Before I share this rediculous hack, I’d like to point out that the proper way to do paste extrusion is being done in another thread.
that being said, I don’t want that whole mess. I want a print head I can toss on, like I do with my flexistruder, that just takes a single syringe so I can screw around a little bit. I also didn’t want to wait. I had a couple hours and wanted to do some paste printing NOW. This greatly effected the design.
I ran to walmart and bought the only syringe they had, a poor choice as it takes considerable effort to push the plunger even when empty.
I then printed a bracket to hold it on the side of the existing extruder.
Here’s the whole thing in place.
the wire goes from the edge of the bracket, over the syringe handle, back downward through a hole in the bracket, then ties onto the spokes of the large gear of the extruder. As the gear moves, it winds around the gear (wrapping around the back of it).
In theory this would work. In practice it required too much force to push the plunger and the gear just kept slipping. This could be EASILY re-worked to be functional (less friction on the wire, better connection to the stepper). However, my interest was waning and I left it at this point.
I think it would be really cool to have a single syringe add on based off of the universal paste extruder as an option as well as the larger version being worked on in the other thread.