Tldr; does anyone know of an upgraded extruder that will fit a Geeetech i3 Pro B?
Long version: I have a Geeetech i3 Pro B that I’ve had for years now. I don’t exactly use it loads but I do like having it to print random tools and bits for my other hobbies (mostly car bits). The problem is this useless thing just jams up all the time with no explanation. I was using it fine about a month ago and then just came back to it yesterday (actually excited that it wasn’t broken for once and I could just use it), then when I went to change the filament I realised the stupid shit had jammed again. I seem to have a constant rotation of heatbreaks on this thing. Even when I got it out I couldn’t see any reason why it had jammed at all. It wouldn’t be so bad but it’s a total pain to replace since it’s not compatible with the compressions clips. I can’t even see how it could be changed to use one since the hotend is supported by the heatbreak. I looked at somehow modifying an Ultimaker one for it but it looks like it would be tricky to mod.
I would just buy a new one but if I was to do that I’d want something like a Bambu thing that would make printing much easier, but I can’t really justify spending that much. I definitely don’t want to spend a bunch of money just to end up with something that’s basically the same and will require all the tubing again.
I better stop writing now as it’s turned into a big rant.
Can you slap a prusa extruder on it?
I swapped over to phaetus dragon hotends on both my printers for interoperability and the fact that it doesn’t rotate on me, making nozzle swaps less of a pain. Was running this mount on my mk3s, works really well, no complaints from me. Also used this fan duct with solid results.
There are a number of open source extruders that you could adopt to fit your existing printer. There are also a bunch of third party options.
https://github.com/VoronDesign/Voron-Stealthburner is a complete design
https://www.printedsolid.com/products/ldo-sherpa-mini-extruder (you would need to adopt this to your current hot end and/or find another design that does this) Etc