E3D’s New Cyclops and Chimera Extruders Now Available For Pre-order

If any of you are into building or revamping your own 3D printers, then you have likely stumbled upon the England-based company E3D. The company has prided themselves on the development of high end, all-metal extruders and hotends. When the extruder is the most important component of an FFF/FDM 3D printer, a company like E3D can mean the difference between average or poor print quality and superior, flawless fabrication.

Back in October, we gave you all a sneak peek into a new extruder that E3D had been working on, called the Cyclops. E3D had been testing the functionality and decided to release a few images of this exciting upcoming product. Here we are a month later and the company has made significant progress on both the Cyclops, as well as a new extrusion product they call the Chimera.

E3D Chimera Extruder:
This is an all-metal extruder which is basically a combination of the company’s E3D-v6 and the Kraken. The Chimera is basically a high end dual extrusion system, utilizing two interchangeable nozzles which allow for the printing of two different filaments within a single project. It’s a simple solution for getting the performance of two E3D-v6 hotends in a single compact package. The Chimera is able to level itself and utilize either of the two hotends without the common issues such as dragging and dripping that you likely would see with other dual extrusion setups. This extruder is simple, efficient, and easy to mount and maintain. Because of its modular nature it is upgradable, and should anything ever go wrong, it’s extremely easy to fix.

The Chimera also uses the company’s new milled heatsinks, which are able to accept two heatbreaks, and cools them both with a 30mm fan. The footprint of the heatsink is just 30 x 18mm, with incredible efficiency. This product is priced at just £70.00 (approximately $110), and can be pre-ordered immediately for shipment in early 2015.

E3D Cyclops Extruder:
The Cyclops is probably one of the more exciting extruders coming from E3D. As we mentioned last month, this extruder has a single hotend but is able to print using two different filaments. The Cyclops takes in two different filaments at once, and then allows for the switching between the two inputs within the extruder itself, prior to releasing it via a single hotend. Because of this unique setup, oozing problems related to the switching of filaments are almost completely eliminated, and surprisingly there is very little mixing that takes place at the switch-over point.  As you can see from the images within this article, complex color switching is very possible, with little to no noticeable flaws.

Like the Chimera, the Cyclops takes advantage of the same new heatsink, meaning that it’s relatively easy to convert a Chimera into a Cyclops, and vice-versa. The company is making a ‘Legendary Kit’ available which allows for this easy conversion. This Cyclops Extruder is also available immediately for pre-ordering at a discounted price of £80.00 (approximately $125) because the company still views this as an ‘experimental’ product.Like the Chimera, the Cyclops will also begin shipping early next year.

Let’s hear your thoughts on E3D’s new extruders in the E3D Chimera & Cyclops forum thread on 3DPB.com. Checkout the promotional video below provided by E3D: