Here I sit with what is basically a new Pro knowing pretty directly all the hassles of cleaning the liquified wood off of everything including the rear exhaust fan that was Puff’s Bain and the biggest design flaw in the whole concept. so how can I best keep it from building up or failing that make it easiest to clean?
Mechanical solutions such as cutting out the grill should not be an option at least for now, but one thing that has been rattling around in my head is the idea of putting something on the clean surface that the smoke sludge would not adhere to or adhere to weakly. I considered LPS3 as it leaves a film of what seems like beeswax that will keep iron parts working for years. However, I am pretty sure that the wax and wood gunk would be mutually soluble and would make the build-up faster and worse.
In looking through what I have I see that silicon spray leaves a dry non-conducting surface that would bind reasonably to the plastic but might be a weak bond to the wood gunk that while not Teflon might be easier to wipe off or dissolve than a build up on raw plastic.
Or it might just build up faster and be no easier to remove.
I toss this out for comment or suggestion from the many far more knowledgeable than myself to get some feedback. The laser head and windows would be protected as what the beam would do to silicone I would not wish to guess.
WD40 is fugitive, I used it on tools for a long time, nearly every day, only to need it the next day in the high humidity, where the LPS3 used once lasted many years, but theproblem is not directly relevant to that
Or Boeshield T-9 - I use this on the metal surfaces of my woodworking tools to keep them lubricated and prevent rust - I think it attracts gunk a lot less than WD-40. No idea if it would actually help here though…
Whatever you decide to test with, you could put some on the top left corner of the crumb tray first before doing the more sensitive parts with it.
You might be about to get away with spraying it on some material, then engraving right above it to see how well that newly made stuff sticks to it vs. having to wait out several projects worth of time.
That is the rub, As soon as I am cutting anything the experiment is over. The smoke is everywhere or nowhere. I was really hoping that there was an expert in such thin films that could cast an expert eye on the likely outcome before I tried anything.
