Creality Extruder Direct Drive 3D Printer Upgrade Kit for Ender 3/Ender 3S/Ender3 Pro

Purchased this upgrade to get away from the sidemount feeder stepper and Bowden tube setup. This one change brought my print failure rate down drastically and it was super easy for me to install.

The box was pretty beat up, but the parts are good,

I bought this so I could began printing tpu. I was shocked at how well designed and built this assembly was. I usually refrain from doing printer upgrades because I hate having to do extreme, hacks to my printer (changing firmware, cutting or modifying the circuit, cutting or modifying the frame, modifying the belts). This piece is super easy to install onto the frame, If you loosen the bottom wheel, your old one will slide right off and your new one will slide right on, this is nice because you dont have to take your frame apart. I like that all the cables match the originals and there are no extras. Snap a picture of the circuit board before disconnecting your original, look at the picture and copy it with the new one! No looking at schematics, or having to solder and heat shrink. I like that the cable utilizes the original frame notch for securing. I like that the extrutruder cable is an extension to the original. You dont have to mess with the braided sheathing and take a chance at messing it up, you just plug the male end of the extension , to the female of the original. This keeps the printer looking good because your still concealing the majority of the cable in braided sheath. The MTA connector connecting two can only be plugged in one way and feels tight and snug. The head is fully assembled with a .4 nozzle, the head feels strong, and durable, bearings feel good. The images are right after I installed the head. Re-leveled my bed, and this is the first print to come out, it was my test print. I only made ONE change, I adjusted the temp up 30 degrees up to 250. No other printer changes or slicer changes. With as good as this part was designed, I plan on checking out other OEM Creality upgrades. I give this an A+ and cant wait to try other OEM upgrades.

Great upgrade. Makes filament install much easier. Smooth prints. Only downside is install is very tideous. Requires going into processor board, removing hot glue securing very small connectors removing tape bundling wiring harness

I bought one of these for one of my Ender 3's and liked it so much that I bought a second one for my other Ender 3. The first one worked fine for about 2 months and then the extruder gear started clicking like a mad man. Then, in almost the same time frame, the second one started clicking and not extruding as well. Well, I am nearing the end of an 8 month print (full X-01 power armor from Fallout 4) so I really needed to get back running and I decided to try something to test a hypothesis, I took the stepper motor off and ran my old bowden tube to the hot end. Yay, it is printing again. The possible reason for this that I can think of is that the heat from the extruder is making the filament (Sunlu PLA+) to soft for the extruder to continue to push though. It blocked the short bowden tube and was causing serious clogging issues. These hot ends really are quality hot ends and the stepper motors are also Creality branded, I just do not believe that they should be configured in this manner.