3D Printer Maintenance and cleaning

I have found over the last four years of 3D printing that my printer only really exists in one of two states: Working really well and producing beautiful prints every single time or me hating it so much that I wish I had never bought one.

3D printers are complex and fairly fussy beasts which do like to be treated well and kept well maintained. 

Equipment:

Air Duster

Silicone grease

Dry bike lubricant (only if you have an x-axis rod)

Step 1: Clear away all dust and debris using the air duster.  Clear out any dust from the print head fans.  I usually spin the fans up to 100% to check that they are spinning freely and are no obstructions. These can easily get clogged by dirt, dust and bits of filament.

Step 2: Remove all filament and check the extruder to ensure that there isn’t a build up of filament debris on the main gear.  I recently found I was getting inconsistent extrusion and it appears to have come from a build up of muck on the gear.

Step 3: Grease the z-axis rods and move the z-axis to the top and then back down again to ensure a good coverage of grease.

Step 4: At this point I will reload filament and extrude about 50cm of filament to make sure it is all flowing well.

Step 5: I am obsessed with having a level bed so before levelling I use two 15cm 3d printed rectangles to make sure that the x-axis carriage is  level on both sides and make a small manual adjustments of the z-axis.

Step 6: Clean the build plate

Step 7: Clean any remaining filament (carefully) from the nozzle

Step 8: Level the bed manually.

Step 9: Level the bed again!

Step 10: Print a test print. 

 

Test print

License
Test your 3D printer! v2 byctrlVis licensed under theCreative Commons – Attribution – No Derivativeslicense.
 

 

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