Creator Pro Extruder Assembly

[Denisha Simcoe]

Installinga better extruder gear will provide you with finer teeth, capable of gripping the filament and passing it through without a hitch. This can drastically improve prints with small details as it offers a much more consistent flow of plastic.

*Note: Monoprice has started shipping printers with these already upgraded from the factory. If you have just purchased your printer in the last several months, it may not be necessary to replace the gear.

We will first need to separate the extruder assembly from the printer. Using the proper hex wrench, remove the bottom two screws in the extruder fan. When doing so, either hold the stepper motor with your free hand or push the assembly all the way to the right, supporting the motor with the frame. It will otherwise fall after the screws are removed, possibly causing damage to the wiring or motor.

Once completed, set the fan and heatsink aside, where we will only be working with the extruder assembly. In my case, I found that the gear was already upgraded at the factory, where it has fine teeth that will properly feed the extruder. Due to a severe clog however, my gear was caked in plastic and I opted to replace it anyways.

We first need to remove the screw in the upper left. Compress the spring by pushing down on the lever and carefully remove the screw holding it in place. Given the high amount of tension on the spring, not holding this can result in the pieces flying across the room.

After the lever assembly has been taken off, there is a plastic base which must be removed as well. Use the hex wrench to unscrew the screw in the top right corner that mounts it to the stepper motor. Once everything has been removed and set aside, the extruder gear will be exposed.

When placing the new gear on the motor, ensure that the hole for the set screw is aligned with the flat surface of the shaft and tighten it back into place. Make sure to leave a small gap between the motor and extruder gear so these do not rub against each other and cause friction.

With the new gear installed, you can begin reassembling everything in the reverse order, starting with the plastic base plate first. Make sure that the screws line-up with the plug as shown in the second picture below. When screwing the plastic lever back into place, leave enough slack to put the spring back before tightening it down.

As a final step before putting the extruder assembly black into the printer, I would advise sliding a piece of filament through the gear with the lever pressed. This will give you a clear view of the gear in use, where you can ensure that everything is working as expected. If everything moves like it should, you can go ahead and proceed to put everything back together.

While most upgrades and modifications having a certain level of complexity, this is one of the most simple adjustments you can make. Moving from the original extruder gear to one with increased precision, there will be a number of benefits to printing and upkeep.

Since this can change how much filament it feeds through per step, it is strongly recommended to perform an E-Step Calibration after the installation is completed. This will guarantee your printer is configured with the new gear to take full advantage of the upgrade.

Unfortunately this is far too common with cheap extruders. Even many of the popular aluminum extruders utilize the same approach, requiring that the bolt be kept loosing to avoid restricting arm movement. It does work for the most part, but there is definitely room for improvement.

Creator 3 Pro realizes further optimization of the extruder structure and printing motion control. It adopts new-type extruders, optimizes the extruder blowing structure and heating assembly, configures the second-generation upgraded leveling sensors, changes the position of extruder sensors, and greatly improves the temperature rise speed of the platform, which enables better printing quality and more efficient printing services.

Well it turns out that if you have the old style print head without quick release levers, your extruders will fill up with ABS dust over a year of printing. I didn't know to clean the extruder so it finally hopelessly clogged just before Christmas. Mark and the team rushed me a new mk9 print head and I installed it after removing the wiring loom tube and figuring out what the wires were: There are two stepper motors "A" and "B". the Black terminal blocks for the thermocouple, heater and the fan are paired with the "B" stepper motor on the right side. The A stepper motor on the left are paired with the wires terminated with Green Terminal blocks.

On my model, the thermocouple leads were blue, the heater leads were both red and the fan leads were red and black. Care must be taken to make sure that the left thermocouple is connected to the left thermocouple terminal block on the motherboard and the left heater is connected to the left heater terminal block on the motherboard, or the board may not sense the block has reached temperature and continue heating until the head is destroyed.

The fans activate when they reach the user definable fan temperature (in my case 70C). I successfully tested both extruders and fans, and did a test extrusion with both and have been printing happily ever since.

Thanks Mark and 3dprintersuperstore!

The MK10 Extruder head is now optimised for both ABS and PLA. These are a great upgrade extruders for a Makerbot Replicator, Flashforge creator or your own custom 3d printer upgrade. It incorporates 1.75mm extruders, quality Nema stepper motors, polyoxymethylene injection molded and CNC machined aluminum parts as well as roller bearings for smooth axial motion. also a spring loaded feed mechanism and PTFE lining for added reliability.

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