Is BOWDEN DEAD? Direct Drive vs. Bowden DEEP DIVE on Voron Zero

[@whynotbuildit]

Ah you almost got me, guess It's worth keeping a it bit slower for TPU in my case! Also dont have to upgrade to the 0.2 stealthburner since the mini afterburner beats it in cooling. Feels good haha

[@247printing]

It seems like that! Though there will be an update by Nemgreat soon on the outlets.

[@shawnr8164]

I've had great luck with the dragon burner 2x4010 gdstime blowers, and a 3010 gdstime, all I had was a v6 chc clone with chc nozzle and it actually seems to be comparable to my dragon hf on my 2.4.

[@woodworker3856]

LOVE THESE VIDEOS!!! There is NOTHING better than real-world testing and results. Also super interesting to see the inferior cooling on the Mini Stealthburner. I felt a little bummed out after the V0.2 dropped with the supposedly improved cooling. Looks I will stick with my Dragon Burner after all!! Keep up the great work!!

[@polygorg]

this is probably the first time ive seen the bowden stealthburner haha

[@247printing]

They hide it very well!

[@StinkPickle4000]

Excellent breakdown! I imagine the issues with Bowden with TPU would be similar if you wanted to print other materials that are sticky, slippy or abrasive

[@coledavidson5630]

I have printed in TPU with a Bowden extruder and it's seriously not fun lol

[@MatrixRay19]

I appreciate you mentioning when data was interpolated, but I feel it could easily be taken a step further, by color coding the measured values and the interpolated ones, simple stuff like: Measured is shown as white on the graph while interpolations are yellow.

[@theninjascientist689]

I haven't got to that part of the video yet, but I feel like slightly transparent points for interpolated values would be quite intuitive for me at least

[@VENOMFPV1995]

I think the cooling sucks on both 0.1 and 0.2 toolheads. The ducts need to be more restrictive. Or maybe they should focus on a 4010 fan design. Just seems like it’s a part that’s lacking compared to everything else that’s so well thought out.

[@Wingnut353]

You can only go more restrictive if your fan has enough static pressure... probably not the case. I've seen some people duct cooling to the hot end... maybe that would get you much more cooling there without adding quite as much weight. then again it could be a wash.

[@cleanroomwizard2356]

Very interesting analysis for the edge performance - I really appreciate the deep dive that you are doing on these scenarios and pushing the limit! So many variables to consider and once more we are seeing the heating/cooling actually can start to be the bigger challenge at these extreme printing speeds (if not carefully considered). Higher speed and consistent printing of soft material has been a long term interest of mine and we eventually gave up on filament input for very soft materials completely - printing at Shore A 40 or lower requires something else than filaments. We eventually developed a heated hose to transfer very soft materials from a static screw extruder. While high speed printing isn't always the goal, high mass flow rates with rubber material can definitely be achieved (up to 30 mm3/s) for larger, less detailed prints.

[@MoppelMat]

TPU is quite important. So for a basically versatile printer direct drive is still the right move

[@Grammostola]

As a generalization...false.

[@bregbarega3717]

I'm currently in the conversion to DD from bowden, mainly because of that high pressure advance, and regardless of that my printer could do more speed, but my extruder doesn't and part cooling is limited anyways so I opted for more precision then. :)

[@michaelhaas9053]

In your testing, did you see any difference in print quality? I saw some arguments that DD extruders can lead to worse print quality, e.g prusa issue 602.

[@247printing]

Not much difference, but a sliiiiightly visibly better on bowden

[@twanheijkoop6753]

This is minimal with the new bondtech gears from what I've seen.

[@daliasprints9798]

At 15k accel and speedboat layer & line width settings, your PA K value means the extruder is whipping the filament back and forth at over 200 mm/s during acceleration and deceleration. Is that actually working with no skips? Did you have to up the smooth time window to make it work?

[@175griffin]

6:00 Weight becomes less of a factor at higher speed because the inductance of the motor starts to dominate. Simply put, inductance is the inertia of electrons. Those motors have a speed limit even without mass to move.

[@Carbon_]

In MirageC video about extruders gears, Bowden tube acts as a spring to filter uneven extrusion andit seams to give better print quality. Also would be nice to have a comparison using small nozzle like 0.2mm or 0.15mm, does the back pressure from pushing the filament at those lower scales affects quality ?

[@claws61821]

That springiness is at once one of the inherent advantages AND disadvantages of using a bowden tube and remote drive. On that particular printer and under those conditions, the springiness improved the quality of the output for reasons that MirageC explained. On others, the backlash it introduces has been seen to degrade the same quality.

[@Carbon_]

@@claws61821 Yes but generally a bowden setup will achieve better surface quality than a directdrive

[@montec6113]

I have a request: I noticed that in slicers (Cura, PrusaSlicer) the print time estimation doesn't change with different acceleration values, but does change with jerk and speed settings. Would it be possible for you to look into it?

[@urgamecshk]

It does for me

[@Drumaier]

You might have a limit in flow setting or layer time

[@gihadmurad]

I have a very early V0 from when it first came out, I've upgraded it to V0.1 and V0.2 but I've always kept it bowden and never went direct drive on that printer. Historically I've had a lot of problems with the V0 repackaged BMG extruders. Eventually I just installed a BMG housing with NEMA 17 and at that point my bowden setup started working really well. I'm also running the V0.2 Bowden toolhead now. Too bad about the cooling problems. Historically, pretty much all of the official V0 toolheads won't cool well enough for PLA fast printing.

[@lolzlarkin3059]

Is the mini sb actually much of an upgrade over mini ab? Or are you better off going with a sherpa, orbiter, or something?

[@247printing]

Atm I’d say: No.

[@alanrushing2807]

I think that the Mini Stealth - Mini Sherpa is a decent upgrade as it uses a pair of 4010 blowers while weighing less than 260g.

[@timonix2]

I wonder when the bowden style cooler is going to arrive. Those vinyl tubes should be lighter than the fans.

[@247printing]

Check out CPAP cooling - high performance, light weight. I use it on my RatRig VC3

[@alexjaxon9928]

Your speed mainly gets limited by the motors. Each more has a torque curve at X RPM. It's better to do the accell tests at lower speed but higher accell.

[@Wingnut353]

kind of irrelevant though since... real world prints are what you are trying to speed up not synthetic test cases.

[@tonytillman3953]

That was a surprise!

[@247printing]

Same for me while testing!

[@ChrisHarmon1]

I had a bowden kossel mini back in 2014 that would print just as well as anything I produce today. Have tried a lot of extruders including dragon, mosquito, rapido all with clockwork or orbiter, 3 different h2 extruder generations and finally the afterburner/stealthburner on my 2.4. Main issue with the kossel mini was bed size and z adjustment would change due to the plastic bed mounts melting over time and steppers would get hot enough to warp the motor mounts but once you had the first layer sticking it was impressive even by today's standards. You had to run 32bit controller with smoothieware to smooth out planning to avoid blobs. I still have parts I hold up and marvel and judge every new printer by.

[@SianaGearz]

More retraction needed is also bad for thin, high detail parts, not just because it causes printer wear, but because it causes filament wear, so repeat moves of a given filament length through the extruder are more likely to result in under-extrusion print flaws.

[@victorsoh7891]

6:10 perhaps consider overlaying the motor torque-speed graph and observe if there are any logical trends to explain the dips in additional max accel throughout the tested speed range

[@JonS]

I keep switching back and forth on whether to go with direct drive or Bowden on my V0.2. Your video is very helpful, although I'm still unsure. I think I should first determine what I want to do with the printer!

[@Ataraxia_Atom]

My FLsun has bowden and once i upgraded the extruder to the OMG V2 I've been extremely happy. But I'm not feeling balls to the wall performance. Just high quality prints

[@boryshacker]

Was waiting for this video, thanks

[@247printing]

Thank you!

