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3D printer maintenance checklist

A sheet to print, tick off, and tape to the shelf above the printer. Grouped by print-hours rather than weeks, because a machine running 60 hours a week wears nothing like one that prints twice a month.

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Gyroid gyroid.app/3d-printer-maintenance-checklist/

3D printer maintenance checklist

Printer

Model

Print hours now

Date

Serviced by

Before every print

Thirty seconds, and it catches most first-layer failures.

Bed clean and clear of debris Finger oil and old plastic are the two most common reasons a print will not stick.
Nozzle tip clean A bead of cooked plastic on the tip drags a line through the first layer.
Spool turns freely, enough left for the job A snagged spool starves the extruder halfway through.
Nothing loose on the bed or gantry Offcuts and purge blobs get dragged into the print.

Every 50 print-hours

Clean the bed Isopropyl alcohol at 90% or higher on glass and smooth PEI. Warm soapy water and a rinse on textured PEI.
Check bed level and first-layer gap Heat cycling moves it even on an auto-levelling printer. Re-probe, or run a first-layer test.
Wipe down the frame, clear the gantry Dust and stray plastic end up in the belts and the fans.

Every 100 print-hours

Lubricate linear rails and smooth rods Wipe off the old grime, then a thin film of PTFE or lithium grease made for linear motion. Not WD-40, which is a solvent and strips what is there.
Clean the part-cooling and heatsink fans A clogged heatsink fan causes intermittent jams that look random. Hold the blades while you blow them out.

Every 150 print-hours

Lubricate the Z lead screws PTFE grease along the threads, then jog Z up and down to spread it. Dry screws show up as evenly spaced banding.

Every 200 print-hours

Check belt tension Pluck it: a low clear note, not a dull flap. Print a 20 mm cube and measure X and Y to confirm.

Every 250 print-hours

Inspect the nozzle, and probably replace it Brass wears open and the tip rounds off. Abrasive filament rewrites this interval completely (see below).

Every 500 print-hours

Check for a firmware update Read the changelog, back up your config, and save your tuned values (E-steps, PID, Z-offset) first.
Replace the PTFE tube It chars and degrades over time in Bowden and lined hotends.
Re-torque frame, bed carriage and gantry screws Vibration backs them out slowly.
Inspect hotend and bed wiring Constant flexing cracks insulation. Browned or stiff connectors are a fire risk, so replace them.

Service log

Date	Print hours	What you did	Notes

Intervals are print-hours, not calendar weeks. They are conservative starting points, not manufacturer mandates: where your printer’s manual disagrees, follow the manual. gyroid.app/3d-printer-maintenance-checklist/

Why print-hours and not a calendar

Belts stretch, bearings dry out and brass wears by use, not by date. A printer running most of the week reaches 250 hours in a month; one that runs a couple of prints a weekend takes most of a year to get there. A weekly or monthly checklist tells both machines the same thing, and it is wrong for at least one of them.

So track one number: accumulated print-hours. Write it in the box at the top of the sheet each time you service the machine, and the intervals take care of themselves.

Where these numbers move

These are conservative maker-community starting points, not manufacturer specifications. Your printer’s own manual wins wherever it disagrees, and some of the intervals genuinely depend on the machine in front of you.

Linear rails hold lubricant far longer than bushings on smooth rods. An enclosed printer collects less dust than an open frame in a workshop, so fans need less attention. A CoreXY has more belt in the system than a bedslinger, which moves the tension check. Machines with automatic bed meshing drift less than manual four-corner beds, but they still drift. Adjust the numbers after a few cycles and keep your own.

One interval moves more than the rest: abrasive filament destroys the 250-hour nozzle figure. Glass fibre, carbon fibre and glow-in-the-dark additives can open up a brass nozzle in a handful of hours, and a single spool of carbon fibre can finish one. If you print those, fit a hardened steel or ruby nozzle and inspect by eye every few prints instead.

Everything above is FDM. Resin (MSLA) printers need a different sheet: vat film, LCD hours, and alcohol handling have nothing to do with belts and lead screws.

Using the sheet

Fill in the printer, the model and the print-hours reading before you start, then work down the intervals that are due. The log at the bottom is the part that pays off later: when a print starts failing in a way you have seen before, the dated line telling you when the nozzle was last changed is worth more than any amount of remembering.

The reasoning behind each interval, and what happens when you skip it, is written up in the full 3D printer maintenance schedule. For the nozzle specifically, see when to change your nozzle.