PowerFlower Geared Extruder

Introduction

The PowerFlower is a geared Bowden extruder with a 4:1 gear ratio, designed for 1.75mm filament and an 8mm Hobbed Shaft. In the makefile I have generated and included the main and rear bodies for shafts with common effective diameters. Measure and print the correct parts or change the parameters in the F3D file. The other parts do not change!

Background

I originally designed the PowerFlower for use with the E3D Cyclops Hot-End which requires a pair of geared extruders due to the 90deg bend in the filament path.

I opted for the E3D Hobb Goblin 8mm Hobbed Shaft but because all of the Gregg’s Wade’s derivatives require supports and the Hobb Goblin protrudes significantly from the front I decided to design my own. After moving over to Fusion 360 I parameterised it for all hobbed shafts.

Final Points

As of the release date the PowerFlower has over 100h of printing time and I’ve seen no degredation in performance. If you’re curious I have the following Marlin settings:

• Retraction speed: 80mm/s
• E Jerk: 5.0
• E Acceleration: 1000mm/s

I will be releasing a mount for a filament cleaner and gear guard in the near future.

Post Printing

Pneumatic Couplings

You will need to use an M5 Tap. You may be able to get away with an M5 bolt to create the threads if your layer adhesion is good. Do not tap more than 4mm.

Flexible Filaments

The PowerFlower was designed with flexible filament in mind and requires additional internal PTFE tube to prevent filament from escaping (see images). You need to cut this yourself using a utility knife. It doesn’t have to be perfect – Just reduce the gap as much as possible.

You still need some internal tube even if not using flexible filaments! Just cut the ends straight.