I’m working on some accessories to make maintenancing your CNC machine easier and more straight forward.
I know what i do to maintain my machines, but i wanted to get a more broader understanding of what folks are doing and how I can use our collective power “through” PwnCNC to offer products, instructions or whatever that would make it all easier for us.
Remember that there are tons of folks entering and exiting our hobby all the time. If we can make it easier find information, products, etc… maybe the people entering the hobby will get up to speed faster, and the people exiting will do so for reasons not directly related to the hobby (if that makes sense).
For my Onefinity, I make it a priority to keep the rods and screws as clean as possible, usually after every carve. Sometimes less frequently. I keep a cheap, soft-bristle 2-inch paintbrush nearby just for this. Despite that level of attention, I recently removed the ball screw nuts and, after separating them from the carriages, found a surprising amount of fine dust buildup behind the nuts—just one year after the last cleaning. A quick blast of compressed air, followed by reassembly and oiling of the bearings was pretty easy. Never owning any other types of CNC machines, this is all I have ever done.
That said, it would be helpful to have instructions for checking and cleaning the linear bearing blocks, and any other places, on the Dominator. I’ve heard not only from Onefinity but also from other CNC manufacturers that their bearings have “wipers” designed to keep out dust and debris. But as my experience shows, they don’t fully prevent contamination. At best, they slow it down. Without proper way covers like bellows, fine particles will inevitably find their way into places they shouldn’t.
The wipers are more likely than not dependent on consistent oiling.
My last cnc was a shapeoko 3 with hdz, and the ball screw was siezing because of inadequate oiling of the blocks on the linear rails. Instructions did mention oiling them, but used verbiage that was so bland it made it sound like they don’t need it