PTFE Tube Adapter for Printrbot Aluminum Extruder by ES0602

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

I have a printrbot simple (2013 V1 heavily modified) that's still chugging along. The one
problem that has bugged me about this style of printer is that the cantelever design
causes horizontal lines along vertical walls when the Y-axis pulls against
a filament spool.
For the longest time I thought this was related to an issue with the acme rod being off
center, but eventually realized that my acme rod is properly centered and the problem
was really just spool drag along the Y-axis
I fixed the problem by running the filament through a PTFE tube which is anchored
at the extruder and at the spool, eliminating the Y-axis pull on the filament and the
resulting annoying horizontal lines.
The extruder end just snaps on the lever at the top of the extruder. The spool end is
designed to ride on a wire coat hanger which sits in front of the spool - see the
pictures.
This mod did exactly what I had hoped it would. The horizontal lines along vertical
walls are gone.
I went with this design instead of just switching to a Bowden extruder because I like
having the ability to print with flexible filament, and you really can't consistently
push ninjaflex through a tube, but you can certainly pull it through one.