Manual VS Autoleveling Laser

[aondre]

I did some concrete work recently and borrowed a friends "cheap" rotary laser to help bring the gravel to grade. It was manual-leveling and a real pain to do but it was still a major time saver. Now I have found several uses for one and would like to purchase my own soon.

I have been looking at several models and have been wondering about the self-leveling kind - do they work? I really like the new DeWalt models since I can use my existing Dewalt batteries, however it is a manual-leveling laser.

Does anyone have experience with the two different kinds? Likes/Dislikes of each? Brand recommendations?

Thanks - Art

 

[bobsedor]

I have one of these and it works great.

http://www.toolmarts.com/robolas.html

 

[MarkV]

I also have one of the Robo-laser that I got several years ago when they were about $100 more. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif It isn't as nice as a true rotary laser but has been mighty handy in most situations. I am sold on the self-leveling units. After using a builder's level for years it often took more time to set the level up than to get the readings I needed. Even with the cheap self-leveling unit I will pull it out and be done before I could set up the other.

MarkV

 

[Spencer]

aondre, If you can afford it get yourself a good auto-leveling rotating laser level. I have a LM-400-2 from CST Berger. I have carried this thing around the country with me in my van for two years and it has held up very well. In October it needed to be recalibrated but the directions in the owners manual were pretty vauge. So I called the company and spoke with one of their service technicians. He explained (a few times) how to calibrate it properly but suggested that I go ahead and send it in because the two year warranty was about to run out and he would look the whole thing over for me. He ended up replacing quite a few internal parts, replaced the outer shell and keypad, upgraded the software for me, and included a new printed manual. Now remember that the unit was working fine, it just was a little out of calibration. He upgraded these items just because in the two years since I had bought my unit they had continued to improve that model laser. So now I essentially had a brand new unit. The bill showed over $400 dollars worth of upgrades but there was no charge to me. Because they had done these upgrades at the end of my warranty period they extended my warranty for another 60 days. The third time I went to use it after I had gotten it back I got a strange error showing up on the lcd display. The unit would stop working in rotation mode but I was able to still use it in sweep mode so I got my work done. I called the technician back and explained the error that I was getting. He was not familiar with that error and we both assumed it might have been just too cold out when I was using the laser. He wanted me to send it back just to be sure because again my now extended warranty was going to run out. So I sent it back but they were unable to duplicate the error (so it probably was the temperature). They went ahead and upgraded to their latest software, recalibrated it again and sent it back with no charge.

I had another experience with a CST/Berger product that I talked about here last year. You can see by my above post and reading my previous post that I am quite impressed with this company and their products.

 

[gerard]

Haven't used one personally but the ones I've seen float in a small dish of either water or oil. Thats how the "self leveling" feature works. Seems pretty infallible to me!

 

[Spencer]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Haven't used one personally but the ones I've seen float in a small dish of either water or oil. Thats how the "self leveling" feature works. Seems pretty infallible to me! )</font>

gerard, Some other levels may use that system but mine has a bunch of servo motors in it. When you first turn it on you can here and see the laser head get leveled in one direction and then it the other. Mine also works on its side so you can shoot plumb lines with it. It senses whether it is in horzontal or vertical mode and levels accordingly. You can also adjust the head of the laser up or down (or in or out) using the keypad for those minor adjustments. The manual level units work Ok but they are quite slower to use than the auto leveling units. For instance when I used mine last Saturday to mark the tails of the trusses on my pole barn for cutting. I mounted it on its side on the tripod and turned it on. I watched where the beam was and I moved and rotated it accordingly. A couple of times I had to reposition the tripod completely and start over. It took me about 7 or 8 minutes to get it lined up correctly along the 56' side of my barn. If I had to manually level the unit each time I moved it I would have been there all night.