End stop type

Hello,

I've a question about end stop types. I'm building a 3D printer from scratch and I am not sure what type of end stop to use and how it may simply or complicate things. The main ones as far as I can tell are mechanical, hall and optical. I like the idea of not having a collision so I want to use the optical type. Can someone tell me what the pros and cons are from each type, I already googled it, but I'm still not sure.

mechanical: cheap, simple effective, can be 2 or 3 wires.
Optical: can be triggered by stray light. Interrupters don’t always work as expected (many materials are UV or IR transparent), needs power, most are 5v some 12v. Works ok.
hall : most complicated board but simple to use, needs power 5v, works fine, needs a magnet to detect on the other side.

Basally they are all interchangeable and work ok. I would avoid Optical if you work anywhere the sun can hit it.

Lots favour the hall on the Z axis as it easy to tune with the potentiometer.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/03/2016 03:06AM by Dust.