Direct Drive Extruder on Modified Effector

[Nelson]

Something is going on with my G2S. It could print flexible TPU filament fairly nicely, but now it starts fine and a couple of minuters later it stops extruding. Same settings as before, nothing has changed. I am seriously considering the Flying Extruder route (not flying, but direct drive attached to effector). However, I don't want to use the huge Nema 17 stepper, as it is very heavy. I was wondering if our G2S board would support a Nema 11 Geared stepper. Anyone knows if that could be possible?

[JohnOCFII]

Good Question. Unfortunately I don't know the answer.

[piscanc]

of course it's possible,
question is, if it will be fast enough.

I recommend you print as much plastic parts as possible. plastic spider should be available on Jason's github, and nema11 extruder on thingiverse. For board, driver voltage(for extruder) should be adapted to new motor. In FW, steps per mm.
That should be basically it,
maybe there are some other details?

[Ryan Thompson]

What mods did you need to get flexible TPU printing in the first place?

[Nelson]

I did a quick an easy mod to be able to print flexible filaments on my G2S Pro. I carefully drilled out the PTFE tube connectors that are attached to the top and bottom of extruder, so I could run the PTFE tube straight through from the spool to the hotend. Then I inserted the PTFE tube and cut a notch exactly the width of the filament drive gear so it could grab the flex filament inside the PTFE tube. It is very important to keep the size of the notch the same as the filament drive gear, otherwise if it is too small, it will not be able to grab the filament, and if it is too big, the filament will just slip out and cause a jam.

Be advised, flexible filament has to be printed very slowly, about half as fast as ABS or PLA. This is because it compresses and stretches a lot while being fed, and you must give it time to come out of the nozzle.