Roland maintenance

[FeLiXXX]

Hi!
I was reading this forum but I cant find any post about how to lubricate plotter.
I just finished cleaning dust from inside of plotter. I clean vents for vacuum and vacuum chamber. There was a lot of dust inside.
Now I have to lubricate and clean gears and head guide. But I don't know with what and how can I remove old grease.
Main problem is that I dont know which grease should I apply to gears and for steel wire.
Does anyone know how to do this?

 

[Autotransmutado]

Hi,

Maintenance in Roland printers usually is done in ink circuit. Mechanical maintenance is not needed and I do not recommend to do it because if you do not do it properly could be worst...
Anyway, if you want go ahead I use sewing machine' oil.

Good luck.

 

[player]

I am not sure if you are supposed to lube the wire...

The carriage rail that the head rides on I know for sure needs to be lubed.

Wipe the rails with a lint free cloth and 99% isopropyl alcohol top and bottom rails. Also clean the head bearings that ride on the rails.

Put the head in cleaning mode, so it is at the far left. Turn the printer off. The head can now be moved by hand back and forth along the rail. Put a small amount of lube (I use a high quality synthetic lube from the hardware store that is very much the colour and consistency of Vaseline) on your finger and wipe it on the rails top and bottom. Manually move the head back and forth over the area that the lube was applied. Continue doing this until the whole rail has been lubed. Move the head back and forth the full length of the rail. Check the rail, the head's bearings and the end of the rail for lube buildup. Wipe off any excess lube you find. Turn printer on and do an enviro match. The printer will dock the head again when you turn it back on. Try to lube the rails efficiently, as the heads are not capped while you are doing this.

There are also gears to lube in behind the head on the scan motor, (that wind up the cable) as well as some exposed gears on the pump. I am not sure, but you may need to remove the top cover to access the scan motor. Just wipe a little blob from your finger onto the gears.

 

[FeLiXXX]

thank you player.
So the head rail -> synthetic lube. Some thing like THIS
What about gears? which lube can I use for them? Same as lube for head rail?

 

[FeLiXXX]

Can I use THIS? It is lithium grease.

 

[player]

That's the stuff I use, for both the gears and the rails.

 

[FeLiXXX]

WD... or Super Lub...?

 

[player]

Super Lube. My Roland tech gave it 2 thumbs up.

 

[FeLiXXX]

Hi again
I just get info from Roland tech. He say that you don't need to lube plotter?! I can't believe this! Is this true?

 

[Jack Knight1979]

Roland's stance is that you do not need to lube the rails. When I first had my machine, I would lube the rails once a year or so with 3-in-1. I believe this caused my bearing blocks to fail. I was able to get about five years out of the bearing blocks before they totally failed and needed replacement.

Since running the new blocks, I have not lubricated them, but I have kept the rail clean of debris. It looks to me that the rails are packed with silicon grease, so silicon grease should be fine. I personally won't be applying grease to the printer rail, unless I hear something from the machine that tells me it requires service. In the three years running the new blocks, they have not shown signs of failure.