New Assembly, Drive Drive Extruder, Support Back Plate and Rail Wheels
Lab Work – Building and Buying Parts On The Supply List
… a few more days folks, a new extruder support plate for the Ender 3 Neo Max is on the way. Not on back order, but awaiting the last piece so the rebuild can commence.
Before the assembly and new direct drive can be upgraded, we found an ‘issue’ with the back support plate (including wheels and bolts) are out of whack. Following the printer ‘meltdown’ a few months back, check out the results of that print here… The final piece in the rebuild is this support back plate. There is to much play, movement, space between the assembly and guide rails. I’m not sure (I don’t recall the play or any movement between the assembly, support plate, wheels and rails). I would think there is no or very little ‘wiggle room’/tolerance in those items. That said, I can almost remove/lift off the assembly housing, extruder and back plate from the guide rails under tension. Third sign, in this case, it was time to replace the support plate, bolts and wheels to ensure an improved upgrade and/or fix.
Anyhow, all the pieces and parts have been removed from the initial purchase. So, for picture sake, we’ve got the frame, base, and guide rails and that’s it. All parts have been removed for the moment. ~3 weeks now, awaiting the OEM support plate. Ultimately, we are looking at a clean rebuild, OEM parts with a few upgrades (direct drive, replacing the Bowden extruder) to allow for TPU, Wood/Bamboo, Carbon, Metal, Organics and more. System upgrades might come later, the goal being more power to compensate for the downforces on the extruder head in the direct dirve case. Caution, there are differences between the Direct-drive and Bowden extruders, obviously advantages and disadvantages for both… maintenance and care being the most complex for the direct-drive variety. The goal with the direct-drive ‘pivot’ is the heat, extrusion pressure, retraction and a much broader range of filament materials. I will stick to the update advantages/disadvantages for the sake of this article. The opposite being the vs. advantages/disadvantages. One more time, more materials, heat, pressure, and variety vs maintenance (a lot of maintenance). I use the break/fix method – parts being less expensive in the printer ecosystem to replace. May not be wise, but sometimes you’ve got to break-it to understand the machine or engineering behind the magic.
Final thoughts, parts help, build yourself a parts bin, part out used and gently used parts to cut-down on out of pocket expenses, learn how to maintain and reuse your gadgets. Don’t forget to fail fast, when working on such equipment… short-term break fix expenses go along way when dealing with 3d printers, drones, computers and more.