I’ve long complained that one of my printers, the Monoprice Select Mini Pro, was not designed well for maintenance. The vertical column does not seem particularly accessible. The column is made of a couple pieces of bent sheet metal that is structural but can’t be removed without fully disassembling it, and I had no idea how to do that and be able to put it together again.

I was in the process of photographing it to point out to someone where there should be a door on the design so you can access the Z-axis screws and rods for lubrication. And I noticed something.

That silvery piece is not one continuous piece of metal!

In fact, it’s cut in places where I would want to be able to remove a panel!

I had to open up the bottom and carefully look for what appeared to be the appropriate screws.

The screws on the top of the column were pretty obvious. Once I removed it, my hunch bore out. It actually was an access panel. I’d been trying to lubricate it the hard way.

I cleaned up the overspray from previous maintenance cycles, and directly applied lubricant to the rods and rails this time.

Sometimes we really should take more time to get thoroughly acquainted with the inner workings of our tech!

At least now I know how to get at parts. That had been driving me nuts ever since I’ve had one of these.