Re-greasing?

[Daid 306]

I've had my ultimaker for quite a while now, and it's still printing fine. But I get the feeling that there isn't enough grease on the rods any more. I know for certain that my cat has been sitting in it, and brushed the rods cleaner with his fur. So I'm wondering, is there a special type of grease I should use? (I ran out of the green stuff that came with it)

[micha 0]

Hi Daid,

my Ultimaker is not here yet, but I own a CNC.

You will definetely need to regrease it from time to time. I got no special interval for this. As soon as I see, that the spindle gets drier, I put some on it.

If I don't regrease the spindles on the CNC, they tend to block, so this is absolutely neccesary.

Any good machine grease will do, but avoid oil on the spindles. I use mostly a stuff called "Plastilube", don't know, if you can get it at your place.

As there is not much movement on the spindle here, I think once a month of heavy printing, should be ok.

Cheers,

Micha

[ultimate-x 0]

Hi Daid

Don't use grease on the rods! You risk to get high resistance on the rods if there is only a little dust.

I clean the rods about every 20 hours and add only a few drops of high quality silicon oil. Like that it runs as smooth as possible.

Only the lead-screw needs a little grease.

[micha 0]

Yes, no grease on the rods, I was talking of the spindle and screw of the z-axis drive. The rods just need some light oil.

[ddurant 0]

Have you tried running the cat over the rods to regrease them?

[mm_build 1]

So apparently I learn something new every day. I had no idea the rods were not supposed to be greased. I have been greasing mine religiously.

I often lamented at the amount of grease buildup around my rod bushings. And how quickly the rods seized up (started jittering) when the grease got low.

So now, any suggestions moving forward? Clean it and let it run dry?

[ddurant 0]

So apparently I learn something new every day. I had no idea the rods were not supposed to be greased. I have been greasing mine religiously.

I often lamented at the amount of grease buildup around my rod bushings. And how quickly the rods seized up (started jittering) when the grease got low.

So now, any suggestions moving forward? Clean it and let it run dry?

I'm still using the grease that came with my bot. Do they no longer ship that?

I've learned that just a tiny bit will do. When I started, I tended to put a blob on and let the sliding blocks spread it out and that led to buildup. Now, I spread it out (fairly) evenly with my finger - with a little practice, it's easy to tell which bits are lubed and which need a bit more.

[Daid 306]

Have you tried running the cat over the rods to regrease them?

Cats have a tendency to clean themselfs, so the cat is no longer greasy

And yes, the kits still come with grease, but I ran out. (Also because I had to clean cat hairs of just about any part and then I greased those again) I'll see if I can get some silicon oil.

[ultimate-x 0]

So apparently I learn something new every day. I had no idea the rods were not supposed to be greased. I have been greasing mine religiously.

I often lamented at the amount of grease buildup around my rod bushings. And how quickly the rods seized up (started jittering) when the grease got low.

So now, any suggestions moving forward? Clean it and let it run dry?

In my experience it's best to clean the rods once with alcohol. Don't let them run completely dry. Use just some drops of high quality silicone oil. I got my oil in a rc hobby shop.

[polymorph 1]

The grease that comes with it is Magnalube-G, a PTFE (ie, teflon) general purpose grease for automotive and motorcycle use.

Amazon has it, best deal without breaking the bank is the grease gun tubes, or one pint can. $12.99 for one 14.5 oz, or $23.99 for two 14.5 oz grease gun tubes, or $13.99 for a 1 pint (16 oz) can. You should barely be using any. Too much grease just gets pushed out of the way, and promotes the build-up of dust and hair.

Careful with oils - you don't want to get them on the wood as it will soak in and may cause it to swell.

[mm_build 1]

I'm still using the grease that came with my bot. Do they no longer ship that?

I've learned that just a tiny bit will do. When I started, I tended to put a blob on and let the sliding blocks spread it out and that led to buildup. Now, I spread it out (fairly) evenly with my finger - with a little practice, it's easy to tell which bits are lubed and which need a bit more.

I have an older Revision 2 ultimaker, but as far as I know they are still shipping the tube of grease. I have been using a technique like you describe, maybe even putting a little too much, but even so it seems to need re-greasing more often than I would like.

I have cleaned all my rods with alcohol and have now started using 20W silicone oil. So far it seems to be working good, and everyone seems to be saying it works better. I haven't done enough printing yet to really compare, but if it's that much better maybe Ultimaker Team will consider shipping silicone oil instead of grease? It's quite inexpensive too.

[tom 0]

I went to my local rc car hobby shop and they were all out of silicone oil. Once I explained what it was for they suggested gun oil as an alternate solution. It's been working well for me with the benefit of it being fairly cheap and easily found at a wide variety of stores here in Tennessee.