Creality Ender User manual

1
Creality Ender / CR-10
direct drive kit installation
by the Alchemist’s Pantry
thealchemistspantry.com
License
This document is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
license, for more information on this license please visit https://creativecommons.org.
Disclaimer
The information contained in this document is provided as is, with absolutely no warranty expressed
or implied. Any use is at your own risk.

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Introduction
Greetings! Since you are reading this document you are probably about to convert a 3D printer from
a Bowden setup to direct drive – or you are considering doing it in the near future. We have used
this approach to convert many 3D printers to direct drive with great success – you will see that we
are using a Creality Ender 2 printer in this guide:
The Ender 2 is one of the cheapest and simplest Creality 3D printers, and it is consequently one of
the most accessible 3D printers while providing great value-for money. Since many Creality 3D
printers uses the same extruder and hotend carriage, this modification can be performed on a wide
range of Creality 3D printers, including Ender 3, Ender 3 pro, CR-10, CR-10S, CR-10 S4 with small
changes to the method, for example to allow for differences in the controlboard housings.
The direct drive kit contains the following parts:
1 x NEMA motor cable, 1m long
1 x PETG direct drive adapter
1 x short PTFE tube
1 x wire wrap, 1m long
6 x zip ties

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Installation
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Start by making sure the printer hotend and heated bed are cold, the printer has been powered off
and power has been disconnected, then cut off the zip ties which hold the Bowden tube and hotend
wires together – make sure you do not damage the wires or the Bowden tube. When this is done
disconnect the Bowden tube from the extruder motor assembly by pulling it out while pressing on
the press fitting.
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Now unscrew the screw holding the tension arm and spring in place.

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3
Now unscrew the other three screws which keep the extruder motor in place. Make sure you hold
the extruder motor while unscrewing the screws, as otherwise it can fall down and get damaged or
damage other things when you unscrew the last screw.
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You should now have these parts on your table. Extruder motor, tension arm, tension spring,
adapter with push-fitting and four screws.

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5
Gently unplug the cable from the extruder motor.
6
Now unscrew these two screws from the hotend carriage and loosen the hotend shroud. Note that
the fan is still connected to the hotend shroud and the wire bundle, so you should not try to pull the
shroud off completely, we just need to have the screws removed for now.

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7
Unscrew the bolt keeping the left carriage wheel in place, and place the wheel together with the
bolt, nut and spacer.
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Now unplug the other end of the Bowden tube by pulling on it while you push on the top of the push
fitting. Depending on the quality of the press fitting and hotend assembly used in your specific
printer (Creality makes changes to their printers without announcing it, so two Ender 2 printers may
not look 100% identical) it may be difficult to remove the Bowden tube, make sure you do not
damage the Bowden tube or other parts, to ensure you can put it back together again in case you
want to use a Bowden setup again.

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9
Insert the short PFTE tube included in the kit while pressing the press fitting, make sure it goes all
the way in (to the nozzle) as otherwise it will be difficult to connect the PETG adaptor and extruder
motor to the carriage – and it can give you problems with your extrusion. If your printer has been
used to print before you make this modification and the Bowden tube was not properly in place, then
there can be filament stuck inside the red heat sink which should be cleaned out before attempting
this modification. This is a crucial step and proper cleaning should not be neglected.
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Now find the PETG adaptor and gently insert the two short screws you unscrewed in step 6 as show
below. Do not use force to avoid breaking the PETG adaptor.

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Now place the hotend shroud back on the carriage and align the PETG adaptor as shown below –
screw the two short screws into the holes you unscrewed them from in step 6. You may want to
have someone help you hold the pieces in place while you screw them in. Tighten the bolts gently,
making sure you do not crack the plastic.
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Insert the big bolt as shown here.

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13
Put the spacer, wheel and bolt back on the big bolt.
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Tighten the big bolt gently, making sure that the carriage can move freely, while at the same time
not being too loose. Assuming your printer was working fine before you made this modification,
then you can use one of the other big wheel bolts as a reference for getting the tightness right.

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15
Now push the adapter with push-fitting onto the exposed end of the short PFTE tube as shown
below, you may have to press the tip of the push-fitting while inserting the PTFE tube.
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Now it is time to decide how you want to run the cables from the extruder. On this Ender 2 we opt
for running the extruder cables to the left, and therefor we insert three ziplocks in the horizontal
piece of the PTFE adapter as shown below – if you want to run the cables upwards from the extruder
then you should insert the ziplocks into the vertical piece of the PTFE adapter (shown in the upper
left corner in the picture below).