Micro Swiss Direct Drive Extruder for Creality CR-10 / Ender 3 Printers

This is single-handedly the best upgrade for the cr10s pro v1. Hands down…. Make sure your esteps are set properly, and pair this with solid bed mounts and a bl touch. Game changer for cr10’s!!!

Still wont print standard PLA. It prints PLA+ ok but not as nicely as the stock hotend. DEFINITELY NOT FOR BEGINNERS

Overall, a huge step up over the bowden if you want to check out hotter or flexible plastics, or just want to try moving away from the bowden setup. Installation is easy, but be sure to read the instructions carefully. A lot of people go on the message forums asking why their new extruder isnt working because they didnt read the part on the new gear ratio rate. Its all listed in the instructions on how to change that. :) A couple of things.. The use of a small section of bowden, on two of mine didnt quite line up properly. As such, feeding the filament through and past the gears resulted in the filament sitting just a tiny bit to the right of the capricorn tube that leads to the hot end, needing help to be pushed over and in. Cutting the plastic like a needle edge helps sometimes to steer it in, but for some reason its set just slightly too far to the right.. If the tube was ballooned out just a tiny amount there rather than cut in the cross pattern they chose, it would fix everything. Ive had some brittle plastic break there several times, and its literally because theres a slight mis-alignment. Shouldnt be a problem with most, but, when things dont line up flawlessly, theres a fault zone for everything, even healthy plastics.. Flexibles too will spool out at a lower speed than they need to at that point if it isnt aligned correctly. Perhaps making it slightly adjustable there would be more effective than trying to mill everything to perfection? If I could move that tube over to the right 1mm, it would be perfect. As it is, Im going to replace the length of tubing and flare out the end to aid it in alignment. The bowden above the extruder that feeds in filament is held in place with a small E-Clip. With the continuous back and forth jostling of retraction, it continually pushes out and ultimately onto the build plate. Ive heard from several other owners who simply stopped using it, but some kind of more traditional holding method for the bowden should be here when this doesnt work. Toothed couplers work well on regular setups, so I dont know why they arent used here. Ultimately, without it, the bowden can be pulled out, which isnt the worst thing when it comes to simplifying filament changes, especially when the plastic doesnt quite line up as mentioned above. You can assemble a line of filament, then push the tube in to secure it for the print after its all secured. Retraction is set so low on direct drives that it wont come out through regular printing, but its a little sloppy. I heard that they were working on a more effective clip and would send me one, but they never did. I feel a rounded edged surround for the tube there made from nylon would make a much better overall solution to using a bowden that were trying to remove anyway to continue to guide the plastic to the gears. That way its gone, and like most direct drives, plastic can feed straight in without hitting a sharp metal edge. What with the stepper being mounted onto the bracket, it is heavy, and you may need to slow down your print or suffer some noise in your prints. Fix the E-Clip slipping and bowden alignment/add actual couplers overall, and this would be a 5 star item. The feeding accuracy and ease of feed to the bowden after the gearing is by far the most important issue to fix. All in all though, I like it. Im not going to swap back.

Works as intended for me.

Print quality now has jumped up a lot, not sure if because over all quality better parts or because the filament doesnt have to retract as much anymore or both. I really want to buy another one for my second ender 3. Would recommend. Takes some time setting it up with new esteps and changing your x home, but well worth it.

I bought this to replace an old hemera and it has been nothing but trouble. I followed the directions perfectly and it has leaked hot filament between the heat block and the hot end consistently. Its destroyed several good prints because it sneaks up on you. Ive re tightened at 260 degrees plus several times and now finally I think it could be stripped due to over tightening. What an epic waste of time and money.

Just keep in mind that this does say it is for an Ender 3, but that does not mean it will fit your machine. Check your stepper motor and the installation instructions that they are the same. There are two types of extrudes, one that this upgrade requires where you can remove the gear, and one that the gear is press fit to the stepper. If you have the press fit gear you will also need to order a replacement stepper motor. Also, if you have the press fit gear the shaft length is to short for this mod

I bought both the E3D Hemera and the Mirvo Swiss DD all metal for my Ender 3s. Each extruder has its benefits. But I’ll go into the micro Swiss mainly. Packaging, everything was packed in small poly bags and packaged into a larger box. Box quality and graphics were meh. Could use a lot of improvement if you wanted the item to stand out at stores. Which I think they are in micro centers. Installation. Everything was easy, they have instructions online but use different terms for some of the fasteners. Like they call a m5 SHCS a nylon patch screw. Little confusing but I have big brain and figured it out. The installation process is pretty much just changing out the x axis roller wheels and moving the extruder motor. Took all about 30 minutes to get it up and going. First print after calibration went perfect. Beautiful. No Jams or clogs. Now the Hemera. The packaging on the Hemera was beautiful. I was no expecting it. Everything had a neet little compartment in a minimalistic box. With a nice clean logo on the side. Installing the Hemera requires more disassembly since you will be replacing the extruder stepper wires, thermistor wires, and hot end wires. So it take a while. Trying to find a mount that would work on the Ender 3 was difficult so I ended up modifying my own. Once all mounted the mounts holding the stepper to the plate come loose and cause all sorts of problems. This is the biggest issue. If somebody made and aluminum mount I would buy it in a second. One up and running, nothing can stopped the geared extruder/hot end combo. I’ve had on running for well over 1000 hours and it still prints just like new.

I purchased this, primarily, to make printing flexible materials easier for the Ender. I know that there are better extruders that help, but my two other printers are direct drive and I never have any issues with them. You will have to print a little slower with the extra weight on the gantry, but slower is the way to print flexibles successfully anyhow. Just remember to calibrate your esteps and change your retraction settings in your slicer.

works great on replacement for ender 3 pro. also had the hole predrilled to install BL touch. Thing to remember is to down load the firmware to change the gear/ratio to 130 to prevent over/under extruding.