Don't Ruin Your AMS!! Bambu Lab X1C 1 Year Review!

Bambu Lab is having their 2nd Anniversary Sale so I know a ton of people are getting brand new printers! I've had mine for a little over a year now and I've learned a TON about this printer, including advice on how to take care of your AMS and be hassle free!

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[roberth]

"The title of this presentation is, 'Don't ruin your AMS'. Now, without further ado, let me talk about stickers..."

[DaveEtchells]

For cardboard spools, I bought a bottle of clear nail polish and just brush a little on the spool edges. It dries quickly and seals the edges perfectly so they don’t shed fibers.

[Caps_Locke]

It's believed the AMS fuel gauge works by measuring the distance of filament used between full rotations the RFID tag makes.

[faststongesdrc]

Just got my second printer. Started 3 months ago with creality. Bought the x1c today with the gold plate and man... wow... the precision, quality. JUST amazing.

[SVCprints]

I’ve noticed the same thing. People saying they have failure to feed and retracts and all this. I tried the rings didn’t like it. Ended up getting a ton of empty bambu spools from someone. Just paid shipping. I’ve done several 2-5 day multicolor prints with zero user interface. Recently a 5 day 3, 000 filament change model with zero problems. If you use the right spools these things just work!

[dggr]

I've got about 1000hrs on my P1S in about 9 months (I use it a lot, lot of long prints etc), and I've been printing and building printers since late 2011 and I can say a few things on it having had a few issues in that time (some self inflicted and some due to design issues with it). In terms of clogged AMS, I've never had to go to a teardown of it but I have heard people find it easy enough to do (I do a bit of a dance of removing any other rolls, ejecting the PTFE from the printer and then finding where it's bound up and getting it to feed backwards).
In terms of cardboard spools - they don't leave any residue behind tbh, I just had a look in my AMS after going through maybe 16 rolls of filament in a row of cardboard and there's nothing in there dirt or dust wise. They are in printed rings though - some slip when trying without them. the cardboard is the same stock as the centres of the polymaker rolls that bambulabs use. If you're fine with the abrasion they take from filament there's no real issues with the whole cardboard ones imho. They also don't bounce when they're nearly empty either, at least no more than a plastic one or a Bambu one. Lots of manufacturers do refills in the same way (BambuLabs weren't innovative in any way here), even on cardboard spools or self printed spools!

The measurement thing is on the Wiki - "The RFID reading process can also be used to estimate the remaining filament. The working principle is to estimate the percentage of the remaining filament on the spool by the length of the filament sent out after the RFID tag on the spool rotates a full circle. The complete 1kg filament roll is 100% capacity by default."

If there's a takeaway here - don't be afraid of cardboard spools, sure there's no fuel gauge, and you might need some rings, but they are recyclable. Also, print the silica gel inserts for the AMS, take them out and microwave them (take the gel out and put into a microwave safe container and be careful they get VERY hot) when it starts showing moisture on the or prints go weird. They really work well.
Oh and give the carbon rods a wipe from time to time, it's good to remove the dust.

[Rotor-Sims]

I bought a brand new X1C and it arrived today. Came with the gold plate. The unit works awesome. I've been printing dust covers and AMS feeder savers lol. Thanks for the video, very helpful!

[jamesmeader]

10:12 Aren't you supposed to press on the filament inlet in the AMS to release the grip on the filament before you pull it out?

[JoeCool]

Just got my X1C last week and it did indeed come with just the gold plate.

[oliverspike]

thank you for your video it is awesome advises ! what setup would you recommend to print some transparent filament in bambulab studio ? thanks again for all of your videos !

[brysoncorley]

You just blew my mind. I was having issues with the overture petg spools keep creating AMS overloading error messages.

You can just rip off the cardboard outer rings and slap that b in a bambu spool. Perfectly. No issues.

Amazing.

[Willdabeast]

Dude how do you print petg so clear? I've tried everything. Different filament brands, nozzle sizes, bunch of settings and nothing close to what you can do. Do you release your print profile? Patreons maybe? As a '90 kids I just want that clear purple n64 look so bad.

[sogwatchman]

My X1C came with the gold plate. Haven't had any issues with adhesion.

[paulgittins]

Good video. I'm about a year into my X1 now and love it. I have had a few problems with the AMS. There have been a few filament breaks inside the AMS which require dissassembly. I find this to be a pain. There are two tiny screws in the back bottom of the AMS that are hard to get to, difficult to see, and difficult to reinsert. Once those are handled it's not too bad to get the filament blockage cleared out. I converted to the HYDRA package, which is helping with the spool sizes a bit, but did nothing regarding filament breakage. I acknowledge that much of the filament breakage is mitigated when the filament is properly dried out. I am now in the process of getting the PYTHON AMS mod which looks like it's much easier to work on should a filament break occur. I recently purchased the Bambu A1 with AMS and this one is much easier to work with. Because of the less complicated filament paths breakage is greatly reduced.
You also mentioned using the textured plates. For me this didn't go well at all. My first attempt resulted in failure to stick and later results were mediocre at best. There is a good selection available on AMAZON with very good instructions on how to use the textured plates. I might try again. My final gripe with the AMS is that only one of my 4 slots actually reads the spools anymore. It may be due to being taken apart a few times, it's hard to tell. Since I expect to be using the PYTHON soon, it's a moot point, since the PYTHON does not allow for AMS reading. On the AMS all the RFI or what ever the spool ID process is, works just fine. One thing I especially like with the X1 is how well it prints ABS. I don't expect to obtain the same results with the open air A1 unless it's for very small items.

[zR_CrackiiN]

From my understanding it finds the tag in a certain spot, then shoots filament down to the ams hub sensor, it knows what that length is and counts the revolutions of the tag to work out roughly how much is left

[Zyghqwyv]

The fuel gauge is an estimate of the outer diameter of the filament bundle. A large roll will have a larger diameter of the bundle of filament. A smaller roll vice versa. It tracks how many meters of filament per rotation (detecting the tag, not detecting, then detecting it again) and by doing some math and a lookup chart for BBL spools, it gives estimates

[nmayor]

There is a difference between the textured plate and the smooth plates. For the textured plate the Z-Offset is set to 0.04mm lower in the startup G-Code, pressumably to better smoosh the filament into the valleys of the texture.

[NoahJohnson]

Do you have any tips for printing clear PETG? I need a clear ish case for a few projects.

[thorsten]

Got my P1S a week ago. The gold plate was included 👍

[MrTobbo]

Subbed to you ages ago for the flipper info and here we are now I've got a bambu! full loop