How to maintain your 3D printer in the UK?

3D printers may seem like magic with all of their fancy features and the magical way in which they bring parts and products to life. But at the end of the day, they are just machines. Fantastic machines but still machines.

They may look like invincible one-man army manufacturing units, but they are very complex machines with a lot of delicate and intricate components inside.

So anyone with a 3D printer needs to take a lot of care and run maintenance checks on them regularly. Otherwise, they will stop working properly and they will not be able to produce the products, parts, and components required of them.

How to clean 3D printers?

As we said before, the 3Dprinters UK companies sell are complex contraptions and produce a lot of waste material and other debris. So we have to learn the right method of keeping them clean and in good working order.

3D printers usually generate a lot of plastic debris. It just flies out of every opening in them because they work with a lot of plastic materials in almost every project they undertake. As a result, the first order of business for a 3D printer owner is to keep the printer free of plastic debris and dust.

It is not only the printer that has to be cleaned but also the surrounding area and the print bed within the printer.

3D printers also generate a lot of PTFE waste material, especially high-temperature 3D printers. PTFE stands for polytetrafluoroethylene, which is a synthetic fluoropolymer that is frequently used in 3D printing. We especially have to watch out for the lower frame of the printers, as that gets covered with strands and particles of PTFE with almost every project it receives.

3D printers also produce glue residue which has to be scraped away from the print bed quickly in between jobs.

The model of the 3D printer UK and the region around it sells is designed very astutely. The enclosure around the 3D printer does a great job of barring away the normal household dust and hair, but there are always a few particles and strands that sneak in.

Also, you will have to give your printer a quick once-over with a brush and duster every week.

At Evo 3D, we always make sure to clean all the 3D printers in our storage as well as our service centers at least twice a week, and give them a thorough manual inspection check to detect any debris or impurities that may have crept in. Our high-temperature 3D printers, in particular, receive the greatest care and attention.

Additionally, if you can get a small vacuum cleaner, that will be perfect for cleaning out the channels on the frame. Those places get a lot of assorted debris from all the jobs and provide natural places for that waste material to collect.

So cleaning them is of utmost importance if you want your 3D printer to stay functioning effectively.

Paying special attention to the print bed -

You have to pay special attention to the print bed as that is the section that gets the dirtiest over the normal course of handling and executing print jobs. Over a high-temperature 3D printer course of executing jobs, huge deposits of dust, plastic, and fingerprint oil collect on the surface of the print bed.

If left unmonitored and unchecked, they will cause adhesion problems and warping.

How to clean the print bed of the 3D printer?

The glass print bed of the 3D printer can be cleaned with hot water, washing-up liquid, and a kitchen sponge. For additional cleanliness, to make the bed perfectly bright and shiny, you can rub it down with a cloth and isopropyl alcohol and then make it squeaky clean with a cloth made wet with water.

What to lubricate in a 3D printer?

Coming back to the model of the 3D printer UK region contains; the part of the 3D printer that needs lubrication is the Z-axis lead screws. The risk with that part is that if the print head sticks or binds on the screws as it's raised, the resulting prints will be very poor quality and possibly even fail.

So the screws definitely have to be cleaned and lubricated on a regular basis.

Now this is where it gets complicated. One would conventionally think that a nice coat of oil or grease will work very well. But the problem with that is that these substances attract dust or particles of plastic-like filings to a magnet.

There are two ways to get around that.

One is if you wipe the screws clean every week and then lubricate them again with white lithium grease (or shredder oil, if you have a budget on the smaller side). The other way is to clean them very very thoroughly, and then get a dry lubricant such as graphite or PTFE and apply it liberally over the parts and surfaces of the 3D printer.

These lubricants will act very wonderfully and will also not attract or collect any dust or debris by virtue of being dry. This is important as for a high-temperature 3D printer, dust is the greatest obstacle to its smooth functioning. 

How often to replace worn parts in a 3D printer?

For a 3D printer UK is probably the best place to buy it because of its build quality. The ideal time to replace worn parts is every month or so. Once a month, you should give your 3D printer a thorough cleanup, and check for any wear and tear in the parts. Especially parts that are vulnerable to wear.

You should pay special attention to the fans and check if they are unobstructed and working properly. If you have even the slightest doubt about any part and if it doesn’t look in perfect condition, you should replace it because it is certain that it will cause problems in the printing jobs.

It is worth it to keep an assortment of spare parts on hand so that you can minimize downtimes in case something stops working.

Conclusion -

3D printers are complex beasts of steel and fragile moving parts. So if you don’t take special care to maintain them properly, they will not be producing those marvelous parts, components, models, and inventions of yours for very long.

Keeping this in mind, in this blog post, we have given several tips and tricks to ensure that your 3D printers keep working for as long as possible. We hope you take a hint from them and start paying more attention to the condition of your 3D printers!