Ultimaker 3 – Active Leveling Works Only on "Auto", But Z-Offset Is Wrong on "Never"

[urbanshark 3]

 

Ultimaker 3 – Active Leveling Works Only on "Auto", But Z-Offset Is Wrong on "Never"

Issue:

I have an Ultimaker 3, and I want to perform active leveling once, then disable it (set it to "Never") so the printer remembers the correct Z-offset. However, when I do this, the printer reverts to the manual Z-offset, and the nozzle dives into the bed.

• If I leave Active Leveling on "Auto", everything works fine.
• But if I set it to "Never" after performing Active Leveling, the Z-offset is incorrect, and the nozzle crashes into the bed.

[CarloK2 14]

You stumbled upon a poor UI decision we made here. As you discovered, 'never' actually means 'use the manual levelling'. The menu now mixes two different setting types: "how often to do the active levelling" and the first entry which allows you to select manual levelling instead. With the limited screen space we have, this comes out poorly. In retrospect, we should have split this over two menu entries.

 

As you discovered, the Active levelling and the Manual levelling are two different things.

We recommend to set the Active levelling to 'always' as changes in the printer temperature and room temperature can create problems for succeeding prints when no new calibration is done.

 

Also, for the adventurous, I want to promote activating the mesh levelling feature. The standard active levelling works on three points and works good for a flat glass plate, but many glass plates have a curvature and require more calibration points. This feature is identical to the S3/S5 printers but was never released in fear of reducing sales for the newer printer models.
Info here: 

 

Edited January 24 by CarloK2