Planetary Gear Preventive Maintenance

[innkeeper]

i found some grease at the house....
technicly its NLGI #2 - which is wheel bearing grease.
its called "x-tra heavy duty grease" by lucas oil.
reading the label at least, i think it will work fine.

[jdacal]

Glad you posted, it reminded me about these pictures. They document the process, just reassemble after the last picture.

2015-07-24 19.29.21_1.jpg (178.19 KiB) Viewed 12319 times

2015-07-24 19.30.53_1.jpg (167.44 KiB) Viewed 12319 times

2015-07-24 19.29.45_1.jpg (156.36 KiB) Viewed 12319 times

2015-07-24 19.33.24_1.jpg (155.54 KiB) Viewed 12319 times

2015-07-24 19.35.08_1.jpg (197.71 KiB) Viewed 12319 times

[Jules]

Excellent write up!

[jimc]

pretty good and on par with how i have done it every time. i add about that amt of grease as well. possibly a touch more. no real rule here. just a note on the pinion teeth. when worn the teeth will be really sharp and pointy. the new replacements from makergear are hardened like the planetary gears.

[innkeeper]

very cool, thanks for the write-up....
one question, should i clean out the old lube with something like break cleaner?

[jimc]

carb and choke cleaner, elec contact cleaner, mineral spirits will all work

[jdacal]

pretty good and on par with how i have done it every time. i add about that amt of grease as well. possibly a touch more. no real rule here. just a note on the pinion teeth. when worn the teeth will be really sharp and pointy. the new replacements from makergear are hardened like the planetary gears.

That's good to hear as the one I replaced were definitely sharp and pointy on the center gear with little or no wear on the planetary's.

[jdacal]

carb and choke cleaner, elec contact cleaner, mineral spirits will all work

Those will definitely work. I don't have a lot of chemicals around since I live in an apartment so I get as much grease as I can off of them with towel and plastic wire brush, then I put them into my Ultrasonic cleaner and they come out pretty clean.

[innkeeper]

OMG... what a mess.....

Now realize, this printer sat pretty much unused for 2 years and saw some light usage when it was first purchased all due to a technical issue recently resolved.....
So, Just recently it started seeing some actual heavy use...

i found that all the oils from the grease had all leached out. the mating surfaces all had oil that has leached between them
the "grease" was basically a dry fine gritty substance left behind.

the pinion gears showed no wear, but, the center gear off the stepper is worn out, i am not even sure how its still working...looks like i will be replacing this stepper very very soon.

So let this be a warning to anyone who hasn't taken this task on... do it... like yesterday!

[jimc]

yes the one on the end of the stepper is the pinion gear we are talking about and the whole reason for this thread. you have a machine from 2 years ago which is the era of my original one. back then kysan was putting these steppers out with the proper hardened planetary gears but the pinions were made of i dont know what. pot metal or something soft and crappy. some guys it would wear out in 2 weeks. other people would get a couple months. in any case they seem to have corrected the situation awhile back. it doesnt seem to be too much an issue these days but we do like to keep the gear box lubed. you dont need a whole stepper replacement. you can if you want or you can just replace the pinion gear itself. its just held in place with some loctite retaining compound which you can pick up from napa. you can order just the pinion gear right off the makergear website.