Opinions on Auto-Leveling Sensors?

Just would like some feedback on what is available and personal experiences with different types of sensors. How well they work? Would you do it again? etc.

Seems like there is a lot out there, Capacitive, Inductive, switches, BLTouch, Piezo, IR, ...

 

I'll start here by saying that my R1 although I got it to work very well was the worst thing I ever used for Z probing. It was a good thought but a poor implementation. Once I switched to @jim3Dbot's IR sensor the R1 worked very well.

The R2's IR sensor is not as tight as it could be and is prone to failure if your head is already below the trigger point. But it is workable.

My current idea is to use a piezo bonded to the hotend mount to see if I can get better repeatability. https://www.precisionpiezo.co.uk/ has a very interesting product, I might need to order one.

 

Yea, we used (or rather towed with) the IR sensor from @jim3Dbot and it certainly worked as expected and there is no mechanical "slop" in that style approach. The BLTouch works quite well too (our delta uses that approach). I'd say if you are up to it, spin off a project (regardless of printer brands involved) and we can get some useful insight into making this better

 

Have IR sensors on the C2/R2, Jims IR on one of my R1, Standard autolevel for Robo on the other, A BL Touch on my gmax, A wierd pressure sensor set up on a delta, and an IR from d. crocker on the d17 (touch sensors using the nozzle on the zortrax machines to a perf plate with copper pads I spose is another but I would steer clear of that lol)

 

I've always thought their product looked awesome. very much so want to get one "some day" for one of my machines. Seems super repeatable and low stress on the hotend vs probing the bed with the nozzle. (brass just aint as strong as it use to be )