About extruders…
Specifically the part that grips filament and forces it into the hotend. Off the shelf, the Bondtech extruder (should it be called a feeder?) seems to be pretty much the best thing out there. The E3D folk have their own equivalent (I have a Titan Aero), though with spotty history.
The flood of cheap-Chinese (mk8?) extruder/feeders are … not bad, with some failings.
Adding a filament-out sensor to my (cheap-Chinese) printers, and realized I could not just feed filament through the funky extruder / feeder without a lot of manual fiddling.
So what is better?
I know there were more designs, before the massive Chinese wave.
If I want a fully enclosed filament path, and feeding without fiddling, are there better designs?
Extruder designs are a dime a dozen.
When you say “fully enclosed” I assume you really mean “fully constrained”? As in flexables feed without kinking?
Seems like most of the cheap ones are still using what they call MK8’s but really they predate the “MK7” much less “MK8” gears that you’d find on a Prusa.
Printrbot did something very similar to Bontech with tier “geared” extruder. Personally I like that style a lot better because you can clean them / see if you have any feed issues.
It would have avoided confusion if the part was called a feeder from the start instead of an extruder. It would also be a parallel to a paper based printer that has a paper feeder.
My Bondtech BMG is the best investment in 3D printing that I have ever made. I didn’t expect to be so impressed. It’s path is well constrained and honestly will probably break the hot end before it stops gripping the filament.
Went down the rabbit hole, visiting alternatives. All as it seemed logical that a filament-out sensor should be integrated with the extruder (feeder).
Also some chance for a larger nozzle and faster prints, I need a stronger feeder. Geared extruders allow lighter motors, with plenty of torque. Also some belted designs.
A few years back, the Wade extruder seemed to be widely used, and there are many variants. Of late there seems no mention. Is it inferior to current feeders?
So many variants…
Wade’s is generally a 3mm filliment extruder because of the 4:1 gearing.
Printed extruders in general seem inferior at this point in time. The level of precision that goes into the gears in something like a bondtech really makes a difference even over a nicely machine MK8 gear.