I’ve dealt with carbon components quite a bit, not that much though in terms of moving parts.
In the past, especially for my carbon fiber fishing rods I use polishing wax as for car paint on those joints.
That was to both seal the surface and to provide a smoother surface to get a longer service life.
For our printers though I seem to get, how shall I say it?
Conflicting info on the Bambu pages…
We shall clean the rods more or less often in order to remove dust, mainly that fine carbon dust.
But in the same articles it is also stated that the drive system RELIES on this carbon for lubrication.
YES, carbon as in GRAPHITE powder is classified as a lubricant, but not dust resulting from grinding carbon fibers and the resin binding it.
As we have a belt system it can only be rollers moving on those rods and those bearings should be sealed - to prevent dust and other things from entering.
Excessive rod wear and a lack of cleaning will result in stuff building up on these rollers.
Can anyone please make clear whether these rods suffer from wear and tear and if this wear and tear is somehow able to provide lubrication ???
Because if not then I would rather properly seal my carbon rods than to see them slowly turning into dust and requiring a complex and probably costly replacement job.
I could imagine that something like wax while great for hinges might impose too much resistance for the fast movement of the printer. I took away that I should not treat the carbon rods with anything but just swipe them with a dry cloth from time to time. Didn’t question that any further.
I don’t hink that bearings are rollers but some kind of dry gliding bearings, but that is just a guess of course.
After first 2 weeks of printing I used only IPA to clean the rods. There was some black dust on towel. My idea was to check if there will be some difference if I use some lubricant. So I use silicon/teflon lubricant. Just put it a little on towel and rubbed it on the rods. Rods changed color to darker. After another 2 weeks of printing there is almost no trace on white towel. But what is most important, the head moves much quieter, just after application.
That’s not my yellow hilighting. It is Bambu Labs’s highlighting. It’s your printer. Makes no difference to me whether you do or you don’t. Just pointing it out. If the graphite is a lubricant, I never quite understood why we’re advised to remove it during routine maintenance. Does it get fouled or something? I suppose if there were too much of it then it might start falling off onto your prints, making a mess of things. Just my wild guess though. Maybe the reason is something else altogether.
I guess things are simply lost in translation and everything black turned into ‘carbon’ .
The bushings in the toolhead supposedly have embedded graphite patches and are self lubricating. The ‘dust’ they refer to is graphite.
Some info on this type of bushing: Exploring the Benefits: Bronze Bushings with Graphite Plugs
Edit:
As to why it’s recommended to clean the rods I assume the idea is not to remove the graphite dust but to get rid of the sticky condensation film that builds up e.g. when printing ABS.
I bet you’re right, because on a couple of occasions the printer complained that the rods were binding or something and that I had to clean the rods. This happened outside of normal scheduled maintenance.
Now THAT finally starts to make sense!
Graphite patches making sure friction is kept low makes far more sense in terms of cleaning needs than wear and tear on the rods.
Leaves the question though how long these pads last and when the time might come to replace them and how…
Graphite dust neither likes other lubes, nor being removed from spots it filled up to even a surface.
That would only leave hard coatings for those rods, hard enough not to bind the graphite but still flexible enough to not chip.
Does not really leave much, does it…
My rods had 10000+ hours on them when I changed the assembly.
There was nothing wrong with the rods, no play in the bearings. The reason I changed them was to get rid of play in the toolhead chassis.
I didn’t print that much ABS or ASA, though.
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