CR-6 stock or MicroSwiss hotend & Orbiter V1.5 extruder direct drive mount direct on the CR6 strain gauge.

Orbiter V1.5 extruder mount to the Creality CR-6 CR6 strain gauge with stock hot end OR MicroSwiss all metal hotend.

This is part of a series of different hotend and extruder mounts directly to the CR-6 strain gauge. Most probably these mounts are compatible with the CR-10 Smart as well.

This mount fits both the stock Creality hotend and the MicroSwiss all metal CR-6 hotend.

Needed accessories

5015 blower fan

The mount uses a 5015 blower fan. Please use the one posted here on Printables.com as part of the series:

https://www.printables.com/model/157511-cr6-5015-part-fan-shroud-dual-fang

The standard case and thus fan mount does not fit any longer. Since the 4010 blower is largely insufficient to properly cool and achieve good overhangs and bridging at reasonable print speed the fan is upgraded to a 5015 blower and a dual outlet fan shroud.

A 24V between 4000 and 6000 rpm 5015 blower fan is ideal. Higher rpm will be noisy. Also ball bearings are typically less noisy. The fan will typically be used at 60 to 80% of its maximum speed making operation nearly silent and keeping some headroom for improved cooling of overhangs and bridges.

Daughterboard mount

The daughterboard also interferes with the extruder and needs adaptation. Also for the daughterboard there is a special mount on Printables.org:

https://www.printables.com/model/162434-creality-cr-6-daughterboard-mount

Hot melt inserts

Hot melt inserts or 2 standard M3 nuts can be used. Hotmelt inserts are recommended however.

2 M3 x 7mm (the model is 6 to 8 mm compatible) hot melt inserts. Take care to get real hotmelt inserts as in the picture. The ones with straight knurling's are no good and are meant for injection molding not 3D printing.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000232858343.html?pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22:%2210000000945302171%22,%22ship_from%22:%22%22%7D&gps-id=pcStoreJustForYou&scm=1007.23125.137358.0&scm_id=1007.23125.137358.0&scm-url=1007.23125.137358.0&pvid=e707db28-7db4-41a2-b451-dc7f8a782c04&spm=a2g0o.store_pc_home.smartJustForYou_2001733901821.1

A reference where you can buy them. There are plenty of other options. If you can prefer the M3 x D4.6 x L7.0 ones. There are part files compatible with D4.2, D4.5&D4.6 and D5 mm hotmelts.

Printing

Print in PETG, ABS, ASA or other temperature resistant filament. PLA will not be sufficiently temperature resistant especially for the part fan shroud.

slicer settings:

• 5 top and bottom layers 0.2 mm (bottom layer may be 0.25 for ease of printing)
• 4  wall lines plus 1 line intermitted with infill 0.45 mm
• 25% gyroid infill
• connect infill lines
• other settings as your usual print settings

All models are oriented correctly and print without supports except for the daughterboard mount which needs supports under the arm carrying the ribbon cable.

Installation

Start with putting the hotmelts in the mount block and the daughterboard mount plate.

Install the mount block to the strain gauge and hotend.

PTFE tube stock hotend: 73 mm

PTFE tube MicroSwiss hotend: 63 or 43 mm It seems newer versions need a shorter PTFE tube (thanks to @Jaco Waes for pointing out)

Cut the piece of PTFE tube and place it in the hotend. Push it down against the heater block and reinstall the blue clip (or screw cap for the MicroSwiss) to hold the PTFE tube in place. 

73 (or 63/43) mm is the exact distance between the heater block and the seat for the Bowden tube inside the Orbiter extruder. make sure not to exceed 73 (or 63/43) mm or the Orbiter will push too much on the PTFE tube possibly hindering filament passage. 

Mount the extruder on top of the mount block and complete the installation with the fan shroud and daughter board mount. 

The fan shroud slides with the pin behind the carriage plate. the slot slides over the carriage plate and a single screw is sufficient to fix the fan shroud.

Extruder motor direction

Since the Orbiter is a geared extruder the extruder will typically run in reversed direction (aka filament comes out instead of going in). This is easy to correct by an adjustment of the firmware or just swapping 2 motor wires. Only one of the 2 should be done. If you are unsure this YouTube will detail it out: 

Swapping wires

Swap the 2 left hand wires OR the 2 right hand wires (not both sets of wires the motor will again turn in the same direction).

Firmware change

Sebazzz made a great tutorial how to change firmware of the CR-6: https://damsteen.nl/blog/2021/01/08/how-to-compile-cr6community-marlin-with-vscode-platformio Search for #define INVERT_E0_DIR and change it from false to true.

Printing after installation

Linear advance / Pressure advance (Marlin or Klipper respectively) must be retuned if you use these optimizations. The values will be very much lower. Sticking with the Bowden advance values will literally cause holes.

Especially retraction distance will MUST be reduced significantly. Where the Bowden setup needs 3.5 to 6.5 mm retraction direct drive needs only 0.5 to 1.2 mm. Setting higher than 1.5 mm retraction values will cause molten plastic to be pulled into the hotend and thus very quick blockages. My favorite retraction tuning tool is: http://retractioncalibration.com set retraction distance to start at 0.1 mm and 0.1 mm increments.

V1.1: Updated models with sacrificing layers to avoid the need for supports & made a cutout for easy installation of the Bowden tube clip.

2022-04-05 update:
Added 3 different M3 hotmelt outer diameter hotmelt options (4.2, 4.5&4.6 and 5mm).
Rotated the Bowden clip insert point to the front for easier access.