all the way into the meltzone,
that’s where they usually fail and if you don’t know what you’re looking for, it
can be super frustrating.
An all-metal hotend cuts out that failure point, and it also allows you to print materials
that require higher temperatures, but it can also melt filament faster than the lined hotends
because the PTFE tube in those essentially acts as an insulator throughout a large section
of what is part of the meltzone in an all-metal one.
Now, one of the things that Microswiss does differently is that they don’t just offer
plated nozzles, which you’re probably familiar with for printing abrasive materials, but
they also plate their heatbreaks.
Now, the plating they use is a nickel-based alloy, and yes, it is a durable, wear-resistant
coating, but it’s also low-friction and keeps the filament from sticking to the walls
in the inside of the heatbreak.
Their coated heatbreaks and nozzles come as default on the Microswiss hotends, but they
also make them as drop-in replacements for other standard hotends.
It’s always great to have options and Microswiss certainly are one worth looking into if your
machine is in need of an upgrade.
Thanks again to Microswiss for sponsoring my trip to ERRF, if you make it here this
year too, say hello!
Thanks for watching, keep on making, and I’ll see you at ERRF, maybe!