On my ender 3 I have to turn the knobs on the bottom for leveling.
I just picked up a Bambu Lab P1S and it doesn’t.
Fundamentally, what is different that allows the P1S and other printers to get away without it?
Back in my day you had to level the bed by hand! We had to put a piece of paper between the print nozzle and the bed until the gaps were perfect. If the bed was warped, there was nothing you could do!
Printing on glass, using tape or hairspray to help with adhesion… I’d print a skirt with a couple lines so I could level the bed a bit before the actual print started.
Man hardware has come a long way.
The Bambu will have some sort of auto bed leveling. The simplest method is a limit switch connected to a small plunger style probe mounted next to the nozzle.
Whatever the specific method, the idea is something that lets the printer sample multiple points on the bed and use the Z axis dynamically to adjust for the small irregularities. If you don’t have that, even half a millimeter can ruin print quality, so the leveling screws are there to handle it manually from the bed side.
I had the ender 3 S1 with a cr touch though, why the need for both in that case?
I’m pretty sure the original version of that printer didn’t come stock with the CR Touch. So rather than redesign and manufacturer all new boards they just kept the same one.
Also, I have a BLTouch on my printer (same thing different name), and while it’s pretty good, it isn’t perfect, and I do have to manually adjust the bed a tiny bit here and there. My guess is, cheaper printers like the ender and my neptune that are designed with adjustable beds in mind are prone to the bed being thrown off balance, whereas nicer printers like your new bambu are more robust in that the bed is supported well enough to not get thrown off.
also, the springs tend to go out of level, and it’s usually best practice with springs to level it manually and get it close enough first, then use the ABL to correct for the horrendous dip in creality printer beds.
BambuLab wants to be the Apple of 3D-printing. So they simplified and decided the factory bed level with auto bed leveling/compensation is good enough for the user.
On high end printers there is just no need to level them. The factory does it and the bed won’t move at all due to the excellent mechanical designs.
Everything else? They have it to level the corners of the bed and use automatic bed leveling/correction to get it perfect and adjust for build plate imperfections.
There is one system that does level the bed but doesn’t need the knobs as each of the three mounting points is connected to an independent z-axis (kinematic bed): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgkK7Fez8VU
Good comparison with Apple (no open source anything)
There are some differences on how locked down their (bambulab & apple) ecosystem is:
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BambuLab talked with the X1plus guys and made changes to allow it (apple would never allow a jailbreak)
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BambuLab talked with BTT/BIQU regarding the Panda touch The conclusion isn’t as fortunate.
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BambuLab collaborated with E3D.
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WebKit is open source 😅 so maybe Bamboo is a little worse in that regard.
WebKit is only open source because they forked KHTML to create it, which is licenced under LGPL
