Pinch Wheel Extruder Complete

Here is the completed pinch-wheel extruder only deviating from my plans slightly. For build details read more.

Building the Pinch-Wheel Extruder

I built my pinch-wheel extruder from a piece of acrylic, some L aluminum stock, a few screw, bolts, and a skate bearing.  The 1/4" acrylic sheet has mounting holes drilled in it to match the stepper motor. The other hold is to hold the pressure wheel (skate bearing) that will keep the filament pressed against the drive motor. 

The hole for the skate bearing bolt is countersunk to allow the bolt to fit under the motor. To place this hole, I mounted the motor with the drive wheel with a piece of filament pressed between then drive wheel and skate bearing. Using a sharpie marker, put a dot at the center of the skate bearing and drill there.

Parts List

Here is a view of all the parts used. 

• 1/4-20 Countersunk bolt 1/2"  x1
• 1/4 ID Washer x2
• 1/4-20 Bolt x1
• Skate Bearing x1
• 1/4"x2"x3" Acrylic Sheet
• 2" Len Aluminum L stock
• Stepper Motor
• 1/4"x1" Copper Tube (not shown)

Assembled Pressure Wheel

 These photos show that the skate bearing assemble is flush on the back side to allow the stepper motor to mount nicely.

Mostly Assembled

Here is the extruder mostly assembled. The copper tube is not in the final position.

One More Piece

The final piece of aluminum L stock is used to mount the assembly to the Z-axis of the McWire. I had to drill several mounting holes due to poor planning.

Fully Assembled

Here is the fully assembled extruder attached to the Z-axis. The copper tube is hot-glued in place and is used as a filament guide. A stout piece of oak was used to clamp the nozzle assembly to the motor assembly.

To connect the wires, I twisted a piece of 20ga wire onto each connection (thermistor and heater coil) with some heat shrink over it. I then coated the heat shrink with a little extra fire cement to get the connection some stability.

On a heater test run it reached 220 °C in about 2 minutes. 

Currently I am working on getting the Gen3 Electronics to drive a stepper extruder instead of the default gear motor. 

Future plans are to build a similar extruder to this, but with a gear motor instead of a stepper.

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Comments (1)

• 2009-08-18 11:42:58 | zdude  - Transformation Complete!
  Extruder Check Stepper Check Brackets Check Awesomesauce Check Transformation complete!!
  Reply

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