Baby, it's cold outside, and my bearings are like tar!

Mostly Printed CNC - MPCNC Troubleshooting
1

I’m working in an unheated shed, and found that the grease packed in the cheapest bearings on Amazon doesn’t like the cold.

I don’t want to disassemble the machine and de-grease all the bearings, so I’ve been kicking around some ideas:

  1. Warm up cycle - drawing big circles for ten minutes did seem to melt the grease some, but feed rates were still under 20mm/s to prevent skipping. That’s kinda slow.

  2. Hair dryer the bearings - How long will I get until they warm back up?

  3. Heat cables run through the outer tubes and gantry - Can I defeat the thermostat to make them heat more? Will they overheat and melt my PLA? Will the thermostat click on and off and break my ramps connection due to RFI? (Also, If I put RAMPS in a metal box, will that get better? More comments on RAMPS and RFI Welcome!)

  4. Brooder/ heat lamp hanging above the router table?

  5. Put it all in a tent and zip it up? :wink:

Any and all suggestions welcome!

2

How cold? I would be worried about the plastic parts getting brittle. Coldest I’ve run the machines was 4C

3

It’s been down to -1C, but I expect -10C. (Maybe, this has been an odd winter…) I think I’m going to start with a heat lamp hanging over the table - That should warm the plastic and my hands, and be cheaper than cutting and pulling heat cable…

Hadn’t thought of the plastic - I’ll have to watch out for that…