The Lidar is used for the height map of the printbed, so it clearly as something to do with z-height.
The lidar surely is not required for a printer to work, and it was never said that you cannot have a printer without one. But the lidar does work and does something. If you think its worth the extra money is something I cannot tell you, but the evidence is there that it does something.
A X1C does not cost 2k, not even close to it. And the X1C is a consumer product, not an enterprise or industrial grade product. Consumer products are barely ever perfect or flawless, I doubt I own a single flawless item, if such a thing even exist. But most of my stuff works decent enough.
I personally had the lidar detect every single major first layer adhesion problem I had. I do not claim it will always do it, or will do it for everyone, but it clearly works in that regard at least for me.
But since you returned the printer, why the hate here? Its the first product of a new company and clearly not a perfect product. The problems with the warped beds make they pretty clear. But if you got your money back, just chill and let other people enjoy their printers.
The way it works is a light at a specific wavelength is projected onto the bed/part. The camera, sitting at a known angle, takes a picture and analyzes the pixels to find out where the sharpest edges are. Since the camera is at a known angle relative to the laser angle, the pythagorean theorem is applied and a determination is made to find the displacement between the light point and the camera sensor. The resolution they claim is based on the pixel pitch of the camera sensor combined by the sharpness of the light on the bed/part, and a fuzz factor applied. If they were using more expensive lasers, the wavelength would also be considered as part of the algorithm. As the bed is raised and lowered, or material is added/subtracted, the point where the laser is on the bed changes relative to the camera sensor. Basically, it’s a poor man’s interferometer.
By being able to detect variations in displacement, it is possible to determine when there’s a defect in the layer when compared with a reference. So, a correction algorithm may be applied to attempt to correct for a defect–assuming the defect mode is known.
So, the gimmick is in believeing that the printer can move 7 microns in any direction reliably, and being able to figure out the correct defect mode so the appropriate correction is introduced. As more experienced 3D printer people know, a layer defect can be caused by several different factors, not only axis displacement.
There is plenty of prior art in this realm. One such is the DRSX860 photo mask laser repair system that was produced by Quantronix and Control Laser Corporation, which uses a much more expensive displacement sensor to detect angstroms of material thickness on a lithography photo mask and correct for deviations using that data.
Well, considering the MOST accurate lidar sensors in the world (and most expensive, like many times more than the x1c expensive) are only accurate to 0.5mm on an x and y axis and 2.0mm on a z axis, I’d say yes. They are entirely a gimmick.
The Bambu micro lidar is a sensor capable of measuring depth in micrometers . It brings micrometer-level precision into 3D printing. The system probes the nozzle height from the bed’s surface, calibrates the flow extruded from the nozzle, and scans the first layer.
I think I get a more accurate flow rate number using the calibration built into Orca Slicer. As for the other stuff that the wiki says the lidar does, it’s hard for me to know how much of a difference it’s making. I suppose you could remove it from the gcode and do a compare/contrast of the printed output vs leaving it in.