Extruder upgrades: direct drive, dual gear and geared kits

A direct drive extruder upgrade moves the extruder (the motor and drive gears that push filament) off the frame and onto the print head, directly above the hotend. Filament then travels a few centimeters instead of the length of a PTFE (Teflon) Bowden tube, so the printer can feed soft TPU and retract about 1 mm instead of 5 mm or more. The cost is extra weight on the print head, and any new extruder needs its own E-steps value (motor steps per millimeter of filament) in Marlin or rotation_distance in Klipper.

What does each type of extruder upgrade fix?

A metal dual-gear Bowden replacement stops filament slipping but stays on the frame. A geared BMG-type extruder adds grip and torque. A direct drive conversion or all-in-one kit makes TPU printable and cuts retraction to about 1 mm. A lightweight direct drive does the same with less print-head weight.

Rows run cheapest first, by the lowest US price found on November 4, 2026. “No motor” means you reuse your printer’s stepper or buy one.

The weight column matters only for direct drive. Klipper’s documentation lists heavy moving mass as a cause of ringing (ripples beside sharp corners), and says to measure the ringing frequencies again after fitting “a new (heavier or lighter) stepper motor for direct extruder”. The Sherpa Mini vs Orbiter comparison sets the light extruders side by side.

For a specific printer, see its model page. Ender 3 extruder upgrades covers the Bowden swaps and dual-gear kits for the Ender 3, Pro and V2. Creality K1 extruder upgrades covers the K1 series. To decide whether you need direct drive at all, see what a direct drive extruder is and what a dual gear extruder is.

What does a direct drive extruder upgrade involve?

A direct drive upgrade means mounting an extruder on the print head above the hotend and running its motor cable to the board. Then the settings change: a new E-steps or rotation_distance, sometimes the motor direction and current, shorter retraction and a retuned pressure advance. A probe that moved also needs new offsets.

1. Choose the kit for your printer and hotend. A conversion kit reuses the stock motor (Micro Swiss Direct Drive) or the whole stock extruder (a printed mount). An all-in-one unit brings its own motor, and the Micro Swiss NG its own hotend. A lightweight extruder such as the Orbiter or Sherpa Mini needs a mount designed for your print head.
2. Print the new parts first. Mounts, fan ducts and probe brackets have to be printed while the printer still works.
3. Move the extruder onto the carriage. Remove the frame extruder and the long Bowden tube, fit the new extruder above the hotend and seat a short PTFE guide between them where the kit uses one.
4. Connect the motor. Leave cable slack for full travel. Use the kit’s own cable where it supplies one: Micro Swiss says the NG’s extension cable has “a special pinout” for its LDO motor.
5. Set the firmware values. E-steps or rotation_distance, then direction and motor current, as below.
6. Calibrate and retune. Extrude a measured length and correct the steps. Cut retraction to the extruder maker’s value (0.4 to 1.5 mm for the extruders here) and retune pressure advance. If the probe moved, reset its X, Y and Z offsets.

How to add direct drive to an Ender 3 has the full steps for the Ender 3, Ender 3 Pro and Ender 3 V2, with each kit’s starting values.

Which Creality printers need a direct drive extruder upgrade?

Only Creality’s Bowden models need one.

• Bowden, so the upgrade applies: the Ender-3, Ender-3 Pro and Ender-3 V2, the Ender-3 Neo models, the Ender-5, Ender-5 Pro and Ender-5 Plus, and the CR-10.
• Direct drive from the factory: the Ender-3 S1 series (Creality’s Sprite direct extruder), the Ender-3 V3, V3 SE and V3 KE (each lists a direct extruder), and the K1 Max (“dual-gear direct extruder”).

On November 4, 2026, Creality’s US store listed the Sprite Extruder SE for the Bowden models at $18.00. The Neo models take the Sprite Extruder SE-Neo, which was sold out that day. The Micro Swiss Direct Drive and NG, in the table above, are the other bolt-on kits. The Sprite page and the NG page cover fit by model.

On a K1, an extruder upgrade replaces the stock extruder; check whether the change affects your warranty before you open the print head.

Do you need to change firmware after an extruder upgrade?

Yes. Every new extruder needs its own E-steps value in Marlin or rotation_distance in Klipper, because its gearing and drive-gear size set how far one motor turn pushes filament. Some swaps also reverse the motor direction or bring a motor that needs a different current, and retraction and pressure advance need retuning.

• Always: E-steps or rotation distance. Start from the maker’s value in the table above, then calibrate. Left at the stock Ender 3’s 93, a Micro Swiss NG set up for 400 feeds about 23% of the filament the slicer asks for (93 ÷ 400). In Marlin, send M92 E<value> and save with M500. Klipper converts with rotation_distance = full steps per rotation × microsteps ÷ steps per mm: Bondtech’s 7.71 for the BMG is 200 × 16 ÷ 415. Exact values per extruder, including Klipper’s gear_ratio option, are on the BMG settings, Orbiter Klipper config and Sherpa Mini Klipper config pages.
• Sometimes: motor direction. If the extruder pulls filament up, reverse the direction. Flip INVERT_E0_DIR in Marlin’s Configuration.h and reflash, or add or remove ! before the extruder’s dir_pin in Klipper. Some kits do it in the wiring: Micro Swiss’s Bowden Dual Gear ships with a short cable whose purpose is “to change the direction in which the stepper motor rotates”.
• When the motor changes: current. Too much current overheats a small motor; too little skips steps. Start from the maker’s figure: 0.85 A RMS (root mean square) for the Orbiter v2.0’s LDO motor, 0.30 A RMS for the Sherpa Mini’s NEMA 14 motor.
• In the slicer: retraction. Direct drive needs far less. Cura’s Ender-3 S1 profile uses 0.8 mm at 40 mm/s against Cura’s 6.5 mm default, and the makers of the extruders here give 0.4 to 1.5 mm. A Bowden dual-gear swap keeps longer retraction: Micro Swiss gives about 3.5 mm with an all-metal hotend and about 5.0 mm with the stock PTFE-lined one.
• In firmware: pressure advance. Retune pressure advance, the firmware’s compensation for pressure in the nozzle, after any change in filament path. Klipper’s tuning tower uses FACTOR=.005 for direct drive and .020 for long Bowden extruders; Marlin’s linear advance guide says Bowden printers “need higher K values”.

Which other hardware upgrades need firmware changes?

Most do. A new hotend needs a PID (proportional-integral-derivative) tune so the firmware learns how the new heater responds: M303 in Marlin, PID_CALIBRATE in Klipper. To run hotter, it also needs a new sensor type and maximum temperature, as in raising firmware temperature limits. A moved or new probe needs new offsets (M851 in Marlin) and a fresh Z offset. A heavier or lighter print head needs input shaping, the firmware’s ringing compensation, measured again. The upgrade order guide puts these changes in sequence.