Review on Enhanced Aluminum Extruder Replacement by HICTOP by Ricky Habbani

Well I finally got around to installing this and I found that while it looks nice and is stronger than plastic, it's useless! Why? The hole where you insert the thread has a sharp edge on the side facing the reel and will scratch the thread. After printing a few test pieces I got a bunch of filament dust in the feed area where the filament enters the hole. This is bad because changing the filament diameter when printing detailed parts will result in bad prints. Also, the gear is a different diameter, so plan to recalibrate your extruder or you'll end up with under- or over-extrusion. And finally, the spring is not held in place with a strut as in the standard part, but with screws that cannot hold the spring. So as the spring moves or shifts, the pressure changes and your feed changes and with it your extrusion. It's too late for me to return it, so I'm modifying it to work, but don't buy it if you're printing high-resolution, detailed materials.