A catcher that reaches out over the bed is a bold brief, and the tightest constraint here sits right in the numbers: the Voron Trident has only 1mm of movement outside the print bed. The maker designed the Turd Herder to reach over the bed anyway, and in my eyes that slim margin is what makes or breaks the whole layout. Everything else in the design follows from it.
In use, the toolhead moves across the build volume and docks above a motorized wipe and purge assembly. That assembly actuates beneath the nozzle, the head purges, and the waste is whisked away into a metal collection dish. The dock itself is wired through a multi-pin ribbon connector along with a spring assembly and a microswitch, which looks like careful work.
Plenty of smaller decisions stand out too. The carriage rides on linear rails driven by toothed timing belts. An extruder motor sits at the top of the print head, and a stepper motor is held in a printed bracket. There is a cooling fan and an integrated downward-pointing LED on the head, blue status LEDs on the system, and a feeder built around cardboard spools with PTFE guide tubes. The enclosure uses aluminum extrusions with clear acrylic or polycarbonate side panels, and the custom printed parts come in blue and white.
The obvious trade-off is that 1mm of overhang: my bet is alignment has to be nearly perfect for docking to work every time. As for results, I would call it a viable alternative to the Goose Belt Purger. STLs and STEP files are supplied on a GitHub page, which makes reproducing this approachable for anyone tempted.
Project by Chris Wiken. Watch it on their YouTube channel: