Creality Official Direct Drive Extruder Upgrade Kit for Ender-3, Ender 3 Pro, Ender 3 V2 3D Printer

Bought this to upgrade my ender 3 max which already had direct drive but cost me 40mm of X axis because of my design. You do lose some Z height and if you are using this on a max variant you will lose the 2nd part cooling fan also, but given how well my Ender 5 Plus prints with just 1 part cooling fan I didn't mind trading that for the 40mm reclaim on the X axis.Installation is easy if you are comfortable with the components of 3D printers and took me <30 minutes which included upgrading the small PTFE tube between the stepper motor and extruder to Capricorn tube. I also had to reuse my old hot end cables as this is suitable for the Ender 3 / Pro / V2 which means the wires are not long enough for my printer.Because I already had direct drive I didn't need to alter most of my print settings and my prints are exactly the same as they were before which means this is working brilliantly. I tuned my retractions a little more given the rigidity upgrade so now I have 0.6mm @ 40 mm/s which helped reduce stringing to nearly 0.My biggest issue with this is the plastic drive feed used on the stepper motor. All metal to me means this should be the upgraded metal version too. I did reuse my old drive feed but I had to sand the connector that holds the stepper motor to the extruder plate to make this fit. This is not really a required thing to do but it gives me peace of mind that the drive feed mechanism won't break or split as the plastic drive feeds tend to do that after a while.I would still recommend this to anyone wanting to move from a bowden setup to direct drive as this is a very quick and cheap upgrade which will help improve print quality almost immediately when you adjust your print settings.

Would get 5* but I was quite disappointed by the description saying "all metal" and I find the drive feed spring arm is plastic (like the original - which mine snapped on before). Luckily, I could take my upgraded metal one off my old extruder and put it on this one to replace it though I did have to "sand" a little of the plastic bridge down to accommodate the screw for the spring (as the plastic one doesn't use a screw for the spring) so out of the box I am having to customise it a bit.However, now it is on, and wired up, worked first time with just a re-leveling of the bed and already printing clean models and definitely showing an improvement already on my old bowden system (not got anymore z shifting and super clean walls). May need to design and print some cable holders and rethink my filament runout sensor positioning but that is part of the fun of 3D printing.Definitely worth the upgrade as not expensive, just be prepared for the plastic parts that are on it and consider upgrading them now before they cause you issues down the line.

The product was well packaged and easy to install, the instructions are rubbish but there's always YouTube. My old print head had a noisy fan so this was a good value upgrade. The item was cheaper on the Creality website but I wanted it quick and Amazon was next day delivery.After levelling the bed my first print was good, I will have to look at E Steps and retraction settings but that's for another day.

I bought this direct drive system to add to my Ender 3 V2 and have to say it is worth every penny.Installation was simple and all wiring came with the kit. Not having to have a boden tube on the printer has made retractions cleaner and at shorter distances which means less chance of clogging or jamming of the stepper motor or hotend. Retraction distances were more than halved meaning that the filament remains in the hotend more preventing any excess cooling that could contribute to hotend clogging.The direct drive system also makes filament changes mid-print so much easier and quicker as you have less filament to pull out of the printer or feed back into the printer as the gap between stepper motor and hotend is so much smaller than when using the stock extruder with boden tube.There are also threads on the mounting plates for you to easily install a BL/CR touch bed levelling sensor.The extruder assembly is fairly heavy compared to the stock extruder that uses a boden tube so you may find that you need to reduce your print speeds slightly to ensure optimum quality on corners etc. However, the Ender 3 V2 works very well with this direct drive kit and has made printing that bit more easier too.Just don't forget to re-calibrate your extruder e-steps to ensure that your stepper motor is pushing out the correct amount of filament to ensure optimum accuracy of prints.

Seems to be working well and mechanically fairly easy to fit. But wiring is less easy - the little video tells you the mechanical steps but finding the wiring (spoiler alert its front left of the printer as you look at it) less easy. Also, I had to reset the Z limit switch as new head seems somewhat bigger than old one.Be aware the old style lever is still on the filament drive so if you have modded that - move it over.All in all though, seems OK and worth the effort.

Bought the direct drive to improve print failures, great price and easy to install. The initial print was great, perfect flow etc was really pleased.Then the issue started to happen... 3 prints in and on the 4th I get the error in the picture above... print stops and is ruined.. this now happens for every print be it 30 minutes in on short print or 3 hours on long print.. have emailed support no response.. bought another thinking I had a dodgy one and exactly the same error... currently re building the printer back to the old bowden tube set up... £60 wasted on two of these.

Fiddly to install, did improve printing slightly. Would recommend adding the extra Z axis motor with this though and it's a lot of extra weight and could do with extra support