I just use tweezers and a blue flame lighter. Heat it for 5 seconds then put it in the plastic. Then use the back of the tweezers as a flat surface to push it all the way in and level it.

This worked well so far and I really don’t see the need for a special soldering iron bit or a press like this.

I got an Orbiter 1.5 extruder and have been quite happy about it since. These days you’d be better off getting an Orbiter 2. As for the toolhead, there should be Ender 5 compatible mounts available on Printables or Thingiverse, if not you could design your own.

Creality also has its own direct drive, the Sprite Pro. That may be worth looking in to as well.

You can import a STEP model of both the Ender 5 and whatever mod you want to make to it and model your toolhead around it, that is what I did with the Mercury One project.

It’s worth the effort imo.

It’s not bad I would say. Right now I’m making a dedicated CNC for these kind of things and have the 3D printer just 3D print.

Here’s an example of a result from the laser cutter attachment.

And here’s a result of the plotter addon:

I have made something similar before for my Ender 5:

https://www.printables.com/model/1071387-ender-5-x-mgn12-detachable-toolhead-3d-print-laser

It’s definitely possible and the biggest challenge is making gcode that is compatible with Marlin. I’ve tried using gcode substitution commands in Prusaslicer as well as programs like FlatCAM and gotten good results out of it. You could indeed just tape it to the toolhead and set your home coordinates manually.

Try reading the gcode it produces. For cutting it should only have G1 X Y Z commands but it relies on a set home position.

You can set the home position in Marlin using G92 X0 Y0 Z0 and the run the gcode from there.

Indeed I’d have to play with the distance between the printed plastic and the nozzle as well as air pressure, otherwise it’s a silly string machine. But that seems to be the easy part.

Well. I didn’t mean if part cooling was even necessary at all. Of course it is when printing anything with overhangs. I wanted to replace blower fans with a small compressor on the side of the 3D printer.

Nice, that is indeed what I meant. Recently I’ve designed a new toolhead for a 3D printer but have just used blower fans and fan ducts like any other toolhead but while designing I wondered if more weight/volume could be removed without losing functionality.

That there is precedence makes me want to design another version of the toolhead.