Get Tough, Reliable Extrusion with our All-New Dual Drive Gear Tough Extruder V2
Our Tough Extruder is a geared, dual drive deal, and guided extruder to ensure that your filament feeds accurately and smoothly. This is NOT a “BMG clone” like you will see on Amazon or other sites. This is a hybrid that takes design queues from the Titan and the BMG extruder designs to make a whole new design that is reliable and easy to use.
This extruder is also great for most TPE/TPU filaments thanks to its tight filament path that doesn’t leave large gaps for the flexible filament to escape. It is our go-to for a solid extruder upgrade for our printers. This now fits on most Creality printers and other printers with NO adapters needed thanks to the cutout in the body to accommodate most leadscrews.
Tough Gears Included – Not only are we using DUAL drive gears with a 3:1 gearing ratio that is capable of up to over 30lbs of pulling force, but the gears are also nitrogen treated for long life and low maintenance. The Tough Gears in this new extruder will ensure that they last for years, and filament build up will be less than other non-treated drive gears.
Installation Video
- Tough Extruder V2 Body
- Tough Gears – Dual Drive Gears (pre-installed)
- Bearings for both drive gears (pre-installed)
- Drive Gear Tension Arm (pre-installed)
- Thumbwheel w/Spring and Washer for Tension Arm
- Bowden Groove Mount Adapter w/Clip
- 3x M3x35mm Screws – for attaching to NEMA17 Motor
- 1x Main Brass Drive Gear
- Allen Keys for Installation
- 3″ PTFE Tube for Filament Input Guide (color will vary)
Firmware update or flipping motor wiring around are usually required to reverse motor direction. Geared extruders typically require the motor direction to be reversed on machines that have feed gears that mount directly to the stepper motor shaft.
Recommend Esteps: 407 Steps/mm for most machines
EStep Changes and motor direction changes are all supported in the TH3D Unified Firmware.
EStep Calibration – If you wish to further fine-tune and calibrate the extruder once installed on your printer you can use our free EStep Calibration Tool on our site.
Works with *most* Stock Stepper Motor and stock boards.
Some Creality machines are now shipping with press-fit extruder gears. See here for removal tips: Creality Press-Fit Extruder Gear Removal – TH3D Studio LLC
If your extruder shaft is not at least 18mm in length then you will need to upgrade it. Our Pancake Stepper is a great option to go with this extruder. See our article here about identifying the motor you have: Creality Extruder Motor Shaft Lengths – TH3D Studio LLC
This is for 1.75mm Filament ONLY
Part Fitment/Installation
This is a universal 3D printer part. That means it will work on almost any 3D printer (check your printer voltage and part voltage) with the correct mount for your specific machine. Thingiverse is a wonderful place to locate mounts and we also have printed parts in our shop for some universal parts.
It is up to you to determine and select a mount for your specific printer model (or design one) to install this part on your machine and wire it up to your machine (if applicable). You are welcome to Contact Us for recommendations for your particular printer model for mounting options that are available online if searching yourself does not yield any results.
Warranty Information
6 Months Warranty - Our warranty covers any and all defects with the product. If your product fails or has problems within the warranty period you can contact our support team by using the Contact Us link. Technical support is limited to the scope of the product itself and not your entire machine.
Damage/Failure due to improper installation, improper usage, failure resulting from an issue with the machine the product is installed on, 3rd party products connected to our product, and/or modification of the product are not covered under warranty.
DavidP –
delivered quickly, installed was easy on the Ender 5, changed E-Steps, calibrated flow and started printing.
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Question
Dennis m –
Just to make sure you can’t use a Pancake Stepper with this extruder but the stock stepper should work fine (I have an ender 3 pro)?
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Tim Hoogland –
I am not sure what you mean because the question is not worded well but this works with pancake and standard stepper motors. Some of the Creality stock Extruder stepper motors do NOT have removable drive gears and if yours is one that has the non-removable gear the motor will need to be replaced.
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Jason Osborne –
What are the benefits of running this new extruder vs V1? Just curious if its worth upgrading to.
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Tim Hoogland –
It has a tighter filament path and dual drive gears. If you print flexible a lot these are better for that. The V1 is still a solid extruder. We run both here and are using the V2 on new builds.
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Ryan Roberts (verified owner) –
On which side of the spring should the washer go? And what exactly is the bracket for? The extruder seemed to mount on top of my motor fine with the stock CR-10 location.
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Tim Hoogland –
The bracket is for universal installation and is not needed on most Creality machines. The washer goes on the arm side as shown in the product pictures.
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svalline (verified owner) –
The Tough Extruder V2 is a solid (e.g. dense) piece of precision made kit. Mine arrived yesterday (very fast shipping), and I added it to my Ender 5 Pro (EZboard v1.2, Tough Hotend V2, and multi mount 2×5015). The fit and finish are a cut above the rest. After a small bit of tuning my test prints look fantastic. I might actually be done upgrading this printer…..nah…..probably not.
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Tim Hoogland –
Glad you like it! And we all know the “I’m done upgrading this printer” is something we all tell ourselves. XD
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Question
Ryan Roberts (verified owner) –
Do you have a guide for setting up direct drive with this extruder and the Tough Hot End?
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Tim Hoogland –
We do not at this time. The hotend just slides into the collar of the extruder instead of the bowden adapter and then assemble the hotend as normal.
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Question
Ryan Roberts –
Have the PTFE sticking 5mm out of the heatsink, like there BMG?
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Tim Hoogland –
I don’t have the exact measurement but you would need a small piece of PTFE between the filament feed guide (the white plastic piece in the extruder) and the hotend.
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Ryan Roberts –
Performs great, easy to install, great support.
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3d –
How much does this weigh with the pancake stepper?
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Tim Hoogland –
I do not have weights for stepper motors but the extruder itself weighs around 70 grams.
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Bryan Fissel (verified owner) –
I installed the new extruder and every seems great so far except when the extruder does a retraction it is very noisy and makes what I would call an oink-oink noise. Any idea what might be causing this?
Thanks is advance.
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Tim Hoogland –
That could be just your stepper motor making noise. Your motor moves more with this extruder. I’d also make sure to go over the installation again per our video on this page to make sure its properly put together as well. Some people misalign the brass gear where it is not meshing correctly and that can result in damage to the gear and excessive noise.
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scott.lemke (verified owner) –
This extruder is great. I’m using it in a Hero Me Gen 6 direct drive setup on my Ender 3 with the pancake stepper motor also sold by TH3D. I took my time to get the gear aligned per the instructions and it’s been solid from day one. Worth every penny.
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Emerson Corder (verified owner) –
Got this along with the multi mount and tough hot end and works great. Much better than the stock crap on the ender printers. I have this same setup on another printer as well.
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Question
Travis Hardiman –
Are there replacement gears available for when they wear out?
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Tim Hoogland –
We have just the drive shaft gear here: https://www.th3dstudio.com/product/tough-extruder-v2-replacement-drive-gear-shaft/
And the internals here: https://www.th3dstudio.com/product/runice-bmg-kit-premium-rnc-gears-for-afterburner/
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mcurrier79 (verified owner) –
Added this to my Sunlu S8 and have no regrets. It made a huge difference when printing with TPU.
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