Bowden Cable Model: 1.75 mm or 3 mm

The Flex Wheel extruder has been specifically designed to excel when used in the ‘Bowden Cable’ or ‘Bowden Tubing’ configuration.

Improve your existing printers Bowden set up.

With a few additional parts convert your direct drive system.

The Flex Wheel’s unique system for exerting force upon your printing filament easily overcomes the additional resistance and hysteresis encountered when the filament travels through the PTFE tubing system. You now have the ability to overcome the draw backs associated with Bowden Cables.

With the Flex Wheel’s greater driving power and speed capabilities you can

The Flex Wheel will not slip on rigid or flex filament so you will you have the potential to get more speed from your printer, in fact the Flex Wheel has so much torque that in testing we tried to see how much weight the Flex Wheel could lift before the filament slipped, unfortunately the 1.75 mm PLA snapped at just over 10 kg’s before we found out.

Printer Requirements and Things to Consider:

Attaching to printer frame –

The Flex Wheel’s base plate has been designed to be attached directly to the frame of your printer or positioned on its own stand adjacent to your printer., the backing plate has 2 x 5 mm holes ideally placed to allow the unit to be attached directly onto 20 x 20 t slot extrusion frame.

Alternatively a specialised bracket or plate can be printed to allow for suitable attachment (this bracket design will differ between printers).

The Flex Wheel aluminium backing plate includes 4 x additional 3 mm holes to allow for flexibility in the attachment of unique plates etc. See the Thingiverse page for specifications, designs and inspiration.

Cooling fan required –

Stepper motors can get hot during operational use. A cooling fan and heat sink are highly recommended to reduce heat transfer from the stepper to other parts of the extruder unit. A specialised bracket to hold the fan can also be printed design will be dependent upon individual machines, see thingiverse for inspiration.

PTFE tubing and couplings required –

The Flex Wheel is designed with flexiblity in mind – No matter what size Bowden Couplings you have you can easily download a suitable adapter and print one

Re-calibration of firmware –

The only change to your firmware required is the steps your extruder counts for the E steps.