Hi, I was wondering how frequently people add grease to the linear bearing blocks for “good measure” ?
Appreciate any and all feedback.
-scott
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Every 2-3 months depending on use:
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Monthly as part of my maintenance ritual. I also use WD40 spraying on all gears and sliders as part of larger jobs.
Every 2 months…I also spray the rails with PB blasters…and have the machine setup with g59 so it can run all the way back and to one side …I do this every time I start the machine.
I have my setup (er, linuxcnc, not mach) default to loading my “warmup” code, which runs the spindle at various speeds while moving trough all the X/Y/Z axes. About six minutes of round-and-round-and-up-and-down. Gotta wait for the spindle warmup anyway 
Any reason for using G59 instead of G53?
It was the easiest for me… let me know how to do it like you have it setup…it will save me some time. Tnx
Like I said, mine is linuxcnc-based, hand-coded with subroutine calls, else I’d just post it. But the key part is here:
M3 S#1
F#2
(printx, Loop spindle #1 feed #2 count #3)
G53 G1 Z[#115]
G53 G1 X[#110] Y[#112]
o101 repeat [#3]
G53 G1 Z[#114] (down)
G53 G1 Z[#115] (up)
G53 G1 X[#111] Y[#112] (goto front right)
G53 G1 X[#111] Y[#113] (goto back right)
G53 G1 X[#110] Y[#113] (goto back left)
G53 G1 X[#110] Y[#112] (goto front left)
o101 endrepeat
This bit gets called after the spindle speed is set and the feedrate (F) is set. The calls are:
o100 call [#101] [#120/2 * 1] [1]
o100 call [#102] [#120/3 * 2] [2]
o100 call [#103] [#120/1 * 1] [1]
passing spindle speed, feed rate (calculated) and number of loops.
The idea of G53 is that, on the line that it’s given, no work offsets are applied - moves use the absolute coordinates (typically, this is (0,0,0) at your end stops). Thus it’s completely independent of any tinkering your jobs might do with work offsets.