Maintenance - I know, I know, its a dirty word!

[lawson.brian]

Moving on from a philosophy of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" I thought i would ask the question.....

With many linear rails with no lube ports and lots of plastic in a hot chamber I gather there is a need to do some major maintenance at some stage:

i.e pull down, clean and relube the linear rails, check plastics for deformation / delamination.

Looking around, i see different manufacturers with different schedules for rails so throwing this one out there to see how many hours people usually run prior to rail removal, cleaning and re-greasing.

From my detailed research (2 minutes on google):

Prusa on the XL:

The recommended lubrication interval for linear bearings is every 100 km (62.1 miles) or every 3–6 months, whichever comes first.

Ultimaker:

Factor 4 - Maintenance schedule

Every 6 months (or 1500 printing hours)

 

This goes against my last printer philosophy of; when it prints like crap and you cannot find the problem throw it away and buy another one.... but it was a couple of ender 3's.

 

 

 

 

[TitusADuxass]

I have just had to replace the X rail on my vz330, I have no idea how many hours of printing it had.

I think the quality of the supplied rail was not the best, I have replaced it with a higher quality rail.

I have also moved away from greasing the rails, I now oil them with bicycle chain lube.

I found that the grease was not allowing the bearings to travel around the rail saddle, I suspect the the balls were not even rotating in the saddle.

The rail movement certainly felt it was running on rough surfaces (flat balls).

[PFarm]

7 minutes ago, TitusADuxass said:

I have also moved away from greasing the rails, I now oil them with bicycle chain lube.

I've used chain lube on the Trident step motor lead screws when I assembled it. I like the idea of using it on the rails. 

[Penatr8tor]

I'm using gun oil.

I had the same issue as @TitusADuxass but I just cleaned the rail. For me It was only the top "X" rail.

I put some of the oil in a little squeeze bottle with a hypo tube tip. A few tiny drops in the rail grooves and it's good for another month or so or until it makes enough noise to alert me.

Of course, if you're hanging out on a live stream with Nero or Modbot or Steve Builds and ask that question you'll get attacked by the people that think you should completely disassemble the rails, clean everything in acetone and fill the carriage with special Mobil 1 grease and then carefully inserting each ball one at a time, blah, blah, blah, craziness.

The thing to remember is this... The linear rails have a re-circulating system of balls and if you pack them in with thick grease... You diminish the ability of the balls to re-circulate around the track. 

[claudermilk]

In Nero's defense, he did mention a while back that he doesn't bother with that any more. Now he just squirts in that spray lube & calls it a day now. I did pull my carriages off and jammed grease in--but didn't disassemble the things. I haven't touched them since and they are working fine.

My maintenance so far has just been periodically checking screw and belt tightness. And fixing stuff that's broken or obviously worn out.

[Penatr8tor]

1 hour ago, claudermilk said:

My maintenance so far has just been periodically checking screw and belt tightness. And fixing stuff that's broken or obviously worn out.

Yup, Same here.

I did some research a while back on the Misumi web site. They're one of the industry leaders in linear motion for production level machinery and they recommend either oil or light grease so it's really a pick your poison kind of thing. All lubricants contain esters and other hydrocarbons that can and will evaporate over time, especially in environments with elevated temperatures. The problem with grease evaporating is that it will leave solids behind where oil won't, I mean oil will leave some solids behind, just not as much as grease will.

[kharrisma]

Main point of using a thicker-bodied lubricant like grease is so it'll stay where you put it, particularly in areas that get warm/hot.  Other than that there's no particular advantage to grease over oil.   I prefer the thinnest lubricant that will do the job, and not drip out in use.  I use a 'gun oil' made by Hoppes #9 that works wonderfully; comes in small plastic bottle with a 1.5" blunt-tipped needle.  I use it on all my "delicates."   

https://www.amazon.com/Hoppes-Lubricating-14-9-Precision-Bottle/dp/B0013R67A6/ref=sr_1_2?crid=Z56ZNNH85SD6&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.xCHznjiuFommv9HF5neiibPJaW1n5PS-05vCWlMBEOaoiP_J-5i4QG0rWmF57ve22LeRzpXJMmu6Z6wLKqVXBxYXLl56mHt4ZTsE4jQCBzr2_MZNTxQiJHy82BKtbi9Y7PO9iew6522jfj_dF8TmADWRxsD-Sj8t8-p48l0V-Ub2S7EhBLXShMrnlbq7zUy9pl_uWFN2lZpM-RbYDCXsic37QBEobhzZXqxqoKKd0sc92Sgn3HupcLiGFUSPVzCzwiRHsalQRmd0wY33X6lOQJIucwP_JlvxJ-KTawe-tUX0I0y78Qige8qxOLqPRUnVTQMpWUP1d8NwrqYYMfnp59eDOZgps4GmseJ2OuCXvjBhX3nWEdckq2glRjPGBATVHfSKk-g9k_pBNThdxrrIGguCOvY2ycUopDSBZu4rahmVjt5ngeY22qCXKbS58P-H.5odci1e4n4zyLG-gpQgsqpkRfXNaY5S6ZsfOsi7oAX0&dib_tag=se&keywords=Hoppes%2B%239%2Blubricant&qid=1743021715&sprefix=hoppes%2B9%2Blubricant%2Caps%2C151&sr=8-2&th=1

Tri-Flow's not a bad alternative; a little goes a long way, as it's continually re-distributing itself as it runs.  Claims to be good from minus 60 to 475 F.  We used to use it for carousel basket-carrier rollers, which is a pretty heavy load; half a dozen squirts and the machine was good for at least three months, and a 3D printer is hardly a heavy-load situation.  

[sleepster217]

My rails have the greese ports on them but I have also seen a mod that u drill through the extrusion and insert a longer m3 bolt with a hole through it and then position the carriage over the bolt and then use a syringe to squrt greese into the carriage. I am using the mobil lithium greese and just lube them when I rember to about every 6 months but mine is still a new ish build as for stripping it down I don't have the time for that then having to rest everything yeah NO!

[SuperBoppy]

I like the gun oil idea. I assume it can be applied without disassembling the rails. I have needle applicators to use the oil with. If you tip the rail upside down there are gaps between the rail and carriage where the oil could be applied to the bearings. Is this the best way to apply? 

[Penatr8tor]

9 minutes ago, SuperBoppy said:

I like the gun oil idea. I assume it can be applied without disassembling the rails. I have needle applicators to use the oil with. If you tip the rail upside down there are gaps between the rail and carriage where the oil could be applied to the bearings. Is this the best way to apply? 

Yup, you assume correctly...

All you need to do is stick the tube from you oil bottle. in the groove of the rail and apply a few drops. Capillary action will suck the oil into the groove and when the balls run over the oil it will get distributed. You can just move the toolhead by hand to distribute. And of course, wipe off any excess from the flat surfaces, plus a lite oil coating prevents oxidation/rust.

FWIW... My Voron 2.4 just turned 3 years old, and I've easily run 10+ miles of filament thru it. One can only guess how much distance the rail carriages have travelled... All on light gun oil.

You can also pick up some of the little bottles on Amazon for cheap.

[lawson.brian]

Thanks for all of the great ideas!

I had a good look at the inside of a spare rail carriage and, as @Penatr8tor said, some oil or light grease in the rail groove should do the trick.

For the main X rail I may still pull it after 1,000 hours and give it a clean as it is the rail with a lot of twisting forces on it so worth a good once-over after it has been run in.