[@MrHeHim]

Why not both? I'm about to put together simple parallel wiring to two Nema 17 23mm (1A, 24oz.in) deep motors in a push/pull config. That way i can auto feed the filament in/out and assist in extrusion. It will take a bunch of weight off the tool head and keep the very precise movement of a single extruder gear. I'm planning on making the push extruder with a TPU push wheel, maybe even make it dual TPU push wheels with a very slight increased travel over the direct drive extruder. Rambling ahead Previously I tested Stepperonline's Nema 17 23mm deep stepper, and found very good performance at 16mm3s flow (up to 20mm3s with very little to no skipping). Which was great for 0.16 layers @250mm/s on a 0.4 nozzle or 0.2 layers @200mm/s. But made more sense to run 0.12-0.16 with higher acceleration (7K) from the reduced weight on the tool head. For now i stuck the original 34mm deep stepper back on which is strong enough to grind through the filament but limited my 3d printers acceleration to 4K. Would be nice to run acceleration back up to 7K with the smaller motor and also be able to sustain 26mm3s flow, which is IMO the best balance for a volcano hotend with copper nozzle for functional parts

[@lukewoolfson]

Fantastic video. Just what I was looking to find out.

[@ManjaroBlack]

Nice comparison. I run Delta printers, so the weight may matter more, although I haven't tried direct drive yet. I'll probably see if I can print TPU with a flying extruder config.

[@ulforcemegamon3094]

The Flsun V400 is a direct drive delta and prints pretty fast

[@OneHappyCrazyPerson]

Thanks!!

[@mbpro08]

Hey @247printing do you know where I could find the model of the Thing by JS-studio. Also, really great video :)

[@247printing]

Thanks! I knew that I forgot sth - I’ll ad to the description

[@mbpro08]

@@247printing thx

[@X11-35-2]

I already had issues with mini afterburner about pla

[@247printing]

Thanks for confirming. New version of the main designer is in the testing and it looks good so far.

[@icebluscorpion]

Is there any advantage to use both (Bowden and Direct Drive) extruding methods at the same time?

[@Wingnut353]

You mean like a bowden feeding into a direct drive... well yes, if you have a very large filament roll for example it can reduce how much the hot end mounted drive needs to work... but in practice nobody does that.

[@GordLamb]

Phenominal, in-depth exploration. But, generally speaking, I don't understand why anyone would consider a bowden extruder outside of very specific use cases. Precision dosing is critical with softer filaments, and very few people print "at the limit." So, the most precise, shortest path extruder seems to be the most logical choice for most people. It's just more reliable across a much wider range of applications. Print quality is an expression of precision, so why introduce anything that would reduce it? You can always add another printer if you need more speed, but there's nothing you can do if you've printed a bunch of parts with poor dimensionality, surface finish or layer adhesion. It's so much easier to beef up the axes and stepper motors than it is to deal with the random weirdness of a long PTFE tube.

[@anacardium_6861]

Pfiad eich? You must live quite close to me :-D. Servus!

[@247printing]

Des glab I a !

[@shodanxx]

I would love to see result with the server fan cooling curtain for the cooling limited parts

[@m_IDEX]

Thank you. Yet another fantastic video!

[@petrokey]

Is it theoretically possible to create any kind of 'holder' (sorry for my Elglish) that would catch and hold filament near extruder during simple movement to avoid it continue going out - to avoid reverting filament motion?

[@titania02]

Can you share your slicer settings for Bowden setup?

[@mathiasrennochaves3533]

Flex drive should take the best of both approaches

[@247printing]

Need to finally try this. My last research was: Short version for Voron0 not available.

[@OmegaCreationsChannel]

i built my own bowden extruder that is able to print tpu much faster than my friends with direct drive ;) but it was hard to achive. in the end, i think it is still worth to use a bowden, but you have to be a bit of a nerd to get into it and tune it. if so, you will end up with a machine that is much lighter (moving parts) and therefore you will have less ghosting ;)

[@elijah_9392]

Are there fillaments that would absorb enough moisture while exposed in a direct drive system to cause undesirable results?

[@1234minecraft5678]

Just finished building the m4 for my bedslinger ;D

[@brianpark4]

Thoughts on Bowden setups for pa-cf or similar higher temp filaments? Especially thinking of running a 0.6 nozzle setup.

[@urgamecshk]

Nothing special there

[@rulerofeverything6294]

I need army of miniture models so bowden or direct drive is useful but who is the fastest and have the best quality ?

