Silicone grease

[Andrew Aurigema]

I ran out of my MBI supplied ( tiny packet ) super lube a few months ago.   At only $0.53 each ( in lots of 1000 ) as advertised on the superlube website it quickly became apparent that I would have had to buy way more of any size than I would ever need.   I presumed I could buy some more from mother MBI.  Oddly enough I presumed wrong.  

No worries, as I know a bit about lubricants I went looking for a high viscosity silicone grease at my local hardware store.  Danco Silicone Grease is a bit more viscous than the super lube but otherwise leave that silicone slippy-sticky-slidey feeling on your fingers just like the super lube did.  At $3.5 a small container it is way cheaper than superlube and it has that magical quality of being locally available.  I have been using it for about a hundred hours of printing so far.  It seems to be working great and it is not separating like the superlube did.  I have been re-applying it every 20 hours to all sliding parts of the Bot.  

Note it is in the plumbing section of the hardware store and usually used for faucet softgoods lubrication.  I tried to add a "maintenance" tag but it was not allowed. I also tried to attach a picture but that did not work either.  

[Scott Booker]

The genuine SuperLube is available at almost all of my local hardware and auto-parts stores.  Guess I'm lucky.

[Scott K]

I got a big tube of it from Harbor Freight for $7.

http://www.harborfreight.com/85-gram-super-lube-grease-cartridge-93744.html

I already had a small tube that is more precise for applying and I just join the two and squeeze from the big to the little to fill it.

[Ryan Carlyle]

I just ordered a big tube of Superlube on Amazon a while back. The separating is a little annoying but not the end of the world.

Note for anyone who isn't aware -- the stock linear rod bronze bushings in Makerbots should NOT be greased. They are oil-impregnated and self-lubricating for life. Keeping the rods clean and periodically adding a few drops of a light mineral oil is all you need. If you put silicone grease on the rods, it will clog the oil dispensing pores in the bushings, and they will need to be regularly greased forever after.

If you have replaced your bushings with linear bearings, then those do need grease.

The Z lead screw and X idler bearing should definitely be greased regularly.