This $40 Mod Will Turn Your Ender 3 Into A Prusa... Kinda - Direct Drive Conversion

[@davidjiannotti1537]

Got to add dual z to carry the wieght. Been down this road. I since got a second ender 3 and left it bone stock except for hotend. I think the stock one holds its own against my heavily moded one. Keep it simple. Save money and time.

[@fventura03]

just did this to mine and noticed i need the 2nd rail

[@JTs3DPrints]

Did same direct drive upgrade on my ender3v2 bit over year back, huge increase in reliable prints and quality, have a very high success rate. Also added extra z rail(2 motor kit found online), auto leveling, new springs and knobs on bed. Currently can print Nylonx speeds up to 140mm with good prints best print speeds seem to be around 125mm. I also added the surround cover to keep heat study around unit. I put rolls of filament I will print either into a Sunlu filament heater and also inside the surround area with the bed plate temp set for 98C 6 hours before I start prints with filaments which are sensitive to moisture. Shorter filament heat times are used when only using PLA. I am having great success with NylonX using 72C bed temp with fan off, and nozzle temp at 259C. Took awhile on settings but have found increasing retraction speeds and amounts plus running slightly faster print speeds after base layers finished give best results. I use mixture of glue stick and Aussie 2x hairspray on the default-build plate which came with the unit and 90% of time hardened steel .06 nozzles. Very happy with this upgrade to unit purchased few years back. My next unit will be the Bambu Labs at some future point, this unit will primarily be used with .06 and .08 hardened tips keeping print speeds towards top end and will serve as second printer for small production runs. This was a great project to really learn fundamentals of 3d printing at much higher level while getting massive improvements in prints. The auto leveling upgrade must have, even though I did great job of leveling plate manually in past, just speeds things up and gives repeatable results. The direct drive is fantastic upgrade highly recommended for minimal investment, but make sure you add the second z axis for rigidity and get it installed perfectly level along with autolevel feature on older Ender3Vs units. The enclosure while cheap serves as great way to remove moisture pre-run from filaments having bed temp sitting at 98C for several hours with filaments sitting in the enclosure.

[@DJacKnifeAlpha]

Just print a mount for your existing extruder and motor. No real need to buy a whole new carriage. 🤔

[@NOELQUEZON]

You mean Separated Plate and Wire equipment.

[@jamesdetter2088]

Thanks for the video. My new direct drive should be in tomorrow. I will be re-watching this video over again.

[@TheNewBloodDan]

You should put the bltouch/crtouch bracket in front of the fan shroud otherwise it adds distance between the heat break and fan and therefore won't run as efficiently and thermal runaway might occur.

[@andyb7754]

Very nice upgrade! I'll have to try that with one of my Ender 3 V2's after you do a lot of printing with it (and see the results). Parts seem cheap. Thank you for the instructional video.

[@kelpy222]

I’m glad you liked it!!

[@kimgerlach-stosboutique]

This particular piece is cheap but worth it. Its factory direct drive (best way for me to explain it). If you want a really good direct drive; go for the spider. Its amazing!!! I have both now. I actually just purchased this one he is showing just to see how it worked but even after having the spider for the past 3 months, this cheap option isnt bad. Its a nice alternative for me since I print clay cutters for makers and have 13 printers lol. The spider at 109 each was a bit much. If you snag this one, remember to use his code so we can support our fellow youtubers and creators 😊

[@mcstando]

Your cube could use some pressure advance tuning, those corners are bulging!

[@morneengelbrecht1405]

Can you help us with the calculation of the z offset, we got the same upgrade for our creality ender 3 neo and it's been a bit of a nightmare with the z axis and the x axis not lining properly we had to print the bracket for the cr touch since our direct deive did not come with the mount as yours did

[@jasonrye170]

My new direct drive doesn't have the yellow and blue wires with the 2-pin connector. Is it an upgrade/new design?

[@frankdearr2772]

Great topic, thanks 👍 will use it to mod my kobra 2 anycubic

[@ronaldswank2381]

I swapped out mine and changed retraction, but it so spotty. I even lowered retraction to .2 and it’s still spotty. Any suggestions?

[@anthonybillings3834]

After installation I’m unable to start prints. I go to start my print and the extruder doesn’t move. Has anyone else had this problem before?

[@kennethsands9927]

the 2pin connector on my old extruder is yellow and blue im assuming this one the red and black 2 pin connector goes in that spot since its there

[@imto5]

After installing and trying to auto home it failed you think you have any idea why?

[@Ajyn4Life]

Happened to me too. In my case I had 2 connectors reversed. Also set your parameters to default but take note of your e steps.

[@HighVoltageMadness]

This is not a true direct drive system because there is still a Bowden tube, even though it is short. I ran my ender 3 with this setup for a while but eventually my extruder wore out and wouldn't grip the filament well and was grinding the filament too easily. I switched to the sprite direct drive extruder and it works alot better.

[@Gregatron13]

I recently did most of the noctua and fang upgrades from your other video. Now I'm contemplating a direct drive. Does it work with noctua fans?

[@kelpy222]

I just got a direct drive, it is possible to use Noctua fans with it with a different cover that you need to print instead

[@rdgd1rd]

I pretty much spliced my wires soldered them heat shrink tubing on them way much easier faster, and works pretty good

[@kldahlin]

What are those snazzy purple rail inserts? Is the a dress up kit out there or an stl file to print them?

[@kelpy222]

It’s an Stl file on thingiverse!

[@themikestermakes]

This helped so much, Thank you for making this!!

[@b_nap8877]

Mustang updates?

