Spent the day elbows deep in my pro. I am dirty, it is cleaner.
I started with the goal of replacing the which circuit board that feeds the black ribbon cable. Took a wrong turn and removed the left side glass cover before re-reading the guide. No worries, I intended to remove the exhaust fan anyway. I am still ( three forges later) cursing the person who designed the area where the bosses for the cooling fins get in the way of the lower fan screws. Eventually got those bottom screws out and deleted the fan.
Then over to the right side, where I managed to get the white board out but struggled to feed the new one back into place. Got there eventually.
While it had it all opened up, I cleaned up the tube the carriage and anything else that looked dirty.
Put it all back together and it works. I am sad that my lack of LED illumination was not solved despite replacing the white board but I have been working around that for months.
Oh yes that fan! I’m very glad I pulled it but that’s definitely an undertaking. I’m even in a basic, I’ve heard it’s even worse in a Pro. I do love how they look when they’re squeaky clean. I’ve only done that once since I got it - and it was solely because I was in so deep anyway I spent the entire time crossing my fingers hoping I wouldn’t join the ranks of “so I deep cleaned my machine and…”
I’m not trying to “buck the trend” but as a scientist and engineer, I only concern myself with the stuff that affects the operation of the machine. Optics first, and the rails second. I think I removed the tray for cleaning once in the years I owned my first machine.
I have this idea I should make some “shields” to keep the debris off the circuits on the left side, but then I remember the tube itself failed despite how “dirty” all that stuff was after years of use.
99.9% of the time, it is optics and rails for me. This 0.1% exception was due to having both the left and right covers off at the same time and seeing layers of junk that were impossible to ignore.
I spent the entire time crossing my fingers hoping I wouldn’t join the ranks of “so I deep cleaned my machine and…”