Posted by: @dustin-anderson

Ofcourse...but that wasn't the point of this thread.

Thanks   Sembazuru for reuploading. 

The OP specifically stated that it was difficult to move the z axis and was saying that the only easy way was to disconnect the trapezoidal nuts, so he had special g code.

I was pointing out to those that might not be aware that there is an easy way.  That's all.  Nothing more, nothing less. 

Thanks   Sembazuru for reuploading. 

AxisLubrication

Sorry for the inconvenience.

So I'm keeping running with semi-frequent application of 3-in-1 oil. I finally decided that instead of manually moving the print head and bed back and fourth (potentially damaging the drivers with the back emf), and moving like that by hand in the z is nearly impossible without disconnecting the trapezoidal nuts from the carriage. So I decided to try hand-coding some gcode files to move each axis to work the newly applied oil into the bearings. The result are these three gcode files (zipped together): AxisLubrication

With the heavy COVID response printing, I'm finding myself in the same situation. This is a very clever and practical solution.

@bobstro If you like these, feel free to add them to the printer maintenance section of your website. An attribution would be nice, but not necessary.

When I get a chance to do an update, I'll add a section on printer maintenance to my COVID printing page and eventually to a maintenance page. I'm more than happy to provide credit and attribution! Thanks for contributing such great ideas.

Each file works an individual axis, and go through the 6 sweeps twice, first at half maximum speed (6000mm/min for x&y, 360mm/min for z), and then at full speed (12000mm/min for x&y, 720mm/min for z). Each set of sweeps starts with a "short wipe" from 0 to by moving "forward" by 10mm and then "backwards" by 5mm, all the way along the axis. The next two movements move back to zero and then back to . The fourth sweep is a similar "short wipe" doing the similar 10mm forward and 5mm backwards going from to 0, again followed by two movements to and back again.

For the x and y axis gcodes all the movements overshoot the printing area by 5mm, so on my printer sometimes the x axis bangs against the right z-axis mount. (Maybe I should reduce the overshoot to 4mm there?) I intentionally didn't overshoot the printing area for the z-axis to avoid smashing nozzles into the print bed (either by a direct negative movement command, or loosing steps because the maximum height overshoot topped out against the brackets before finishing the move).

The x and y axis gcodes only take a couple minutes, but the z axis gcode takes somewhere around 8 minutes. 

I'm releasing these gcode files into the wild for anyone to use and/or abuse, public domain style. I didn't even bother putting an attribution in comments at the start of the files. I did try to write these to easily change the speed by first setting the movement speed and then doing a bunch of moves w/o specifying a speed. This way if one wants to change speeds there is only one line that needs to be modified, not 206 lines (as in the x-axis gcode).

@bobstro If you like these, feel free to add them to the printer maintenance section of your website. An attribution would be nice, but not necessary.