[@kelpy222]

She’s gone😭

[@blakewilkinson8910]

Would this extruder work with a v6 hotend? I accidentally got the direct driver version of the hot end and figured I would try out direct drive but can’t find good info on what DD to get for the v6

[@n0body-1-o5e]

nice video. i'm having issues with installing my cr touch to my bigtree skr mini e3 v3.0. my cr touch is not leveling correctly. got any tips??

[@bonfiggy5620]

is there a way to bypass the z step stopper thing? or any 3d printable mount that u know of?

[@Victor_Castilho]

With much less $$ you could just buy a cheap dual drive clone and a pancake Stepper motor. Print yourself a afterburner, if you believe this is a good mod, de Voron afterburner will blow your mind in every aspect! If you wanted that mod you could just buy the modified eplate cheaper. I got one here, never used it and never will , it's very heavy, not user friendly, and it uses those bad original extruders. Another tip: you don't need to remove the gantry to slide off the eplate, just get the eccentric wheel loose and it will come out, dont need to remove the idler either. Kinda curious on what you have going on in the electronics under the printer ...

[@bonfiggy5620]

where did you get the part to mount the z step thingy on? Mine didnt come with one :(

[@kelpy222]

That’s weird, it should come with one

[@Techdiscussed]

Did you already try input shaping? What speeds do you print at?

[@jordangage3677]

Thank you so much for this! I thought I had to install a new version of Marlin to support the direct drive. Looks like I don't! 👍

[@stanleyhoptroff]

yep just tune esteps and retraction and you should be set

[@pellcorp]

I did not see estep calibration is this not required?

[@stickboyfpv4742]

Not really... might want to lower them jussst a bit.. but I printed a snake.... came out great.... printed the piece to do this upgrade... then dis the upgrade... printed ANOTHER snake... 3 hours it took.. scaled down to 50%.... seeemed like it was a little over extruding on the initial layer.. but turned out beauutifull🫡

[@pellcorp]

@@stickboyfpv4742 ya I ended up setting that up on my og ender 3 as well as an all metal hotend, took a bit of stuffing around to get it mounted, especially replacing the plastic extruder with a metal one, but I finally got it printing nicely. Only pain is on the odd occasion if I leave my printer loaded with filament the filament can snap inside the extruder, just due to fatigue or something and I have to unscrew it to clear the filament, but it takes me like 1 minute, and happens only rarely, finally got around to printing TPU, and it prints well, probably got some tweaking, but I was able to print a phone case no issue. I did actually change my e-steps slightly, and z-offset had to be recalibrated, but you should recalibrate if you change a nozzle, so not really unexpected.

[@stickboyfpv4742]

@pellcorp Oohhhh I seee! Nice dawg! Yeah thats the only down side...! Having to disassemble to unclog the nozzle... but long as you dont have plastic coming out or anything abnormal... just try cranking the temp up to like 240.... and FORCE some plastic thru... Usuallyyy cleans er alll out!

[@GiovanniGiorgo]

How are you liking this vs the bowden tube setup?

[@kelpy222]

I do like it more than the Bowden tube with flexible filament, however I think it would be good to get dual z rods

[@stickboyfpv4742]

09:14 that poor extruder motor... just sitting there.. wishing you would have used her to just print the piece to put the motor in and she could still be in use😢😅

[@jeffm2787]

Hot melt glue will release if you put isopropyl alcohol on it. Like Magic.

[@Drumaier]

This is a bad idea since you are increasing a lot the weight on the X gantry. You need dual Z configuration for this.

[@stickboyfpv4742]

Not really😏

[@CWTech_3DP]

​@stickboyfpv4742 Yes really, I noticed heavy ringing on my Creality Setup. Went top mount bowden instead.

[@mehranxvx122]

great job still, what a mess man u destroy those sokets simply u just need to grab both side of sokets and push inside for take it out

[@TyRone1321]

I put this mod on my v2 neo

[@charlesrestivo870]

A bit of editing would make it a even better video

[@raymonschepers994]

Yess that wouldn’t hurt any viewers i’ll guess. The background is incredible compromised by all of the open components combined with the explosion of colors. It would also be really nice if he didn’t put the wires back with his hand fully covering the progress. Well it was a nice attempt, he meant well.

[@stickboyfpv4742]

Orrrr you can 3d print a piece and just move the extruder motor alll for FREE?!

[@charlesrestivo870]

Alot of weight on a single z axis machine (inertia )

[@matusnovosadek5426]

I think his favorite color is purple

[@kelpy222]

Nooo

[@HarveyChen253]

cool video, do you have any interest in collab?

[@Spacebarf]

Why are u yelling at me!

[@cosmefulanito5933]

Kida... ABSOLUTE NO.

[@MisterkeTube]

Deleting comments??? Are you making money on selling people stuff they already have and hence don't have to pay $40 for?

[@kelpy222]

What?

[@MisterkeTube]

@@kelpy222 I have twice added a comment that you don't need to buy anything except for a motor cable extension to turn the Ender 3 into direct drive (and even a better one than the one in the video where the motor is sticking out to the front, cause unnecessary high torque on the POM wheels), just to see each of the posts deleted seconds later.

[@MisterkeTube]

The project in Thingiverse is called Direct Drivinator and I'm using it for years.

[@MisterkeTube]

Let's see which of these comments now survived the censorship...

[@Millzieeeee]

its not direct drive when its still using the belt, its still belt driven , thats the entire difference between direct drives and belt drives lol

[@creativelyunoriginal]

Got mine last night off amazon for 30 bucks. 🎉