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

I installed this on my Creality Ender 3 v2. Installation was straight forward and well documented with photos. You have to download a PDF from the micro swiss site, as no paper instructions are included, but this wasnt an issue for me. It would have been nice if some of the hardware was included in the kit (bolts etc), but you can reuse some from your stock Creality hot end to get the job done. Unfortunately, this kit is not compatible with the ender 3 v2 fan assembly without printing a fan shroud. Not a huge deal, but still something I wish I had noticed prior to buying this kit. I dont know what they are thinking recommending the fan shroud to be printed in PLA, as mine (printed in petg) is getting decently hot. Maybe if you are only using the hot end to print low temperature materials, this would be fine. The extruder and the hot end are working really well. The direct drive gears fit perfectly, pulling the filament smoothly during printing and retractions. The hot end seems to be performing well without any appreciable heat creep towards the extruder (at least in the ~20 hrs of printing Ive done @245C). I did have to raise my printing temperature to get the same results using this all metal hot end, but that is something that is suggested in the instructions. The major issue I have with this is that the stainless steel nozzle that this comes with seems to stick really badly to petg compared to other nozzles I have used. Petg tends to be a pain as far as globbing up on nozzles of certain material, so I guess thats okay. I just wish it had come with maybe a spare nozzle of a different material at this price point. Some of the machined parts had a few deep scratches and gouges in them, which isnt pretty, but I dont think it will affect the performance of this assembly. I might end up getting a different hot end and extruder setup for my next printer, as there are a decent number of quality options around this price point. The ease of installation is definitely what made me decide to buy this, as its nearly a drop in replacement for the printers its compatible with. Overall, I do not regret this purchase at all, but I do think there is room for improvement in the parts included.

Works amazing, dramatically improved my prints over my stock ender 3 hotend Wire routing is a bit annoying, ended up running mine under the extruder motor and out the back. I think the microswiss Ng would make this easier. The issue is the extruder motor and wiring get in the way for either the side structure or the top structure.

First of all it was an involved install on the ender 3 v2. The good 1. Beautiful milled pieces of aluminum 2. great dual feed extruder and easy to adjust 3. No more clicking when adjusted (Z offset) 4 Best nozzle or at least it looks better with this setup 5 Given the standalone nozzle price this is cheap Install 1. Plenty of videos online plus good PDF online 2. Everything included 3. Fit perfectly 4. Had to adjust PDI (heater temp) which eas easy using the Jyers firmware in Git Hub which puts that option on the board and on the screen. 5. Had to adjust x and y offsets approx -12. Easy done with Jyers. 6 Z-offset adjust. The somewhat bad 1. Printed shrouds for the e3V2 are garbage (not a Micro Swiss issue. 2. Purchased a standard ender fan shroud which was much better smaller and easer to use the original BL Touch mount for the E3 Pro 3. I still have to work out the wiring as the motor on the top of the z axis is so close to the top extrusion. Putting the wires under the motor will touch the rollers. I think I might loose some height but not enough to bother me. All in all a great upgrade for any printer and given the quality it might just be the best deal.

There are cheaper direct drive conversions out there. But I think for the quality you get in this one, its worth paying the small price difference. This worked almost flawlessly out of the box. The bearing in the tension arm wasnt well lubricated from the factory causing a whining grinding sound during printing. I took it apart and added some bearing grease and its been flawless ever since.

One reviewer mentioned it didnt improve print quality. I would add that if you work with nothing but PLA, you dont really need this. But I did notice a very slight improvement with PETG (less stringing). Most importantly, I bought this so I could print with flexible filament, as from what Ive read its not recommended to use a bowden extruder for that. My only criticism is that for 100$ current price, they probably could have included a temperature probe and heater cartridge.

I had clogging issues. It is a fault of Microswiss. If you have clogging issues. Look up thermal paste Microswiss either on reddit or google. Without that fix, I had clogging and nozzle leaking issues that didnt matter the settings I tuned to. It is a cheap fix and something microswiss needs to include in the kits. Directdrive setup is perfect. Printing PLA, PLA+, PETG, TPU nicely now.

You will need to fix your steps per mm and your retraction speed in your slicer program. I love the quality of the prints. Worth the money

Great diversity with different types of filaments

This is my 1st hotend replacement since I purchased my original v1 Ender-3 about 3 years ago. Until now, Ive only ever used a bowden setup. This direct drive extruder / hotend combo has given me nearly zero stringing with PETG which is awesome! After installing this, I was required to customize and compile the Marlin firmware, which did take me several hours to learn how to properly configure the various settings. After installing the MicroSwiss and custom Marlin, I did have an issue where the Y-Axis (Bed) was moving too far forward and causing the belt to slip (sounds like the bed slamming into the frame). Im certain there is a better way, but for the time being I configured the Y_MAX_POS to be Y_BED_SIZE - 13. Shaving off 13 mm from the y axis solved the problem, though I may have lost some printable area, not sure yet. I do have some new z layer banding that I didnt have before, but I will troubleshoot it and hopefully find a solution.

Its over priced for what it does. All it really does is move your extruder and mounts it over your hot end. You can 3D print a plate and have some extra screws to hold the existing extruder and mount in place without spending so much for this. A aluminum plate with clamps can do the same thing the Micro Swiss can do, and all you need is 1 clamp and a sliver of metal. If youre smart enough to MOD your 3D printer, do that instead of buying this gimmick. It really isnt a upgrade when all it does is move the extruder.