Genealogy / Archeology of the Greg's Wade's Geared Extruder

In this page I will illustrate (to the best of my knowledge) how the original design for the Wade's geared extruder has evolved in the last few years. Nowadays (early 2015) this extruder design is probably the most popular single extruder design among reprappers worldwide, and it has spawned countless remixes. It would be impossible to account for all the variants of this design available on the web but I will try my best to show its main "evolutionary line".

1st Gen: Wade's original design

This is actually documented right here in the wiki: Wade's_Geared_Extruder and you can find all the files for it on that same page.

Now, I understand that the original Wade's geared extruder from February 2010 is itself an evolution of an earlier extruder design by Adrian Bowyer and also includes many ideas from Nophead's early research on extruders. It seems it was not designed in OpenSCAD and I don't have any information on what CAD program Wade used.

All the files for this early extruder design are still available both here on RepRap.org and also on Thingiverse, however one should note that it has been improved upon. See below.

2nd Gen: (Greg's) Accessible Wade's Extruder

This was published on Thingiverse in February 2011 i.e. about a year after the publication of the original Wade's extruder.

The OpenSCAD source includes references to Josef Prusa's GitHub repository so I imagine the extruder was designed to be used with the Prusa Mendel, at the time the "current" Prusa design.

File header:

// Greg's Wade Extruder.

// It is licensed under the Creative Commons - GNU GPL license.

// © 2010 by GregFrost

// Extruder based on prusa git repo.

// http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6713

About a month later Greg published version 2 of his extruder, which is pictured below:

(add picture)

3rd Gen: Greg's Hinged Accessible Extruder

Greg published the third version of his extruder on Thingiverse in May 2011, about two months after the publication of version 2. The main improvement is of course the addition of a hinged idler, as the name of the thing indicates. This is how Greg describes his improvements:

This is an update to my Accessible Wade's Extruder.

The idler is now hinged using an M3 screw. I have also added support for the central part of the 608 idler so that there is no need to use washers to space the bearing away from the plastic.

I have been using this design for a while now and love it.

Changing filament is a simple as compressing the spring then whipping out the old filament and poking the new one in.

(add picture)

The Thingiverse page shows this design was remixed 29 times!

4th Gen: Gregs's Guidler

In February 2012 Greg came up with a 4th version of his extruder design, published on Thingiverse as "Guidler for a Gregs Wade", although the newly published thing was really a complete extruder.

Now, why did Greg use the word "guidler"? In Greg's own words:

Some minor changes to my filament pusher inspired by Tom's update (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:16928). I have incorporated a filament guide on the idler (and coined the term guidler). I also took his modification so the front bearing doesnt rub and I have included a printed spacer so the bottom bearing doesnt rub either (just insert it before the bearing). I also widened the opening a bit for better access to the hobbing (another of Tom's ideas). I also included one of Triffid Hunter's suggestions to modify the hinge support piece slightly to make it easier to remove.

Thanks Tom and Triffid for the ideas.

(add picture)

This thing was remixed 15 times on Thingiverse and among the remixes we'll find what I consider to be the following "evolutionary step" for this extruder design, Greg's Wade reloaded.

5th Gen: Greg's Wade reloaded

In March 2012, just one month after Greg had published version 4 of his extruder, Jonas Kuehling published his improved version of this extruder design on Thingiverse.