3D printer Lubricant for Z-Lead screws

[ionic jacinth]

I tried getting the good lubricant and it recommended a dry film lubricant so i got this but when i use it my printer starts squeaking again after a bit of printing again. any thoughts or recommendations regarding this?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/296559240724

I apply it when it is running by applying it to the top of the z axis lead screw and letting it drip down the screw and threw the z nut.

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[raw rampart]

wait arent z lead screws supposed to use thick grease generally? could be wrong

and also depends on what printer you have

iirc if you have a pom nut, you shouldnt be using lube? again correct me if i'm wrong but afaik pom is self lubricating enough

[ionic jacinth]

i have a tronxy crux 1 (prusa mini shape)

[ionic jacinth]

oh!

when i was doing research it said i should get a teflon lubricant for it

[ionic jacinth]

thats what i thought for about 3 years of printing

but then it started squeaking a lot

and a black powder was coming off and the tolerances were off and the screw was wiggly on the rod so i replaced the screw

[raw rampart]

i mean tbf im trying to find the source of squeaking for my ender 5. prusa doesnt have squeaking tho

[raw rampart]

hm. and im guessing you cleaned your stuff first

cus like ik on my ender there was a layer of black sludge lmao. i cleaned it off and it seemed to get better but also still kinda squeaky. idk

[raw rampart]

i would think the nut is worn in this case

[ionic jacinth]

yes, i cleaned it really well but it would make more

[raw rampart]

just because usually the nut is the sacrificial part i think (pom and brass are softer than steel)

[ionic jacinth]

hmm, interesting 🤔

[raw rampart]

but the ender has a brass nut so

i have a newer bersion with the t8x4 screw

fyi

[ionic jacinth]

mine is also a brass nut

[ionic jacinth]

i agree

the new nut was a lot better and i saw a quality increase 🫣

crazy how doing maintenence helps lmao

so then for my printer i should use a thick grease?

[raw rampart]

probably yea for the z axis

it needs to spread and stay on the screw afaik

im not really the expert on maintenance cus i dont give my printers the tlc they deserve 😅 most of the time im abusing them with like 40mm/s z axis moves

[ionic jacinth]

that makes sense

[ionic jacinth]

thats on a delta right

right???

[raw rampart]

nope

actually got it up to 60mm/s on z for my ender 5

[ionic jacinth]

👻

[raw rampart]

which... im really shocked that the motor got that fast

thats 15 rotations per second 😅 on the stock creality 34mm motor

[ionic jacinth]

oh my gosh

[raw rampart]

at 24V on marlin

[ionic jacinth]

thats kinda scary ngl

why would u even need to do that?

[raw rampart]

at like 0.4A or smth also i think

[raw rampart]

just looks cool. The z assembly on the ender 5 with the cantilever is way too floppy for anything tho

[ionic jacinth]

mmm, mhm, i was wondering how it stood up if u were putting any filament down

wow, very nice 😎

[raw rampart]

honestly i placed my ipad on the ender 5 z axis and the assembly deflected like a fraction of a mm

so im redesigning the z axis so its supported front and back ish

[ionic jacinth]

ah, wow, thats pretty good especially bc it's not built for anything like that lol

[raw rampart]

might end up really overconstrained cus im pretty terrible at design

[raw rampart]

eh ipads not that heavy so its not great

[ionic jacinth]

is it really that bad if it works tho 🤷

[raw rampart]

basically its bad enough that printing fast on xy can cause thenz axis to resonate and cause bumps which grow in magnitude, leaving a very wavy surface

[raw rampart]

i mean ig time will tell. im thinking of 1204 ballscrews from china cus going overkill for no reason in particular lol

and then like smoll motors but two of them. means my max velocity won't be 60mm/s anymore, but I think I can trade that for a not floppy z axis lol

[ionic jacinth]

mmmm, mhm, that makes sense

[ionic jacinth]

hehehe, very nice 😎

[ionic jacinth]

is there ever a reason to go overkill other than because yes :)

[ionic jacinth]

lol, is it better to have something slow that works than something that doesn't work

[raw rampart]

yea true. I'm thinking based on my experience with a sovol sv06, the max speed will be around 20mm/s

i could also do something stupid and use a pulley ratio of 1:2 to make my ball screws rotate twice per rotation of motor

bad ideas

i just thought of a really dumb way to remove z wobble

[ionic jacinth]

ah, kk, thats still pretty decent

[ionic jacinth]

hehehe

do it

[raw rampart]

if you instead of spinning the ballscrew, you spin the nut with a motor (meaning the motor is mounted to the bed assembly)

rigidly mount the ballscrews to a base plate

which is mounted on linear rails so that it has 2 axes of freedom (x and y)

[ionic jacinth]

oh my 🫢

i've never seen anything like that b4 thats fs

how would u transfer power to the nut?

