Dyze Design Releases Horizon™ Automatic Bed Leveling Sensor and Collision Detector

Dyze Design, Canadian manufacturer of high-performance extrusion systems and components for professional and industrial 3D printers, is now officially releasing its new Horizon^TM Auto-bed leveling (ABL) sensor and collision detector.

Auto-bed leveling (or tramming) is a really popular feature in modern 3D printing. It provides peace of mind when it comes to making sure that the extrusion system is correctly aligned to the build surface, allowing constant flow and print quality. Nowadays, many types of bed leveling sensors can be found on the market, such as capacitive sensors, inductive sensors, or physical-hall sensors (bltouch/3dtouch).

However, all those Z probe technologies come with a few limitations. Inductive’s work only on metallic surfaces, physical hall doesn’t provide great repeatability and is not pretty reactive. And capacitive sensors need to be calibrated again each time you change your build surface type or when changing your hotend.

“The Horizon, compared to other types of bed sensors on the market, is based on strain gauge technology, which measures the effect of external forces on an object. Doing so, it’s not limited by the type of surface you are using and doesn’t need recalibration of the Z-Offset each time you modify a part of your printer. And to top it off, because it’s sensing the force applied to it, the Horizon can be used for bed tramming but also for security and collision detection. In fact, your nozzle becomes you Z limit switch and your ABL sensor,” says Simon Duchaine, Chief Commercial Officer at Dyze Design.

“And it’s worth noting that the Horizon is providing detection in a more precise and repeatable way than any non-contact sensors, allow more clearance around your extruder because it is mounted directly on the carriage and doesn’t need any calibration after a component change (extruder, hotend, nozzles, bed surface),“ adds Dyze’s CCO.

The Horizon^TM, for all practical purposes, transforms your nozzle into a very sensible force sensor. This allows very accurate Z homing of your bed without any risk of damaging your printer as the Z motors will be stopped the instant your nozzle touches the bed. All in all, Horizon can be used as a basic z axis endstop switch or extend its capabilities to auto-bed leveling features using 3D printer firmware logic.

Horizon^TM also enables the Z-Offset to be automatically adjusted. No need to update the firmware again if you somehow change the form factor of your hotend or nozzle. Finally, it’s also possible to level the bed even when the nozzle is hot. It is convenient for thermal expansion, because there are no solid plastics that could distort the calibration.

As the Horizon^TM is mounted between the carriage and the extruder or the hotend in a bowden setup, you’re not losing any space on your X-axis, as you would with another sensor mounted beside your printhead.

It’s also compatible with most popular extruders such as Bondtech BMG, E3D Titan and all common 3D printer firmware like Marlin, RepRap Firmware and Klipper.

The Horizon^TM is now available for purchase at the price of CA$130. You can buy it online on the Dyze Design website.

About Dyze Design

Dyze Design has been in the 3D printing industry since 2015 developing and manufacturing cutting-edge high performance, reliable, and innovative extrusion systems and 3D printer components for professional, industrial and large-scale 3D printers. They are renowned for their Typhoon™ high-flow extruder, Pulsar™ pellet extruder, DyzeXtruder GT and DyzeXtruder Pro extruder line, their SENTINEL™ filament detector or Tungsten Carbide Nozzles. Today, many 3D printer brands such as Roboze, Sharebot, Blackbelt, Dynamical 3D, Aon3d, Trideo, 3DPlatform, Filament Innovations, Mark One and Cincinnati have chosen their hotends, extruders, and nozzles as OEM parts for their industrial or high-end printers.