Kobra 3 8-color PTFE tube and cable management upgrade

The best 8-in-1 hub design I could find uses a square hole pattern, as does TonyP’s gimbal. However, I couldn’t find a good guide for organizing the PTFE tubes and printhead cable, so I designed one that arranges all eight PTFE tubes in a circle around the cable. Then, my OCD kicked in, and I ended up redesigning both the gimbal’s ball and the 8-in-1 hub to match. While I was at it, I angled the PTFE tubes slightly inward toward the hub’s outlet, which seems to eliminate the need for printing at 0.12mm layer height or lower to prevent jamming. You’ll still need to use the original mount from TonyP’s gimbal design.

For the guide and hub, I used standard Anycubic Slicer settings. However, since the ball is quite small and the holes are closer to the perimeter, minor adjustments are needed to avoid unfilled gaps in the top layer. Setting all line widths (except infill) to 0.4mm results in a clean print.

After printing, run a 4mm drill bit through all the holes in the gimbal and hub. The elephant’s foot effect can create a tight fit, potentially deforming the PTFE tubes in your filament path.

Looking at those zoomed in pictures, I obviously need to figure out something with my top layer. The red looks stringy and like it is not adhering well, I dehydrated them before printing, so maybe my flowrate is off? Guess that is “next”.

TonyP's gimbal https://www.printables.com/model/1205577-anycubic-koba-3-ptft-9tube-x-axis-gimbal-mount