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projects:3dprinting:anycubic_i3_mega:upgrade_kit

Redrex extruder upgrade kit

From the following page, an upgrade kit is offered, mainly containing a filament extruder motor with a gear reduction. The gear reduction would give the extruder more force to push the filament in.

The following information I was able to find:

  • Increase the E-step value to 4001).

Extruder Frame Specifications:

  • Material: Injection molding plastic
  • Driving Gear Diameter: 12mm
  • Driven Gear Diameter: 8mm
  • Transmission Ratio: 3:1
  • Stepper Motor Specifications:
  • Motor Type: Bipolar Stepper
  • Number of Phase: 2
  • Step Angle: 1.8 deg.
  • Rate Voltage: DC 3.0V
  • Holding Torque:DC 1.2A
  • Phase Resistance: 2.5ohms ±10%(20℃)
  • Phase Inductance: 3.8mH ±20% (1KHz)
  • Rotor Inertia: 30.8g.cm²
  • Size: ±63*85*69mm
  • Weight: ±290g

Extruder intake

After following the extruder intake calibration procedure it was observed that instead of 100mm the intake was only 25mm2), So this resulted into the following DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT in Configuration.h:

//Old value: #define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT   { 160, 160, 800, 185.20 }
#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT   { 160, 160, 800, E779.80 }

And after performing a second calibration, a distance from 19.9mm was measured, resulting in the following:

//Old value: #define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT   { 160, 160, 800, 185.20 }
#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT   { 160, 160, 800, E780.58 }

For instructions, how to change the Configuration.h file, please see here.

Results

With using the following test file:

We were able to compare the print result with the original extruder motor and the Redrex gear reduction extruder motor (Bowden-type):

Stringing comparison Redrex vs. original
First layer Top layer
10x10x5_comparisonb.jpg 10x10x5_comparison.jpg

The main differences are that the stringing/oozing plastic is much less with the Redrex gear reduction extruder motor. The print result is substantially cleaner.

The layer height with the Redrex extruder motor was reduced to 0.1mm. This height was not satisfactory to realize with the original extruder motor (which was 0.2mm). The difference can be seen with the following comparison:

Layer comparison Redrex vs. original
10x10x5_comparisonc.jpg

Alternative extruder

2)
The reason for this is primarily that the stepper drivers are DRV8825 type and the steps/unit was still unchanged.
projects/3dprinting/anycubic_i3_mega/upgrade_kit.txt · Last modified: 2020/03/08 21:40 by admin