Do I need to get grease for rail?

rk7520

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Hello,

I'm new here. I'm in a bind and was hoping someone might be able to offer me some advice.

I was cleaning inside my Pixma MG7520, using distilled water. I opened the cover to the printer, unplugged it, and pushed the carriage to the left. This way I could try cleaning around the parking station with cotton swabs and distilled water. There was a lot of black ink gummed up on what I assumed were flexible plastic wipers, but it came up easily.

There is a metal rail, bar or guide that the print carriage (or whatever it is called), slides back and forth on.

It had black gunk all over it that I wiped off. It looked like black ink, though it was a little thicker like it was partially drying out. I got to thinking afterwards that I may have made a mistake. What if it was some kind of grease or lubrication? Come to think of it, I'm not quite sure how any ink might get onto that rail.

So I have two questions:

Was that ink or some kind of grease?

And if it wasn't ink, what can I replace it with?


I can order something (preferably from Amazon or eBay in the U.S.), or use something I have like:

White Lithium Grease Multi-Purpose Lubricant (good for gears, axles, outboard motors, etc). This was used to lubricate the shaft of our string trimmer.

I also have sewing machine oil, lawnmower oil, Wahl clipper oil for electric hair clippers, WD-40, a decades-old bottle of 3 in 1 household oil, olive oil.

What to do?
 

PeterBJ

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I have successfully used a special white grease from Dow Corning, the Molykote EM-30L for lubricating Canon printers. The grease is safe for plastics and as it contains no silicones it is also safe for electronics.

You can read more about lubricants for Canon printers in this thread, and in this post.
 

Ink stained Fingers

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I would not grease the rod the printhead carriage runs on unless you get funny noises during movement.
The print room carries a mix of ink fog reflected from the paper during the printing process and paper dust accumulating with any oily/greasy stuff on the rod. I rather would try to keep the rod dry and clean, the bearings in the carriage are of some type of plastic - PE or whatever and should last for the lifetime of the printer. It's different with some gear wheels, some noisy wheels may ask for some grease, and guidelines for lubrication should be available in the resp. service/maintenance manual.
 

The Hat

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@rk7520, If you have already wiped off the existing lubricant, I would put plenty of 3-in-one oil onto a cotton bud and give the metal shaft a rub all round, just in one spot, not the full length, on both side of the print head carriage.

In my opinion, it’s better to have a little lubricant on the metal shaft than having none, but there are many good members here who think otherwise, so you can decide yourself if you wish to re-lubricate or leave the shaft dry...
 

PeterBJ

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The service manual for the MG7520 printer is nowhere to be found, but here is a lubrication table for an older printer. I searched for the Floil KG107A grease, it is nowhere to be found, but the Molykote EM-30L has worked well for me as a substitute:

MG5200 lubrication.jpg
 

Emulator

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I can remember when silicone greases first appeared in the 1950's, it was regarded as a wonder grease and people started using it for any purpose where a lubricant was required, often much to their cost.

It was initially particularly favoured in electrical applications being non flammable. A great deal of trouble then developed where electrical contacts became non conductive and it was discovered that silicone grease migrated.

The worst case of misuse I can remember was when I was doing military service in the RAF in the 50s. One of the non-mechanical service men decided to recondition an old car, strip and rebuild the engine etc. etc. Despite advice to the contrary he decided that this new grease was the thing to use for everything mechanical, (big end bearings included). He took it out for its first test drive and managed a couple of miles before with an almighty bang a connecting rod came out through the side of the crankcase.
 

rk7520

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First off I would like to thank all you masta printer gurus for the advice and info.

Canon support told me, "The type of lubricant used in Canon printers is proprietary information and we would be unfortunately unable to provide this information to you."

So as I understand it, there are two schools of thought here on this forum. One says its good to have lubricant on the rail, the other says going without lubricant is actually better.

Mistakenly thinking I was cleaning off ink, I had wiped the black lubricant off 2/3 of the rail. Some of it still remained, which seems to be slowly spreading across the rail again with printer use.

I've done some printing since, and it seems to be working okay as it is. Its hard to say whether the sound of the carriage sliding back and forth is any different. It might be slightly "dry" and less smooth sounding, but I didn't pay enough attention to it before now to know for sure.

Two questions:

1. Should I consider leaving it like it is, with 1/3 of the original Canon lubricant on the rail? No more work would be required.

2. Also, if I decided to use something like "Molykote EM-30L" at some point, would it be a good idea to wipe all the Canon lubricant off first?

I appreciate the help
 

Ink stained Fingers

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if you move the printhead carriage slowly by hand (after a quick power on/off cycle) you can feel any irregular friction on the rod, and only then I would apply a small amount of additional grease. But then please check again after a longer period - months - again if any accumulation of dust and ink my inhibit the movement then.
 

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