Lithium Grease

[milp]

Hi there,

As a mechanic (call me greasemonkey if you want ) i couldn't resist and put a bit of lithium grease on all the cheapskate roll paths and the u joint friction surfaces on my rostock max v2 (having trouble finding the right words for this, i hope you get what i mean). I had one of those CV Joint Grease Packs left that you get with automotive drive shaft repair kits and filled that into a syringe (very useful around the household)

Of course there is no grease at or anywhere near the belt drive! Only on cheapskate rolls and the u joints.

Now I'm kinda wondering if this was the right thing to do. Does the plastic used in the cheapskate rolls or in the ujoints and such take damage from being exposed to lithium grease?

[Nylocke]

Do you have the Acetal joints or the old aluminum ones? The arms are Nylon, so they are pretty chemical resistant. The U-joints and bearing covers are both acetal, and I think they should be fine. You shouldn't have to lubricate either of them though as they are very low friction as is.

[milp]

I remember the manual saying something about acetal joints and acetal bearing covers. I noticed a little play from the delta arms (though the machine prints pretty well) and the manual said to add lithium grease, so i thought i might aswell lubricate all the friction surfaces in question. Just like how i added tons of passive cooling to all the steppers.

So the arms are nylon? Because two of them broke over the course of my history of failures and i used my soldering iron at 230° together with some spare ABS filament to repair them. Works pretty well.

[geneb]

Can you point out specifically WHERE it said to add lithium grease? For the acetal u-joints it shouldn't be needed. Either I missed a spot or you built with an old manual.

g.

[milp]

Can you point out specifically WHERE it said to add lithium grease? For the acetal u-joints it shouldn't be needed. Either I missed a spot or you built with an old manual.

g.

there:

Another issue that will cause the problems shown above is known as “The Delta Arm Blues”.
What happens is that one or more of the delta arm joints have a little bit of extra friction to them. When
the delta platform changes direction, this tiny amount of drag will cause a positioning error resulting in
the infill not completely meeting the perimeter. If you're seeing this kind of issue and your belts are in
good shape, it's time to test each u-joint for fit. If you've got a tight u-joint even after applying a TINY
amount of lithium grease or dry lubricant to it, you may have an axle problem. Contact SeeMeCNC
support for further direction.

Page 264, manual 2nd edition

Edit:

I additionally greased those cheapskate driveways, took a quick snapshot from my printer cam:

https://i.imgur.com/VLze0A8.jpg

I know the glassplate looks weird, a tiny bit of cleaning alcohol creeped under the borosilicate plate.

[mhackney]

Yeah, that is antiquated information. I have a Rostock V1 (early model) and coined the Delta Arm Blues. I used lithium grease on these joints, it is no longer needed.

NEVER on the bearing covers though! No lubrication whatsoever on the tower tracks and bearing covers - that is a recipe for picking up grit that will translate to issues in your prints. Please do yourself a favor and remove the grease from the towers!

[JFettig]

Gene, you should really edit the first post of the old manual thread pointing them to the new one! I got messed up right away when I was building mine too, grabbed the wrong manual and noticed all kinds of discrepancies. Also, Matter Hackers linked to the old one i believe.

[milp]

Yeah, that is antiquated information. I have a Rostock V1 (early model) and coined the Delta Arm Blues. I used lithium grease on these joints, it is no longer needed.

NEVER on the bearing covers though! No lubrication whatsoever on the tower tracks and bearing covers - that is a recipe for picking up grit that will translate to issues in your prints. Please do yourself a favor and remove the grease from the towers!

Damn, why didn't i think of that.

Thank you. I removed it.

[geneb]

I'm going to leave the bit in the manual for now. I'm in the middle of a huge overhaul of the Orion manual (MatterControl goodies) and I'll beat up on the Rostock MAX v2 manual after that. There's a number of things I want to revisit in the v2 manual.

I'll do some digging and clean out links today. Thanks for pointing that out.

g.