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…