[@MartinHardi]

Ja Servus :D I hob an Anycubic Mega x für Klipper umgrüst, jetzt ha I an versatz auf der Y Achse und woas ned wira i den los wia. Stepper hob i scho gkühlt. Mit Marlin hoda ganz normal druckt. Er druckt beim Cal Cube a de ersten 5 mm sauba und dann vasetzt a. Wenn I mit da geschwindigkeit vo 50mm/s auf 20mm/s obigeh, dann versetzt a scho nach 2mm. Jemand a Idee?

[@KyleSSamuelson]

What about a floating or flying extruder like the WASP delta printer? Best of both worlds.

[@247printing]

Thx a lot, I'll check it out

[@cthulpiss]

remote wire-actuated extruder ?

[@KennethScharf]

The issue with Bowden vs Direct Drive has nothing to do with speed and acceleration. It's filament handling. In most cases, flexible filaments such as TPU and Ninja Flex don't work well with a Bowden extruder, and require direct drive, especially with 1.75mm dia filament. Having said that, perhaps building the printer to accept BOTH options gives us a way to print with ANY material.

[@urjnlegend]

It has everything to do with speed

[@urjnlegend]

Weight on gantry will affect print quality and once you upgrade the extruder, it can easily print tpu and ninjaflex

[@hobbyistnotes]

Nice data ;-)

[@xcruell]

If you plan on building a stury printer so it can move above 100mm/s with direct drive, yes

[@Lantos1618]

Has anyone tried a bowden/direct drive hybrid? The first motor acts as the powerhouse and the second much smaller direct drive motor (pilot) acts like a synchronisation motor & removes slack in the filament.

[@roxc5540]

thank you 👍👍👍

[@jakobfindlay4136]

This is the first time I've heard anyone else mention sunlu

[@ianwie3455]

Geiles Video wie immer.

[@MarinusMakesStuff]

IDKFA!

[@247printing]

Now I want to play original DOOM

[@paperfoldschannel607]

I don't like Bowden, I have the Elegoo Neptune 2s and I can't print TPU properly because of Bowden, though I am soon gonna make it a direct drive

[@italogarcia1597]

I think printing in ABS, is better

[@weeeds334]

ja habedere^^ hab am end laut lacha miasn xD

[@247printing]

TPU is oiwei des Todschlagargument, gell! (Ich drucke im Jahr vllt. 1.3g TPU) :-)

[@jellyfinger]

IDDQD indeed.

[@247printing]

I really wanted to make that video one year ago 😅

[@MarcOO_29]

Schade das du keine Videos in deutsch raus bringst

[@edstar83]

Long live bowden.

[@aaronvandegrift6478]

lov u

[@247printing]

❤️

[@naidta9802]

🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@frankenjstein9371]

No. No Bowden is not dead.

[@glennedward2201]

Fff printers are trading off speed and light weight for print quality. Id rather 400mm/s and my print quality from a FDM looks like its injection molded while making usable parts i cant break. Belts and fixed extruders will never achieve this. There’s a reason for heated enclosures.

[@gazehound]

"Bowden is faster but not capable with TPU, so direct drive all the way!" Not to sound rude, but I really don't understand how you got to that conclusion. The majority are not printing in TPU.

[@247printing]

You put words into my mouth. That's not what I said and that's not the message. There are way more facets to this, please watch the video... Here's the conclusion. "Yes, due to the weight saving, you can print a bit faster with a bowden setup. Though it won’t push the performance to new levels. Extrusion performance suffers slightly in comparison to direct drive, but not to an essential extend. Filament loading and unloading can be more annoying on bowden. Though I can’t confirm this for the PocketWatch 2: Super easy, super-fast and super handy as you can see. A potential problem over time though, might be faster mechanical wear due to the aggressive pressure advance values. You need those even on the short Voron Zero bowden. In addition, there are the downsides in TPU printing. Summing up: There is now reasonable way to recommend using bowden even on a Voron Zero if you just want to do casual fast printing. If you want to have fun at the limits of a Voron Zero and like experimenting on high-speed stuff like I do: Bowden might be the choice for you. For the majority of you: Direct drive all the way. So, thanks watching, commenting, liking and spreading the word. Yeah, and make sure to be subscribed - so much great stuff incoming! But more importantly: Love, peace and health for all of you!"

