did you get it fixed man? i never heard of an estep issue before... sounds software.. i'd download the firmware from creality, put it on a clean sd, put it in the printer and turn it on. the firmware will automatically load right away on its own. wait for it to restart pull out the sd and level your bed and z axis like you would do if it was brand new.
and keep that shorter tube around after you replace it, it's nice to have an old one you don't care about to clean out the hot end now and again.
i've always assumed thats how you were supposed to do it... when i tried to switch filament cold the first time it wouldn't move so i just figured it had to be hot. and yeah, high temp too... figure the different types of filament melt together and make an alloy of some type so i always put it at high temp and manually turn the extruder to pump out all the mixed colors and types before moving on to the print. but i think i'm the only one here with a knob on their extruder so it's ez for me to say i manually push the filament through...
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and i've heard that the metal fittings are the best, i don't think i can use them though. i bought metal ones with an official bowden tube (my printer came with a softer generic white ptfe tube ) and it came with the fittings but both my hotend and extruder have the fitting molded in as part of it so there are no threads to put the better fittings..
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back when i thought the extruder skipping was an extruder problem i bought a replacement and that has threads so i can put the metal fitting on one end but my hotend is still molded all as one.
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do we have different hotends?
i know our extruders are different but i wasn't sure on the hot side...
my replacement didn't really fit perfect, the fins were wider on the replacement and they touched the plastic fan housing so i hit the fins a little with my bench grinder and made it the same size as the oem.
i have yet to find any replacement parts that are identical to my neo. seems everything i find is for an ender 3 v2. and not the neo version. it's ok though i've come to the realization that everything i buy must be reengineered to hold up to what it it supposed to do anyway so the printer is no exclusion.