Lubrication is an interesting topic. If you read through all the so-called “expert” online information and then verify it yourself, you’ll likely reach the same conclusion I did—people overthink this stuff.
The Bambu Wiki is in a class of its own and stands apart as arguably the best documentation ever written for a complex consumer product. Those who know me as a frequent critic of Bambu will understand that I give credit where credit is due.
However, aside from the sound advice it gives you, after owning my P1P for the last two years and having learned what’s important as far as print results go, I can emphatically state that if it is not broken don’t fix it!!! The monthly maintenance as far as cleaning the rods and screws is a sound idea, I have seen the results for myself. Apart from that, anything more is like changing your engine oil every 1,000 miles when the manufacture suggest every 3,000 miles. There’s a point of diminishing returns and one could do more damage than good.
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Personal analysis and my experience on lubrication and maintenance
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If you can understand who Bambu is then it may help. Bambu’s success stems from ex-DJI(the guys who make drones) robotics engineers who leveraged their mechanical and firmware expertise to develop sensors that enable real-time printer adjustments. Bambu printers became the closest thing to a set-and-forget 3D printing experience, akin to office laser printers, leaving competitors behind in 2023. By 2025, that advantage has been lost as competitors have adopted similar technology—Bambu’s “secret sauce” is no longer unique.
Those who overthink lubrication and other mechanical tweaks, like belt tensioning, are like mechanics stuck tuning carburetors in an era of fuel injection. In the old RepRap days, every printer had to be assembled from parts, and every print required manual tweaks and retuning, much like adjusting engine timing.
Lubrication and false hope
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If you recognize these biases discussed in my observations, it becomes clear that lubrication is another topic that’s been overanalyzed within the online community.
Bambu’s wiki states in multiple places that lubrication is only needed—let’s say around the pulleys—when squeaking occurs. What does that tell you? Much like how digital fuel injection replaced carburetors, Bambu’s logic control compensates for force disturbances due to a lack of lubrication. In other words, it has to be extremely dirty and dry before lubrication makes a difference.
That said, this doesn’t mean neglecting maintenance—just that in this case, less isn’t only more; more can actually be damaging. Excess lubricant can spill onto belts or build surfaces, causing issues. Excess lubricant also attracts dust which printers create a lot of. So more lubricant can lead to more unnecessary need for cleaning.
When we see problems like ringing or banding, the root cause is usually a dirty filament pathway. Lubrication is almost never the issue—in fact, I can’t recall a single instance where it was although I’m sure someone will chime in and say “It happened to me!!!”. Yes, and even a broke clock is correct twice a day. 