[@Deathbyfartz]

i mean you are recommending direct drive extruder, based on a single use case (the fact that it can print flexibles easier) i would be hard pressed to recommend direct drive to anyone, unless they mainly want to print with flexibles, the added weight and difficulty doing maintenance due to the more compressed design just makes it undesirable in most use cases. hence why majority of printers use the Bowden style extruder, and why you see direct drive being sold as a feature on some machines.

[@247printing]

Have you watched the video?

[@xiTuneR]

i swear to god ill loose it if i see one more on shape ad. This is getting redicioulus

[@247printing]

Please tell me your problem on this?

[@VladislavKurashov]

Bowden is dead for 2 years already.

[@247printing]

Depends

[@daliasprints9798]

@@247printing Ok it's not quite dead but wearing depends. 😁

[@247printing]

@@daliasprints9798 ;-) My 247zero will stick to bowden - for example (see my statements in the conclusion)

[@BrianVoelker]

Awesome video!!! Keep up the great work!!!

[@247printing]

Thanks a lot, Brian!

[@Creative_Electronics]

Very nice and interesting video :)

[@247printing]

Thanks a lot 🤩👍

[@avejst]

Great video Great data collection Thanks for sharing :-)

[@247printing]

Thanks a lot, Asger!

[@rmfberry261]

i fully agree with your conclusion. thank you for another great video

[@cristianopersi7953]

Mach dieses Video mal in Deutsch bitte.

[@247printing]

Sobald ich die Zeit mal finde - kostet leider viel Zeit, momentan nicht drin aber ich habe es auf der ToDo Liste (generell, nicht nur für dieses Video).

[@kilogee700]

Brown voron at the end looked like it was wiggling like jello

[@itsazuura]

Bowden on high speeds is a no go on my printer. The extruder skips steps because it has to spin so fast to compensate for pressure using pressure advance. That's why i went back to direct drive on my ender as the bed will always be heavier anyway.

[@247printing]

Depends on overall setup. kzbin.info/www/bejne/i4LYmX98e5JqrZo

[@AndrewBoraas]

The reduction in gains could be from the stepper motors not having their rotor inertia balanced as well against the inertia of the load. the ldo ab motors have 49 g·cm² of rotor interia so 100 together. and say if the pulleys pull the belt are 5 mm from center it'd need 200 grams of load to have what's considered a minimum of 1:1 inertia matching(range is usually 1:1 to 1:5). steppers preform a lot worse outside of these ranges. I was using a nema 23 as a spindle motor and with a thin 8 in tile saw blade and it couldnt spin over 50 rpm with no load before stalling, but I put a 10in dia .375 grinding wheel on it and It could spin up to 1400 rpm. Different pulleys on the ab motors might help with the bowden performance, or a little weight added might bring more performance

[@zenginellc]

13:04

[@MrBerndhorst]

I'm kinda shocked at how heavy the bowden toolhead is at almost 130g! the hotend should be in the neighborhood of 40g, the fans shouldn't be more than 10g each for another 30. that puts us at 70g for the components so where are they hiding another 60g in what is esentially just a glorified fan shroud?! Can't help but think this isn't anywhere near bowdens final form! I'm almost certain that a toolhead at almost half the weight should be possible Probably with ease using a remote blower setup with CPAP tubing to get rid of the fans and possibly even with some dificulty by going with a lighter hotend and optimising the mounting solution. Also you said you kept the results from your Xbeam video in mind but at the same time haven't tested the hypothesis you put forward in that one that the light weight beams would be more applicable and adventageous for lightweight bowden setups. maybe for another video ;)

[@technodrone313]

my ender 3 s1 extruder is perfect lol swapping colors mid print has never been easier. and it takes tpu like a champ.

[@plixplux]

Always very happy to see a new video from you my dude - and it's a great one as always! Peace!

[@GregAtlas]

I'd really love to see your results if you tried out a Zesty Nimble setup.

[@daliasprints9798]

If you do this, get the Flex3Drive G5 not the Zesty. The Zesty is a better marketed but poorly engineered clone that makes a lot of changes for the worse due to not understanding the motivations. I'm using the G5 very successfully and have 100k X accel on an Ender 3 thanks to it, with DD quality & TPU performance (see my "10 min benchy with a twist").

