Oil on filament to reduce friction

I have heard of people using a small amount of SAE-30 Motor oil on a sponge that PLA filament is run through before entering the extruder to both reduce dust and help reduce friction in the extruder.

Has anyone tried this with ABS plastic? Is there any reason this should not be done? We have an extruder that is being fed filament through a tube on display and we are discussing ways to reduce friction in the tube before the extruder.

Any input will be greatly apreciated.

Thanks!

I don't think that will be a very good idea, since the oil is going to gum up your drive wheel/hobbed bolt where you don't want slipperyness. In addition, that oil is following the filament into a nozzle that reaches very high temperatures. Aside from the obvious fire risk, you'd be extruding filament with oil impregnated in it, which I can't imagine would do wonders for its adhesion.

ABS should not need any additional lubrication, since the plastic is naturally fairly slippery. If your ABS filament needs lubrication it may be poor quality, or something may not be adjusted correctly in your cold end.

Could you describe any problems you are having extruding ABS that made you think lubricating the filament would fix it.?

Thank you Pointedstick, that was exactly the type of stuff I was concerned about. We no longer think it is the friction in the lines causing the problems.

Currently we have 4 printers running in a display case with fulfillment on spools right beside them. In order to keep everything neat there are plastic tubes (about 1 foot long) attached to the extruders to help guide the filament in. This works great for 3 out of the four printers. The fourth one is having trouble pulling in more plastic at this time which we were thinking could be caused by the additional friction generated by the tube. This is actually a Makerbot extruder on the machine and I have begun to find some discussions on issues with the way the particular extruders are assembled that could be causing the problem. It appears that the melted plastic could be getting forced into the area around the edges of the extruder and jamming. I plan on pulling the nozzle off later to see if this is in fact the case.

Thank you again for your help.

kevinkline4124 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thank you Pointedstick, that was exactly the type
> of stuff I was concerned about. We no longer think
> it is the friction in the lines causing the
> problems.
>
> Currently we have 4 printers running in a display
> case with fulfillment on spools right beside them.
> In order to keep everything neat there are plastic
> tubes (about 1 foot long) attached to the
> extruders to help guide the filament in. This
> works great for 3 out of the four printers. The
> fourth one is having trouble pulling in more
> plastic at this time which we were thinking could
> be caused by the additional friction generated by
> the tube. This is actually a Makerbot extruder on
> the machine and I have begun to find some
> discussions on issues with the way the particular
> extruders are assembled that could be causing the
> problem. It appears that the melted plastic could
> be getting forced into the area around the edges
> of the extruder and jamming. I plan on pulling the
> nozzle off later to see if this is in fact the
> case.
>
> Thank you again for your help.


Friends don't let friends use pre-MK7 Makerbot extruders. Oh the fond memories I have of my MK6+…

I tried with ABS plastic.
On my side it worked well, i had no more filament stuffing in my hobbed bolt.

There is one thing i noticed though, is that the filament can break easily when i put oil on it. Even touching the filament with hand can make it break.
So you might have to slower you machine a bit in order to avoid the filament to break on fast mouvements.

I perform my prints at 50mm/s with travel speeds at 100mm/s and the filament don't break at that speed.

On my printer after a print that ends with a high Z, when i start a new print and my Z will lower too fast and my filament will break.

On the other side changing it is very fast and i'd rather change it at the beguining of the print ,or lower the Z axis slower and having my print going well than having my filament stuffed into my hobbed bolt during the print.

Note: I've experienced the oil on a PLA filement and it seems that the oil doesn't affect PLA that much.