Whilst I was attending TCT today, E3D made an announcement about their new extruder, the E3D Hermes.

They have taken a dual drive extruder and created their own version. How is it different I hear you say? Well…

• All of the gears are metal and fully hardened.
• Each groove in the drive gear is custom milled (they have followed the crowd and announced they were manufactured on a swiss lathe), rather than using a tap.
• There is no lubrication required due to the type of material chosen for the gears and the use of Igus bearings.
• The extruder body is made of aluminium with optimised airflow, allowing for the use of lower powered fans. The airflow is directed upwards and away from the print area.
• A custom nema 17 motor is used. The end caps od a standard nema motor are replaced with custom die cast and machined parts. These allow for the bearing recesses to become part of the motor casing. T-slots have also been machined into the caps to aid in extruder mounting and mounting other objects to the extruder, such as a BLTouch.
• All items that require user interaction are at the top, such as idler tension and release.
• It is smaller than their current titan aero extruders.
• They are following Prusa and will be allowing the QC information of the extruder to be followed all the way through.

The E3D Hermes will be released as a complete package, contain the custom motor, extruder and hot end (including a nozzle, heater cartridge and thermistor).

I know what you’re thinking, this sounds expensive. They have made sure that the extruder can be manufactured using mass manufacturing techniques and have promised a price significantly less than £100.

The most crucial bit of information is when is it available? 4-6 weeks from now. So November.

Pictures of a production prototype and slides from the presentation are below. Ignore the PCB on the extruder, that is a whole other story…