is endstop necessary?

I am planning to use Marlin/RAMPS for the printer firmware and I just found out some vendors sell a complete kit with mechanical endstops included.

But are these necessary to run Marlin on RAMPS? In other words, does Marlin support RAMPS running without mechanical endstops?

I've built my xyz cartesian machine without really considering mechanical endstops and I am not really willing to install endstops.

I understand that endstops are for getting the initial position of xyz without human interaction. So if I always set xyz to 0 in the beginning, wouldn't that be ok for firmware to run stepper motors afterwards?

Endstops are not compulsory on any Prusa but they are a real convenience and for the cost (approx. $3 for three mechanical endstops), most people don't hesitate to install them.

Marlin does not force you to install endstops.

Thanks for your reply

when you accidently home z, you will be thankfull of a z endstop

As driving your hotend threw your print bed is an expensive mistake

So I will advise that you have a Z endstop if nothing else.

I would imagine you would have to tweak your gcode before you print?
After reaching the correct temps the printer will home via the endstops, then print

Steve

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Quote
SteveRoy
I would imagine you would have to tweak your gcode before you print?
After reaching the correct temps the printer will home via the endstops, then print

Such homing is likely just done in the pre- or post-print gcode and is easily removed.

As Dust said though, expensive mistakes can easily happen. I'd design things so that if you decide to still not use end stops that something solid prevents expensive mistakes For a z-axis for instance, a solid bracket that would prevent the x-axis from lowering more than a mm or two past the normal level of the hot bed.