I've been using the linear rail version of this since June. I love that it ships with a fan shroud it has held up well to the regular 250c nozzle temps I use. It took me some time to get it fully dialed in, but since then it has worked flawlessly.

I mostly print with PETG, but when I print with flexibles like 95A TPU it is far less likely to spaghetti the filament like my original MS DD's have a tendency to do.

One recommendation I have is to find and print a small knob for the motor, it will make loading filament a piece of cake.

This is the knob I used: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4724475 I would recommend printing at x/y: 100.5% scale

Yet another fantastic product from Micro Swiss!

As I only spent $275 on this machine several years ago, and it was used, I was reticent to spend a lot of money on upgrades. It had all the usual mods already done to it when I bought it, Capricorn tubing, yellow bed springs, all metal hotend, dual drive extruder, etc...
I was more than happy with it's PLA performance, but never had any luck with other filament types.
I bit the bullet after pulling the machine out of retirement and now I am wondering why I didn't do this upgrade earlier. PETG just requires the temperature adjusted to suit, ABS is printing fine, I am just having minor adhesion issues (or it is a bad batch) and TPU is a joy to print, again with adjusted temperatures.
To say that I am more than happy with this one upgrade is an understatement, it is like it is a new machine again.
Now I am thinking about my CR10 v2, but that is still working fine as a bowden setup. When it starts playing up.......................

Some concerns at spending a third the cost of my E3V2 on a component, but after 18 hours of PETG printing - very pleased.

My first foray in direct-drive printing, but very pleased with the consistency and stability of this extruder. I have printed laptop stands for colleagues, with each print taking around 3 hours to complete. After settling on the design, I have now printed six copies of the same file. Each copy looks exactly the same as its predecessor, which is why I say this extruder's stability is impressive. Also impressive is the design, to my mind innovative!

I look forward to trying ABS and TPU, I'm sure this extruder will do just fine. My suggestion after printing with this extruder - follow the install instructions closely! I deviated from 400steps/mm (tried 405) and through tuning ended up coming back to this setting, at least for the PETG filament I was using. I also stayed with the 1.0mm retraction setting and this also seems to work well. Definitely less PETG stringing with this extruder than with the stock E3V2, its made me like PETG even more (again) as an all-round functional print material.

I also suggest following the tech tips for loading and unloading filament. That is for loading - run the extruder while feeding in the filament. This worked better for me than just trying to push it in while releasing the idler-arm. Also, with filament removal, push through 10mm of filament first and then quickly extract the filament to prevent it sticking as its withdrawn.

Last tip/thought. I didn't like having the mass of a filament spool rattling around on the top of my printer (plus wanted to keep my filament sealed in a dryer). This extruder has no problems pulling filament through a Bowden tube allowing side-feeding of filament from a dryer.

When I can get the filament to load, it prints quite nicely. However, the hassle of loading filament is more than I can bear. It just doesn't want to take the filament and I end up breaking the end off multiple times before I can finally get it to accept the filament.

Dont expect the fan shroud to hold up when printing ABS. It sags past the printhead and will bottom out on the bed, taking the print with it. Its only good for PLA/PETG which makes it useless for me. Spending as much money as i spent on the extruder on getting the shroud printed in a material that will withstand a bed temperature over 90 degrees is a let down.
The literature from MS makes no note of this and should be updated to reflect the fan shroud's short comings.