[raw rampart]

way more overcomplicated than like miragec's wobblex and completely unnecessary and probably also flawed in so many way

[raw rampart]

so the nut has mounting holes

you can connect a belt to a motor to the nut

i think some industrial machines do this if theyre really big because the inertia of spinning the nut is far less than the entire screw

besides, at large scale, screw whip becomes a major issue, and I think this reduces that?

ok im talking about an area i know nothing about so take what i say with a grain of salt

[ionic jacinth]

haha, nw at all

thats honestly a really fun idea

[ionic jacinth]

that makes a lot of sense

[raw rampart]

instead of moving the nut to compensate, we're just moving the screw

[ionic jacinth]

instead of thinking outside the box, just spin the box

[raw rampart]

and praying that the other parts of the motion system constrain the xy lol of the bed

[raw rampart]

LMAO thats one way to put it i suppose

[ionic jacinth]

mmm, yes, i hope so

that would be hard to add additional control if it didn't

[raw rampart]

yea

cus i've been mulling over this spin the nut idea for a couple days for an XY system possibly, but I don't think its practical for anything except for like extremely large machines

where belts are too springy and spinning screws has too much whip or inertia

i mean its really not super feasible for standard leadscrews in XY cus backlash

so ball screws would make sense here

[ionic jacinth]

yea, i think it could still be really cool tbh

[ionic jacinth]

but y do what makes sense why u could dive into rabbit holes that let u learn a palethora of new things ✨

[raw rampart]

i could see a use for it in a z axis, but that would mean your motors would be in an enclosure if you have one

[raw rampart]

i mean i've been hyperfixated on trinamic driver like parameters

like i spent way too much time readin gthe datasheet for tmc2130s for stealthchop

just to see how i can remove clicking at velocity changes (i don't have hybrid threshhold on i have no clue what causes the clicks)

etc

messing with forward controlled voltage mode

and I legit do not understand a single thing, but I can't seem to find that much info about this

other than people saying not to use stealthchop, which understandable its not as accurate

but like upon reading and experimenting, i find stealthchop has the same performance on my prusa as spreadcycle while being completely silent at some velocities

can do 8k accels 400mm/s

above 300mm/s it goes silent

and below around 40-50 mm/s its also silent

[ionic jacinth]

wow, thats really interesting

[ionic jacinth]

thats not very fun when people respond with that if u alr know and you're just trying to mess around and do smth goofy

[ionic jacinth]

do that for ur z axis!

[raw rampart]

i wish lmao...

400mm/s z axis with leadscrew would be crazy

[ionic jacinth]

that would be genuinly insane...

i wouldn't be able to watch

[raw rampart]

i think the only thing that would allow that is like an AC servo on a 1610 ball screw or something

and im not about to cough up $200 for one of the cheaper models of those

[ionic jacinth]

awe, shucks

[ionic jacinth]

that would be quite the fun build

[raw rampart]

although... imagine the LDO speedy powers as servos

[ionic jacinth]

lmao, that would be so cutesy ✨

[raw rampart]

i mean tbf if we trust 2.5A rating,,, that means peak of 120W at 48V

[ionic jacinth]

hmm, i mean, that seems like a fun time

i would hate to burn through one lol

[raw rampart]

i mean i've been mucking around with coolstep and it still runs kinda hot tho

don't think its set up right at all, or even working

wish i had a oscilloscope to check it with

[ionic jacinth]

hmmm

water cool it :)?

[raw rampart]

i mean the premise is that with coolstep on, i should be running my sovols motors at lowest at 0.25A and under load they should peak at 1A

don't knkow if thats actually happening lol

i just know that theyre torquey

[ionic jacinth]

mmm, mhm

[raw rampart]

i mean honestly the motor temp doesn't get like plastic melting hot

[ionic jacinth]

that would be a really cool side project

[raw rampart]

its just pretty toasty i'd say slightly above 50C

[raw rampart]

too many ideas 😭

[ionic jacinth]

SO REAL

yes

lmao

especially with full time uni, yea

[ionic jacinth]

mmm, a nice hand warmer 😌

[raw rampart]

oof

[raw rampart]

i ran the extruder motor at 2A once to unclog something I think... it worked out somehow iirc

[ionic jacinth]

it got like 3 degrees cooler than that in california a few different days last summer!

[raw rampart]

instantly went from normal temp to insanely hot tho

its like a tiny pancake stepper

[raw rampart]

danggg

[ionic jacinth]

mmm, thats not good

[ionic jacinth]

hehe :)

[raw rampart]

i think here in canada it went somewhere in the 30s... one year it went to 42C i think tho

[ionic jacinth]

mmm, that is quite warm

ight, i gtg get back to studying for finals, thanks for the chat and help!