I’ve had my Creality CR-6 SE for quite some while now and it’s worked very well. I’ve even moved with it a couple of times. However, it seems that now was the time for it to give up the ghost, as the extruder casing developed a crack. Apparently something not completely uncommon.

The extruder casing removed. The spring is quite powerful.
The crack.

So I searched the internet for spare parts before I realized that this is a common failure mode and that there are all-metal replacements. A few clicks later, I had one ordered from Amazon. I took a chance and ordered one for CR-10, as it looked like it would fit from the photos, and it did (phew). Here is a link to the one I got: link.

The replacement extruder installed.

The installation went smooth. The only tricky part was getting the threads of the screw being pushed by the spring right. The spring is quite strong, so it is really a three hand operation in the area where my fingers have a hard time fitting. Having done that, it seems like it just work straight out of the box.

First print.

The print has been going on for a couple of hours now, and there has been no hickups. Big shout-out to OctoPrint while I’m at it. Being able to keep an eye on things without having to sit next to the printer is just great (and not having to fiddle around with SD-cards is also really nice).