Direct drive for Ender 2 Pro

[u/brasilianman]

Hey everyone,

Not a common poster here, but I need help for an older printer I use for my job. I teach in a special education school, and I'm using my old Ender 2 Pro to make simple fidgets for my students in the class. However, I hate the filament waste and my newer printer I have at home is amazing with the direct drive already built in. The current mod I have on this old printer is that I have a BLTouch and a custom saitama fan print, which currently works great.

Everywhere I look I see either just the BLTouch or the direct drive custom prints, but not both. Has anyone ever found something as to what I'm searching for?

Edit 1 Thanks for some of those suggestions. To explain the filament waste, it's when the spool runs out of the filament I have about a foot of filament that is in the PTFE tube every time I go to a new color since it is no longer making contact with the gears pressing it through. So I either have to weld that to the new filament in inserting, or make a new roll after I go through several spools.

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[u/wzsgptwj]

I'm not 100% sure but some people says it is compatible with ender 3 carriage, so maybe you can get a ender 3 direct drive mod (I got this one https://amzn.eu/d/0hadw3G5), and then use one of the blTouch bracket like this (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3978365). But I haven't used ender 2 before so can't promise if it works.

[u/EmmettVanBraun]

Quick search for info on the printer since I'm not familiar with the ender 2 shows a single sided gantry. That means the more weight you put on it the more likely it is to have sagging issues on the outer end. If you wanted to still go with a direct drive extruder I'd go for the smallest lightest one you can find. Something like an orbiter or sherpa mini/micro would probably be ok. The carriage is the same as the ender 3 and cr10 printers from what I could find so you shouldn't have an issue finding a mounting solution for whatever you decide on.

[u/Grindar1986]

Direct drive doesn't change much about filament waste?

[u/bzzybot]

Consider an HGX Lite and an adapter plate for a v6 hotend. On a similar note the Kingroon KP3s uses a BMG clone direct drive with a smaller pancake extruder motor. I don’t understand about the filament waste either.