Will modded TAZ 5 Toolhead to Flexistruder work?

So I have a TAZ 5 (w 0.5mm nozzle hex hotend)that I recently bought and I want to be able to print flexible materials like ninjaflex for example. So what I ended up doing was buying a refurbished TAZ 5 regular tool head/extruder assembly and then printed out the flexystruder extruder part and put it together along with the PTFE tubing.

So my question is, does this sound like this will work?

Also do I really need to flash my firmware? and If I do flash my firmware and I want to switch back to the standard extruder do I need to reflash it again?

I am not sure what e-steps are exactly, I need to look into that more but they are slightly different from the existing extruder to the new flexystruder I build(833 vs 800). So I expect I would at least need to adjust that when changing tool heads. Also, do I need to recalculate the e-steps since I modded the tool head?

The Flexystruder V2 uses a hexagon hotend, but it does use a 0.6mm nozzle instead of a 0.5mm. THe flexy stuff is more viscous, so it needs the additional nozzle width to flow at a reasonable rate. So you may need to swap the nozzle as well. Aside from that, yes it will work fine.

E-steps are the number of E axis, or Extruder axis steps that it takes to move a certain distance. Here is a really good video showing how stepper motors work and what a step actually is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyqwLiowZiU . The extruder steps is somewhat variable between extruders because the hobbed bolts tend to be somewhat variable. If the hobs are slightly deeper or shallower between two hobbed bolts, that changes the amount of force exerted and the distance traveled per step. Think of it like a pizza. if you get the small pizza and put a tape measure around the crust, the measurement is going to be smaller than the large pizza crust. That different diameter affects how much fillament is actually extruded per step, and why you need to calibrate an extruder once, but usually not again after that since the diameter essentially doesn’t change.

Awesome thanks. I will be trying it out tonight.

You’re welcome!
Here’s the step by step instructions if you want them https://ohai.lulzbot.com/project/lulzbot-taz-flexystruder-v2-assembly/

You will also want to locate a 6.5mm drill bit, 3.5mm drill bit, and an 8mm drill bit along with at least a small drill press. Mcmaster Carr has the drill bits. A cheap harbor freight $40 special drill press will do the drilling job easily enough, but you don’t want to try it with hand tools by eye.

There is also an experimental flexystruder in the devel folders that popped up a few weeks ago (http://devel.lulzbot.com/TAZ/accessories/x-ray/). It uses a smooth ended grub screw to provide some push/tension on the filament to the hobbed bolt by pushing on the PTFE tube (at least this is how it appears to work), and uses the fan setup of the other TAZ6 extruders. I’ve been printing up the parts for it to try it out this weekend.