Shortest Filament Path Drive for Ender 3 + Bondtech Direct Drive + E3D V6 Gantry Toolhead Mount With Cable Drag Chains by darkpoet

Last crawled date: 2 years, 10 months ago

This is for tinkerers who have a junk box ideally. I may not have described exactly all the extra parts needed. Maybe someone who builds it can do a better job than I in the comments.
So, why? Well...
When I bought my first Bondtech geared direct drive (good quality clones run about $15US), I was like "wow" this thing fits right on top of my e3d v6 hotend (of which good clones run about $15US also). I won't need anything else. But every design added a chunk of PTFE tubing and the associated couplers, adding additional points of failure. When I found the parent of my design (see remixed from) I was thrilled. It just clamps on.
Brilliant! It tucks the hotend fan under the extruder motor, helping to cool that motor AND push the air harmlessly to the left without the same likelihood that it will draft onto the build plate that is evident in all other designs I've tried (and that's most of them). It sticks the part cooling fan out front where you can SEE it. And it uses a 5015 which will exceed your expectations for rapid printing/cooling power.
The reason for the remix is that I did want to use my own design of cable chain with it, so I modified that design. My cable chain design allows you to snap off the top to re-run a cable, so you don't have to disassemble the entire thing every time you need to change a cable. See my other designs for additional options there. You will almost certainly need to run new longer cables to your hotend to make this work. I recommend silicone, and everything that enters the cable chain onward should be silicone or ptfe stranded wire if you want it to never break down.
If your hotend is the bowden type (big gape on the top instead of just a hole for the filament), you will need to run a short length of PTFE between the point where it contacts the extruder and where it rests against the throat. If you haven't set up a V6 before, hit youtube, or you will likely find it confusing. The idea here is to have no point at which filament can wiggle out of its path while under high pressure.
You will lose about 1CM in the Y axis by using this as it is. That's because it pushes the nozzle contact point ahead about that far. Worth it. Do adjust your slicer and firmware as needed.
You DO need to print the 5mm spacers to run two of your M3 screws through. The plate of this does sit about 5mm off the x gantry plate of the Ender 3. The two screw holes that usually hold on the stock hotend should now have a few short rounded top M3 screws to hold this on. If your junk box lacks these, many cheap assortment boxes are out there. You also will need 4 M3x40 bolts for the receiver.
I'll add more as thoughts occur to me. Overall this is the most simple but brilliant design that meets my needs now that the drag chain has been added.