Hot ends for ZIM

[setiorion]

Guys does any one have any custom hot ends or any mods for direct drive extrusion for our printers ??

[J_Schmidt]

Hi!
Most of the Mods that were made switched to a bowden setup, instead of direct drive.
I also moved to a bowden setup to get rid of the heavy motors and the related vibrations. I don´t regret my decision to do so. My ZIM is now more precise and way faster than with the original setup. Due I also was very skeptical about the conversion, I was highly sensitised for the common problems with bowden hotends, but except of the need of a bit of more retraction, I didn´t have any (Okay, I don´t use flexible filament at all, which seems to be impossible to print with a bowden setup)
Take a look here

[setiorion]

Can you post some pics of your gear please as i have no idea on what is the right setup & since you have already started running the Bowden setup it would be easier than me getting the wrong parts for the conversion

Thank a million

[J_Schmidt]

Sure,
You can take a look here:

ZIM Hardware-Mods

meanwhile in germany… I really thought the direct-drive extruders would be the real deal and bowden-style was only a compromise solution. And… I was wrong. After constant problems with terrible ghosting and broken connectors in the printhead (one wire really burnt off!) I tried to convert my Zim at home to a cheap chinese E3D clone hotend, with an even cheaper chinese bowden-extruder. Due to the broken connector of the cable, I didn´t have to overcome myself for cutting the wire. Of course, a…

Here are the links to the parts that I used:
Hotend
Extruder

As Stepper, I used one of the now useless Steppers in the base, and removed the toothed wheel. Also, you´ll have to grind a flat surface to the shaft of the motor, to give the small screw in the transportwheel a better chance to grip.
You´ll also have to adjust the steps/unit setting in the software. (Marlin EEPROM Editor Plugin for octoprint is perfect for this)
And you´ll have to cut the ribbon cable and re-wire all the needed parts.

Oh! And you´ll have to adjust the current for the Extruder-motors, because you´ll only use one instead of two! There´s a way to do it tecnically right here, or just look at the tiny potentiometers at the drivers for X,Y and Z Axis, and just set the ones for the E0 and E1 to the same position. My extruder stepper sometimes gets a bit warm, but that´s okay for me.