Bowden questions

I see no need to use gears at all.  Here's a picture of my cyclops running two Bowdens that I made quickly from modified MK-5's with stock SD extruder motors and Hobbed gears.

I have since changed them to feed from the bottom and out the top to reduce the tubing length.
I also purchased from Filastruder the E3d Hobbed Goblin drive gear and installed them.  They are smaller in diameter and have much more aggressive teeth.  I have been very happy with the setup and have had no problems.  Just increase retraction distance and speed until there's no blobbing or stringing.

Thanks for all the info (though I still have no idea exactly how the pneumatic push fit connectors actually work :-). Good to know that direct drive works well - I can avoid worrying about gears (at least at first), and direct drive is much simpler.

You can build your own Bowden quickly and only need to buy a few things.

1. you need a hot end set up for Bowden.

2. You will need to buy some PTFE tubing for 1.75 filament. http://www.filastruder.com/collections/ … tfe-tubing

3. Two maybe Three Bowden couplings http://www.filastruder.com/collections/ … ded-1-75mm

4. Hobbed Goblin http://www.filastruder.com/collections/ … drive-gear

The rest you can print yourself using the files attached.  The MK-5 body is modified to accept the coupling for a guide tube but is not required.  Hence the ("two maybe three') statement.
The Guide is also modified to accept the coupling and this makes for a clean tubing flow with your motor mounted on the frame.
This allows for feeding from the top or the bottom depending on your placement of the motor.
The tension arm is modified to work better with the Hobbed Goblin.

Here's a couple pictures to answer your earlier question.

So after you get your Bowden couplings the first thing you will do is take them apart like this.

And then place the insert into the guide like this.  I didn't push it all the way in as they can be difficult to remove.

Then you can do the same to the MK-5 Body like this.

When you are all done you should end up with something that looks like this.

And third times the charm