[@zyxwvutsrqponmlkh]

On shape is extremely expensive.

[@dmitrysozinov2391]

New music is definitely better)

[@KnooBill]

excellent content, thank you

Would using stronger steppee motors or even servos eliminate the ringing at higher acceleration or is the ringing cause by lack of rigidity?

[@Kalvinjj]

Ringing is usually a case of mechanical limitations. Any rigid system has some elasticity, there's no infinitely rigid material after all. The beams themselves will act as springs at one point, and so will the belts, or anything you use to move it. On one print I had at work the belts just straight up ate the small details in a print (granted, by small I mean 0.2mm texture on the outer wall). What you can do, is push the frequency up and up with more rigidity and lower mass, that is, until the point you reach current material limits.

[@bzqp2]

I never understood why bowden become a standard in regular 3D printing. Not everyone prints with their extruder at continuous 10g, yet almost everyone can benefit from better retraction and flexible filament compatibility.

[@MrBerndhorst]

extruders being as light as seen here is kind of a new thing. also most machines are a lot less stiff than what is seen here so the extra weight from the driect drive extruder might make a larger difference.

[@giedrius2149]

@@MrBerndhorst exactly, stuff like pancake extruders and little orbit extruders designed to be light weight has not been that common. We used to built these printers out of PVC pipes after all lol

[@mamatuja]

Why is everybody obsessed with testing?🤔😴 Can you print something useful?🤪😎😁

[@lyngejensen415]

Another FAST PRINTING idea, ;)) Using a helium enclosed cabinet. The thermal conductivity of helium is much higher than air which will make for better part cooling.

[@DavideDostilio]

Or you can put the printer in an old freezer lmao

[@sgt.sasquatch]

onshape its not free to use ! oh come on

[@247printing]

Free plan and trial for professional is possible

[@sgt.sasquatch]

@@247printing still not free and not working in here in IRAQ unfortunately..... We are cursed here 😔

[@lyngejensen415]

I have had a FAST PRINTING idea for a while. Consider using both direct and and a bowden extruder. They will have to have different pressure advance, which might be a challenge but if anyone you should be up for it.

[@p_serdiuk]

Nah it doesn't make sense. What do you hope to achieve?

[@lyngejensen415]

@@p_serdiuk Higher flow with a light hotend, but also better control of the flow, that comes with direct.

[@p_serdiuk]

@@lyngejensen415 If there is an incoming force on the direct extruder, it will just put pressure on the filament inside the bowden tube. Extruders grab the filament with gears, I can't really see how this will work.

[@Drumaier]

You watched much television by now 😂

[@TheNamelessOne12357]

Bowden is dead since Linear Advance was invented. Never buy or build printer with bowden. btw, bedslingers are not "low-end'. Well built and well-tuned ender3 with direct drive prints almost as fast as "high-end" Voron, which, acually is not "high end" but a bunch of idiotic engeneering decisions. Especially 2.4 one.

[@suzerain840]

That's just false. The bed is too heavy to print as fast as a voron can.

[@TheNamelessOne12357]

@@suzerain840 I'm talking about real world prints, not speed benchies. Fast printing is not fast movements but fast extrusion. Novadays flow rate is limiting factor. CoreXY Y gantry is not lightweight too. With Input Shaping Ender3 can reach 5-7k mm/s3 acceleration. Voron will do 10-12k mm/s3, which will cut 10-15% of print time. If single Voron costs as much as 3-4 Enders it's not worth the money.

[@suzerain840]

@@TheNamelessOne12357 the gains made in speed boats can be applied to real world prints. Enders aren't at the top of those challenges for a reason. My voron prints quite a lot faster than my ender (not to mention it's much more consistent and needs less upkeep than my ender)

[@coltenmeredith8899]

They are high end. You can build a voron with LDO steppers, Orion fans, legitimate CNA linear rails, a carbon fiber X-beam. They are more high end. You're mad you can't afford one.

[@suzerain840]

@@coltenmeredith8899 I have a voron... I very well can afford one.