Aluminum Extruder Mount for Official Creality Direct Drive Extruder Kit

I've been printing quite a bit of TPU lately, but since only a few of my printers have direct drive extruders I've been wanting to upgrade some of my Bowden fed machines with inexpensive direct drive upgrades to spread the work load around.

One of the extruder kits I decided to take a look at was the “Official Creality Ender 3 Direct Drive Extruder Kit” that's currently selling on Amazon for $29.99.

The kit comes with a stock Creality PTFE lined hotend, stepper motor with Creality's stock plastic extruder, and a taller carrier plate with POM rollers.

It wasn't until I received the kit that I realized the extruder is plastic, and the Amazon listing says it has an “all metal hotend”, which it does not.  :(

Nearly every time somebody brings me an Ender 3 to look at that's having under-extrusion issues, I find the release lever on the plastic extruder is cracked, or is worn where it attaches to the extruder with a bushing and screw.

Rather than to install the kit in its stock condition, I decided I wanted to replace the PTFE lined heat brake with a bi-metal brake, and wanted to replace the plastic extruder with an aluminum extruder.  

My first inclination was to install a single gear Creality brand aluminum extruder on to this thing, but immediately ran into two clearance issues with the aluminum extruder and the injection molded adapter/spacer that fits between the carrier plate and extruder.

I first modeled an adapter piece that would fit the single gear aluminum extruder, which I did and it's the short adapter in the file section here.  I then thought of the many mishaps I had with MK8 direct drive extruders on my Anet's and decided I would adapt the Bondtech clone dual gear extruder to work with this setup, so I modeled a taller adapter for it and included that in the file section as well.

If your intent is to simply replace the plastic extruder on this tool head with a single gear aluminum extruder, the two screws attaching the original parts to the plate will work.  For the taller dual gear extruder, I had to replace those two screws with M3 X 34mm screws.

I've included a threaded insert that fits were the Bowden tube coupler was originally, just to guide the short piece of PTFE tubing that fits between extruder and hotend.  That piece will fit either the single or dual gear aluminum extruder.

Be advised that the extruder mounts to the tool head assembly in such a way that the spring tensioning screw head will NOT fit this assembly.  I replaced the M4 button head screw with a long M4 grub screw to hold the cap and tension spring in place.  While installing the grub screw, I put a dab of loctite on its threads to keep it from backing out due to vibrations.  Once the extruder is assembled and mounted, there is no adjusting the spring tension so you may need to acquire a more rigid spring or add some kind of spacer to the release lever end to increase tension if it doesn't bite tightly enough on filament.

The printer I installed this thing on was previously using the Satsana cooling fan mount/cover, and I was using a remix of Ludvig Broomé's “Ender 3 BLTouch Mount” for my knock-off BLTouch probe.  I remixed Ludvig's BLTouch probe mount here again so that it would fit the taller carrier plate that comes with this kit.  I'm not going to publish that separately so I've included it here as well as a set of shims that should accommodate a range of BLTouch type sensors.

UPDATE 08182025:  I decided to, without putting much money into it, upgrade the last of our Ender 3 Pro's to a dual gear direct drive extruder.  While I certainly favor the Sovol SV06 planetary gear extruder over most upgrade paths, I was shocked at how well my Green Ender 3 Pro performed with this upgrade.  Rather than spend another $30 bucks for the “Official Creality Direct Drive Extruder Kit”, I sought to perform the same upgrade to our pink Ender 3 Pro on the cheap.  Since I'd upgraded my Bowden fed machines with Bondtech dual gear extruder clones and installed bi-metal heatbrakes already, I could do the same upgrade for as little as $8.99.  Here's the mountng kit I bought from Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08JYKBFFC?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

I used the old Bondtech clone extruder, the original stepper motor from the Bowden setup, the original pom rollers, spacers, and screw hardware.  As with the green Ender 3 upgrade, I replaced the tensioner screw with a long grub screw.  The only visible difference between the $8.99 and $30 upgrade is that the $8.99 option places the extruder & stepper motor about 6mm higher, and the anchor point for the cabling is on the right side of the plate, where the Creality kit had it's cable bundle anchored left.  There is no difference in performance and both machines share identical firmware.

UPDATE 08192025:  I added a version 2 of the BLTouch mount that has the original nut cut-outs, for those who will be installing their sensors from beneath and without a cover.

UPDATE 11242025:  I decided that since I couldn't tell a difference in print quality between these cheap dual gear direct drive setups and the more expensive SV06 extruder to Ender 3 mod I'd installed on my Sunlu T3 that I'd like to relocate that SV06 extruder to my Anet A8, the machine it was originally intended to be installed on.  Since I had a few Bondtech dual gear extruder clones floating around from old Bowden upgrades, including the dual gear Bondtech clone that came stock with the Sunlu T3, that I'd just order the $8.99 plate and install this same modification on the Sunlu T3 using the original 42-40 stepper that was on the Bowden extruder, as well as the original dual gear extruder that shipped with the T3.  Unlike the two previous installs on the two Ender 3 Pro's, things went a little strange on the T3.  My first little test print turned out perfect and everything appeared to be working well with the new toolhead.  I then decided to use the T3 with its new setup to print a bunch of parts for a friend, and kinda run it more to put it through its paces after a somewhat significant mod.  The first batch of parts failed at about 90%, where it simply stopped extruding, even though the gears were visibly still turning.  My first thought was that the nozzle must have become clogged, but when I pulled the toolhead apart, I found filament was thick and tight in the top of the short PTFE tube that goes from the extruder into the hotend.  It was wedged so tight in the tube I couldn't remove it from the tube, so I cut and installed a new piece, then tried again, and the same thing happened.  To make a long story short, the extruder motor was getting hot, transfering heat to the extruder gears, and then the extruder was trying to push soft filament into the top of that short PTFE tube and it was jamming there.  My extruder current was set to 800 milliamps, just like my two Ender 3's who's motors ran cool.  That's the stock current setting for Ender 3's, but I figured with the gear reduction of the Bondtech clone, I could probably get by with the extruder current set to 600 milliamps, which I did, and it was able to print successfully without clogging, however, that Sunlu stepper motor was running about 10 degrees hotter than my two Ender 3 Pro's, and that's with the reduced current setting.  I then started to recall a few oddities I'd noticed on the Sunlu T3 that made it a little different than the Ender 3 from which it was coppied.  The Sunlu T3 is the only printer I've ever purchased that came stock with a fan pointed right at the Bowden extruder motor.  The T3 is also the only machine I've ever owned that came stock with a single lead screw that isn't a TR8-8, but rather a TR8-4, so the pitch on the threads were only half as steep.  When I upgraded the T3 with a second lead screw, I had to replace the original screw as well or I'd have to source a more difficult to find lead screw that would end up costing me more.  The bottom line is that Sunlu stepper motors run super hot for some reason.  I ordered a replacement Creality 42-40 stepper to replace the Sunlu motor and now it runs cool as a cucumber.  Do note that Creality stepper motors pair their coil wires differently than Sunlu, so you will have to flip a pair of wires to match the coils.  Without changing direction, the outer two wires of the 6 pin connector at the stepper will need to be swapped when going from a Sunlu to Creality motor.  The center two would need to be swapped instead if you need to reverse the spin of the stepper for your setup.