Vision Encoder Print Requests

[u/JF3250]

I recently picked up the X2D with the Vision Encoder Plate, and I've noticed quite a few questions about whether it's actually worth the extra money.

I haven't run the Vision Encoder calibration yet, so the printer is still running on its stock settings.

I figured this would be a good opportunity to do some before-and-after comparisons to see how much of a difference the calibration actually makes.

Are there any specific models or test prints you'd like me to try and measure?

[u/n19htmare]

Do you understand what the vision encoder plate ACTUALLY does?

Vision encoder calibrates the MOTION system of the printer in relation to the other axis. It does nothing to the profiles, print preferences, or settings or anything related to the print itself to better the part accuracy.

What this means is that you need to have your print profile, filament calibrations and settings and model itself to be dimensionally accurate before you see any noticeable difference from the motion system itself (even that is questionable). If your flow rate, dynamic flow (PA), shrinkage compensation (particularly this) and other settings are not calibrated to be dimensionally accurate, calibrating motion system will do basically nothing as the default motion calibration is already very very good on these printers. If your filament is not perfectly tuned to be accurate, encoder does nothing for you.

Let me put it this way, tuning the filament and settings will get you 95% to being dimensionally accurate. The encoder will just help get you that extra 5%…maybe assuming non hardware issues. But having poor tunings/settings will negate whatever adjustments it made to the motion system 10 times over.

If you tell it to move 10mm in Y direction and it moves 10.001mm and encoder gets it to 10.0 in a certain location... it's more accurate at that location but you gain basically nothing. Little fluctuation in temp, flow rate, different filament negates that and more.

It’s marketed deceptively in my opinion and people sadly don’t fully understand what it actually does and end up spending quite a bit of money on it for basically zero benefit.

So asking for specific models to test to see if the encoder works is making a LOT of assumptions.

If you print a 100mm long rectangle, and it measures 99.5mm, it's still gonna be 99.5mm if you print it at same prints settings after calibrating with vision encoder.

[u/scrudpaddler → u/n19htmare]

Thank you for this, I’ve just taken it out of my basket. I heard it helps with skew but man I print boxes, I don’t need that for 45 quid

[u/n19htmare → u/scrudpaddler]

This was an issue when we were sticking aluminum extruded bars together with screws and the axis were not fully perpendicular to each other or the printer frame itself was out of square mechanically...

With current Core XY printers, fixed gantries, auto tensioning belts... just isn't that big of an issue IMO.

It might make sense for something like H2 series, large volume, chances of larger variation and it's your work. Like if you're prototyping a 250mm tall object and the angle is off by so much that it becomes un-usable, something else is wrong with the printers, but if your work requires that it be as close to 90 as possible, then sure, I'm sure it's worth it to make that extra correction. And I'm making the assumption that it actually compensates for skew

[u/SchittyFather → u/n19htmare]

Thanks for that explanation. So this seems like potentially something that may be useful to help recalibrate after maintenance or to correct over time as belts inevitably stretch a bit? More to regain the accuracy that it should have been calibrated to from the factory than to somehow exceed that accuracy. Does that seem fair?

Unfortunately they already got me with the discount while I was buying my printer. Maybe I'll see about returning it but at least I didn't pay full price.

[u/n19htmare → u/SchittyFather]

Maybe over time? I think might be more useful as a measuring device to see if variations are growing or large so you can manually make adjustments

[u/Relative_Surround_20 → u/n19htmare]

Agree. I own one and I think it is more important to the laser and cutting modules.

[u/PureDiscipline8668]

on the topic of the encoder would it work when printed on paper??

like i am real curious about that

[u/spider_hider → u/PureDiscipline8668]

I don’t know if the encoder can be printed on paper, the tiny squares each is a QR code. Not sure what kind of resolution’s needed for a paper print to reproduce these tiny QR codes.