How to clean and lubricate the Y rail of Mutoh printers

Modified on Wed, 24 Nov, 2021 at 1:43 PM

The Y-rail of a Mutoh printer contains 4 hardened steel strips, where the carriage-bearings are continuously rolling over. Steel strips must be cleaned and lubricated on a regular basis in order to avoid preliminary wear and tear of strips and bearings. A while ago we released Technical bulletin number 720 (dd 22 march 2017) "Replacement procedure for roller strips"

In order to properly lubricate the 4 steel strips, a dedicated kit has been defined with tooling and a suitable oil-kind for the steel-strips:

Oil kit for roller strips	IJ-RLCLNK-01	This kit contains: Drop dispenser bottle Lubricant/oil for Y-rail Railcleaner tool
Railcleaner tool	RAIL-CLEANER*	The railcleaner tool only (in case the one in the kit is worn-out)

* Prices for these parts are available in the sparepart catalogs

Step 1

Before lubricating the Y-rail, clean it first with a tissue and purified (99,9%) isopropy alcohol in order to remove all ink-stains, dust, dirt and old grease-remains.

Step 2

Apply a bit of oil on the steel strip. Dispense the oil over the complete length with the RAIL-CLEANER tool.

Note

Do not use excessive amounts of oil, in order to avoid splattering against the encoder-strip when the cursor-bearings are rolling forth/back
Be careful not to spill oil on the encoder-strip while applying on the steel strips

If it occurs anyway by accident, the encoder-strip can only be cleaned with purified (99,9% ) isopropyl alcohol only. NEVER use any other cleaning-liquids, burning-alcohols or other liquids. These mostly contain additional chemistries and solvents, which are not suitable for optical cleaning applications. These may even permanently destroy the imprints of the encoder-strip and voids any warranty on the encoder-strip / sensor!

How often should the Y-rail steel strips be lubricated?

There is no pre-defined cycle for lubricating the Y-rail. Because the printing-frequency of each production-machine may greatly vary from once a month to once every 6 months.
A good rule-of-thumb is to verify the Y-rail once a month. If it feels dry, dirty or the carriage bearings are making noise due to dust- and dirt-particles, cleaning and re-lubrication may be required.

Article changes

Rev. 1.0: Initial version