Is AutoLeveling Really needed?

[Luv2Fight]

I was discussing this with a buddy last evening. Do you people think that autoleveling is really much of an added benefit on 3D printers? Seems like a lot of printers are really pushing it as an added feature, but to be honest I dont' really think it helps all that much. Would you buy a printer with out autoleveling? Would you be more inclined to be a 3D printer because it has autoleveling?

[Roxy]

I was discussing this with a buddy last evening. Do you people think that autoleveling is really much of an added benefit on 3D printers? Seems like a lot of printers are really pushing it as an added feature, but to be honest I dont' really think it helps all that much. Would you buy a printer with out autoleveling? Would you be more inclined to be a 3D printer because it has autoleveling?

Opinions are going to vary. But "YES!" autoleveling is really really nice. I won't consider an extruder that doesn't have autoleveling support built into it. And if I was going to buy a printer, I would insist it supported autoleveling (or could prove it doesn't need it).

My guess is you haven't actually used a printer with autoleveling.

[KDog]

Once you have worked with printers that have it and printers that don't you will understand that, while not strictly needed, it is key to moving the consumer field forward. Bed leveling has always been one of the banes of 3d printing and one that has make folks put the printer in the closet never to be seen from again. Printrbot recently started selling printers with this included as standard and I doubt you will see them ever look back. Former open source gods Makerbot are even showing their support for automatic bed leveling by filing a patent for it: http://www.openbeamusa.com/blog/2014...lassy-makerbot I agree with Roxy, I will never go back and never buy a printer without it again.

[Davo]

Ensure that your "autoleveling" is actually physically leveling the bed, and not merely using software to compensate for a bed which is not level. This compensation will give you a skewed print, and your vertical rectangles will actually be non-rectangular parallelograms.

This is especially important when printing with multiple heads, as the compensation for one head will not be the same for the others.

[American 3D Printing]

Personally, I wouldn't pay extra for it because (1) the only time we've really needed to re-level is after some major change (like switching the acrylic build plate for the glass build pate in our Rep 2s) or warpage on our plywood Type A machines. (2) We've never had to re-level our ZMorphs and we just changed the PE tape on our TAZ 3 and it didn't affect the leveling. (3) Manually leveling is so quick and easy on all our printers I just don't see having to pay any extra for it.

I see KDog's point about moving the industry more into the easy-for-the-non-technical consumer area, but to me there are far more pressing issues to be addressed than auto-leveling.

I can also see Davo's point about what software leveling might be like, assuming that the out-of-level is more than about a half a layer thick.

[KDog]

I'll have to check but I'm pretty sure that the print is not being skewed at all. It doesn't appear to on my metal simple which is about 2mm off front to back. Printed test cubes show no apparent skew at 2.5cm height. Your idea would be that it is only compensating on z but compensation on all three axes is just as easy to do with firmware code. If you look at demos of it on youtube you will see that they are printing on significantly tilted beds that will obviously show skew if present. As far as price goes, the parts to do this yourself are less than $10 on amazon plus a few printed pieces.

[Egon van Engelen]

I disagree, I would prefer a printer without auto calibration, because to me this would mean the printer is well build, level and doesn't need this feature.
Consumer friendly in my eyes is leaving all stuff that is not really needed and make it as simple as possible.
I have experience with auto calibration and from a geek point of view it's really cool,
but with both Marlin or Repetier firmware on the printer I still get the best first layers by calibrating it manually.

[Roxy]

I'll have to check but I'm pretty sure that the print is not being skewed at all. It doesn't appear to on my metal simple which is about 2mm off front to back. Printed test cubes show no apparent skew at 2.5cm height. Your idea would be that it is only compensating on z but compensation on all three axes is just as easy to do with firmware code. If you look at demos of it on youtube you will see that they are printing on significantly tilted beds that will obviously show skew if present. As far as price goes, the parts to do this yourself are less than $10 on amazon plus a few printed pieces.

The Bed Correction Matrix corrects in all three dimensions. You can tilt the bed at a horrible angle and any calibration cube you print will end up square to the bed. However, with that said, if you have pushed anything to the limit of needing support material, if it is on the side with the wrong slope, you are going to end up with problems. The auto level firmware can't correct for that. If you want to get abusive to your printer, you can take advantage of that fact. If you have a side of your print that is a little past the slope where it can build naturally, you can tilt your bed so that side is 'Ok' and let it rip.