Creality Bowden Tube Filament Guide

thingiverse

I've tried dozens of filament guides to work around the poorly designed extruder gear placement on the Ender 3. Some were not sized correctly, some slipped off when the extruder gear was retracting, and some just neglected to simply move the filament far enough away from the Z rod. Here is my solution that has worked fantastic for me. It's a simple remix of Ian_Crossley's filament guide. I made the opening a reasonable amount away from the Z rod and it's large enough to fit a bowden tube. I use an aluminum extruder gear that fits a bowden tube, so I run a small piece from the filament guide and into the extruder gear. Though I haven't tried without the bowden tube, I'm confident you can just run the filament through the guide and it would still keep the filament comfortably away from the Z rod. Two version are included: one that uses both screws securing the Z rod guide onto the extruder gear platform, and a slimmed down version that only requires one of the two screws. I use the version that only requires one screw, as I don't see a reason to need both, but it's included just the same.