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Probably the only thing about the 5 I don't like is the position of the extruder , its good in relation to the stock spool holder but not really good for the print head , I find I'm using the stock spool holder less as I have some of my filaments in converted sealed food containers with Bowden tube up to the extruder so I'm thinking of moving the extruder to the top on a gimbal of some sort so it can move in relation to the print head , possibly with a shorter Bowden tube a well .

That would be cool. I am really space limited so I dont have as much freedom, but I do like the idea of going direct drive on the plus (and ill buy a bondtech for it, the one on the pulse is amazing!) and at that point i will need to figure some logistics out for sure

I'm pretty sure the direct drive kits don't fit the Bondtech BMG , I'm running BMG clones on both machines so if I go that way I'll have to design my own , there are some ally dual drive extruders on eBay that are the same footprint as the stock version and not too dear but I'd find it hard to go back from a geared dual drive extruder even if it was to dual drive ... I'm just not sure about it on the 5 but I'd have a go on my 3 , at lower speeds the extra mass on the print head won't matter but I like to print at 80+mm p/s on the 5 and I think direct drive might detract more than it offers at that speed .

My thought is solely based on retraction with the Bowden. The ender 5 plus has a very long Bowden and even with pla on the retraction test I was at 12 before the stringing stopped.

And if you want the 5+ to be a PETG machine then who knows what retraction you'll need , on my ender 3 my normal PLA retraction was 5 and PETG was 8 , if your at 12 with PLA ..... Direct drive looks like the way to go even for faster prints then as long retraction increases print times enormously not to mention surface defects from long re-prime distances , lots of retraction/priming speed tuning , migraine time !
One thing I don't like about the direct drive kits I've seen is it all sits forward of the print head carriage ,the design makes sense for an ender 3 or cr10 as you don't loose Z height because it all sits forward of the top cross member of the frame but on the 5 or 5+ you could have the stepper motor behind the carriage plate and the extruder in front over the print head , less stress on the V slot wheels has got to be better at least to my eyes .

Now that the Dogfighter project is in its final stages i started working on some Zerda parts , firstly some rear body side panels , these just clip on and are made from nylon and secondly a part that often breaks , the front bulkhead , they tend to shear off the front suspension mounting point , the later Alien mid had a much beefier part but requires longer mounting pins that are unobtainable .




the bulkhead is a very fast test print only for checking dimensional accuracy , i think I've got it right now so I'm printing a better test piece now .
Not sure how far I'll go with Zerda parts but i will do a beefier steering knuckle as they are a weak spot too .

Been gettin festive so i drew these simple Tree decorations up and printed them.

Ran this off as i thought the ones on the market were overpriced , its a top spring collar for Tamiya SRB 8mm body shocks so you can convert to coil springs .



Secures with a single Set screw ,designed for 10mm internal diameter springs , it works in PLA as long as your gentle with the threads , should be fine in other filaments , its on Thingiverse if anybody wants to try them.

I was asked if i could make an improved steering knuckle for the Hirobo Zerda , they are a weakness and i had one brake myself , i managed to get a pair of knuckles for the Alien Mid that are stronger but hard to find so these are the ones i came up with , the red one on the right is a Zerda original , in the middle is the Alien Mid and mine is on the left .

That looks quite stout; nice job. What's the material? Carbon Nylon?

yup carbon nylon , ill pop it on thingiverse later

The Zerda knuckle is now a free download on Thingiverse or it will be when they get round to it

It finally arrived ! A box full of Creality LD-002R goodness (well acceptable quality for a reasonable price as usual) , its surprisingly small when your used to FDM printers ! it came well packaged and seems very sturdy , very quick to set up and she's printing a 19 hour Eiffel Tower already , much less interesting to watch than an FDM , all the action is submerged in resin and at first nothing seems to happen as the bottom layers take 50 seconds ,so you wait nearly a minute it then raises and lowers (but not clear of the resin ) and you wait again , after the bottom layers (5-8) it goes to 8 second layers , in short its going to be pretty boring for the first hour or two till the print starts to emerge from the resin.
I'm using Siraya tech Fast ABS like grey resin , not totally stinky , much less smelly than fibre glass resins or body filler for example but its not a nice smell either so the whole kit and caboodle will live in the workshop .
Anyway not much more to say till tomorrow when the Froggy scaffolding is finished .

Well the print finished but even last night i could see a fault , there's a hand rail on the first viewing level and the vertical struts are virtually the thickness of a hair ! and thats the failure point ,the hand rail is distorted and barely attached, watching YouTube of unboxing's this seems about normal , the rest of the print is outstanding though , you can see daylight through the cross struts to nearly the top ! layer lines are really hard to see at all .





very pleased so far .

Printing some yokomo 834b gears now to see if they are strong enough .