I spent entirely way too much time trying to get one of these style extruders on my Ender 3. Maybe I picked a knock off without realizing it, maybe mine was just defective, I’m not entirely sure.
But it was ultimately the cause for my printer underextruding on certain layers. If you need a new extruder, go for something better than these cheap $20 ones and get an actually decent one.
But on the bright side, my printer is finally fixed! It feels nice to be able to get back into the hobby again.
I’m a fan of Trianglelab’s DDB V2.1. Sure it’s fundamentally a clone, but at least they’ve made some improvements to it, and the original is really not worth the price Bondtech is charging for it.
It’s a lot stronger than the Creality extruder and the single gear “all metal” red extruder, which makes extrusions more consistent. It can also print somewhat flexible filaments, at least if you slow down a little.
There are of course better and lighter extruders out there, but the DDB has the advantage that it can be used as a drop-in replacement on Enders etc., and if you want to mod the printer in the future it’s compatible with most custom designs.