Been out of the 3D printing game for a while, what are my extruder options?

[strantor]

I got this Prusa printer over a decade ago and it was cutting edge stuff back then, but not so much now. I used it heavily for a couple of months and then it was forgotten. I pulled it back out a couple of years ago during a covid-vacation and printed a couple of widgets, then threw the sheet back over it.

Now I need it to make things for me. Lots of things. It isn't impressing me.

Part of the problem, I'm sure, is the 12 y/o yellowed/hardened ABS filament I'm using. It does work, but the filament is so stiff the printer has trouble drawing it in, and keeps slipping in drive rollers. I ordered some new filament (wasn't easy to find 3mm filament, everything is 1.75mm now) and will give that a shot, but there is another problem.

The gear on my extruder stepper was slipping on the shaft so I tightened the set screw until it stopped slipping, then I noticed a crack in the gear. I could print another (assuming it holds up that long) but should I? Surely there are better extruder now? I looked on the internet and the options are overwhelming. I'm looking for something that is a bolt-on replacement. I don't see anything that spells out what I need. There are upgrade guides but none (that I found) that make the entire generational gap from my old dinosaur to the hot new extruder.

For reference, this is the extruder I have currently:

The printer is a Prusa I3. Mendel? Rev0? I don't know, I remember enough to know that's only half the information but I don't remember what the other information was.

 

[strantor]

Maybe I'm asking the wrong question. Let me back up....

Should I even upgrade the extruder? Or should I just buy a whole new 3D printer?

I see ender printers on Amazon for way cheaper than I remember 3d printers costing. I think I paid $300 for this printer and it was just a kit where you had to source a lot of parts yourself. Ender printer on Amazon is half that and complete.

 

[vtcnc]

Right now you could buy an Mk3 used for about $500. The new Mk4 has many of the newest bells and whistles, but will set you back $1000.

I love mine no fussing with it whatsoever.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[pdentrem]

I am ready to either go with the Prusa Mk4 or the Bamboo X1Carbon. I am just waiting a couple months to see what happens with the next upgrade in software from Prusa. Co worker has the Mk3 and was just getting ready to get another one and now he is waiting as well. The Bamboo is more money but has more features currently. The down side is a closed system. I could build one like the Voron but I already have too many projects in play!
Pierre

 

[Inferno]

Let me start by saying I'm building a 3d printer from scratch using the knowledge I've gleaned from having a Prusa i3 clone.

As for the first question, there are too many extruder options to list but a good extruder won't have plastic gears. My clone is all metal drive gears but the housing is plastic. Molded, not printed.
If you're upgrading your extruder, do yourself a favor and get a 1.75mm one. Nozzles can be cheap or expensive. I found the cheap ones I bought print better than the nozzle that came with my clone.
When you switch to the smaller filament you will need to do some calibration changes in the firmware, and/or you can buy a new controller. They've come a long way.

I prefer a direct drive extruder as opposed to a bowden tube. There are drawbacks to both methods but to each their own.
My build will have a hybrid. The weight of the extruder will be on one rail and the actual hotend/nozzle on another. They will be connected by a small bowden tube so it "should" act like a direct drive.
Enough of that.

If you do some small upgrades to your Prusa, you will be fine with the quality of prints. One of the first, and most satisfying upgrades, I did was to replace the plastic drive components with aluminum. I did have to machine a part to make the Y axis tensioner but it was easy to do.

 

[strantor]

Well I just left MicroCenter with a Ender 3 V2 printer and a spool of PETG. I'll take that home, set it up and start using it, maybe print a new drive gear for the old prusa and it can be a backup printer and/or share the workload for all the parts I need to print.

Having the new printer to look at, a new extruder experience, will inform if/how I proceed with extruder upgrade on the old one. Maybe if I like this extruder I'll just buy another one and slap it on the prusa.

 

[Inferno]

Ender and prusa extruders aren't interchangeable.

Extruders are cheap. Don't bother printing a new gear.

 

[strantor]

The Ender seems like a well built product. I don't yet trust the single Z screw but fit & finish is much better than I expected for the price. I like display it has, and SD card slot which enables it to run without tethering my laptop.

This thing is SLOW though. My Prusa makes this particular part with 50% infill in ABS in just over 2hrs. Cura's estimate for the Ender 3 with 20% infill in PETG was 4.5 hrs but the machine is reporting almost 8hrs.

It might be the Cura's fault, I just went with the canned profile that it had for the Ender 3. Also its canned profile for PETG. I can probably speed some things up but from memory, getting all this stuff right might take days.

 

[Inferno]

Get yourself a XYZ cube file and/or a Benchy. Do some calibrating with it.
I have found that the speed and layer thickness are the two things that matter with print speed.
I had one thing I made that took over 8 hours but after tweaking the speed settings and layer height I was able to get it to a little over 2 hours and didn't seem to lose quality.
The quality difference, for me, I think was the acceleration on straight lines.