Prusa i3 Compact Extraptor 2nd Run (1)
Channel: Scott Lahteine
Date: 2013-07-10

UPDATE 2013-08-05: Extraptor V2 is unified and much smaller. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5HQ4ZYB-Vk And on Thingiverse http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:120971

A couple months ago I purchased the 50:1 geared stepper motor (1Nm) from 2engineers.com and a "Raptor" filament drive gear from QU-BD.com with the intent of eventually building a direct-drive extruder for our respectable Prusa i3. Up to now we've been using a NEMA17 Wade Extruder, which was large, heavy, and weighted off-center.

I finally decided to use a variant of the standard compact extruder because the SCAD was readily available (and I already had an idler printed, so...).

Aside from the x-belt being super-glued in place, I actually prefer the "mini" x-carriage in the inverted-T position, which puts two mounting holes at the bottom and one at the top. I thought it would be fun to do a variation on the previous adapter we made for the Wade, so I created a mount that holds the hot end in place with a clamp. The main design goal was to make an adapter that would be useful for an existing compact extruder and hot end, and to parameterize more elements, especially the distance from center of the motor axle to the filament path, which for the Raptor gear needed to be ~5.25mm.