I have seen print files that allow you to calibrate the amount of purge so even if you cant cut down on the color swaps, you can still cut down on the amount per swap
One way you can end up with a lot of unnecessary waste with AMS is improper orientation of your object. The purge tower on the prepare page might show the purge tower going to the top of the build area, but after slicing, it only extends to the last filament swap, so if you can keep those filament swaps as low to the build plate as possible, you minimize how much filament must be used to build that tower. If you're designing your own parts, you can either design them to work this way, or cleverly split the model into interlocking parts to take advantage of this. This one is a little bit niche, but another option that I've found somewhat useful is setting the "interlocking depth of a segmented region" under the advanced settings in the others tab to something near your desired shell thickness. It doesn't reduce waste, and can even increase it, but that may also result in a small reduction in the total amount of filament used. The plate I'm printing now went from 138.09g to 137.20g of total filament used, despite a tiny increase of 0.03g of waste (number of filament swaps was unchanged). I find it helps on otherwise single color models that I've used the color painting tool on, because Bambu Studio seems to extend those colored sections pretty far into the model, replacing parts of the sparse infill with several more perimeters. This option restores the sparse infill on alternating layers by limiting the depth of the color by what you specify here, which helps a bit. I think this option is intended to help with problems with adhesion between different colored materials, which I've never had a problem with, and the filament reduction is an unintended side effect.
Awesome! I though I saw a print go by object the week I got the printer, but somehow missed the print by object option in the settings! Will definitely be using that in future after seeing you point it out.
Thanks for this video. It's very helpful. I don't have a Bambulabs printer yet, but I am keen on getting the A1 Mini with AMS lite. The only thing that was troubling me about it was the amount of wasted filament. You've offered good solutions. Thanks!
@bhartissimo Glad this was helpful. One option I didn't cover that you can also use is changing the amount the printer purges each time by changing the flushing volume multiplier. Something some people play with.
It would be nice if there were an auto-adjust of infill density tuned for each filamnet swap so that the wasted plastic is used for up to 100% infill rather than being pooped.
Purge into infil barely makes a dent unless you really crank up your infill percentage. And at that point, it's basically the same waste for a heavier print
While purge into infill in theory is a great idea and can make a difference if the other model is big and has a lot of infill or the infill percentage is high it's not that big of a game changer is saving filament for many situations.
What do you think about flush to infill combined with reducing the purge amount at each swap? Maybe it will be okay for filaments that are not too far apart like two shades of the same base colour.
With the freedom to optimize a design, is it possible to modify the volume of different colors in the objects so that there is near-zero waste? For example, make each area/volume slightly larger (or smaller) as necessary to absorb the waste. Like trying to make the fill volumes an integer multiple of the maximum waste-change volume. Or even simpler, is it possible to completely flush the waste into the next layer (if color accuracy isn't critical) so that there is zero waste?
What approaches have others used to help limit the amount of wasted filament from your multi-colored prints?
I have seen print files that allow you to calibrate the amount of purge so even if you cant cut down on the color swaps, you can still cut down on the amount per swap
@@air8536 Thanks, that seems like a viable option I need to play with that more myself. Have you found it saves a lot of filament?
@@makeshiftedtech I haven't tried them either, but I've seen great results from it
Really great tips and concisely presented! Thank you very much for this video :)
I usually just drop the flush multiplier to 0.5 and that does a pretty good job at reducing print waste
Thanks that's a great tip.
One way you can end up with a lot of unnecessary waste with AMS is improper orientation of your object. The purge tower on the prepare page might show the purge tower going to the top of the build area, but after slicing, it only extends to the last filament swap, so if you can keep those filament swaps as low to the build plate as possible, you minimize how much filament must be used to build that tower. If you're designing your own parts, you can either design them to work this way, or cleverly split the model into interlocking parts to take advantage of this.
This one is a little bit niche, but another option that I've found somewhat useful is setting the "interlocking depth of a segmented region" under the advanced settings in the others tab to something near your desired shell thickness. It doesn't reduce waste, and can even increase it, but that may also result in a small reduction in the total amount of filament used. The plate I'm printing now went from 138.09g to 137.20g of total filament used, despite a tiny increase of 0.03g of waste (number of filament swaps was unchanged). I find it helps on otherwise single color models that I've used the color painting tool on, because Bambu Studio seems to extend those colored sections pretty far into the model, replacing parts of the sparse infill with several more perimeters. This option restores the sparse infill on alternating layers by limiting the depth of the color by what you specify here, which helps a bit. I think this option is intended to help with problems with adhesion between different colored materials, which I've never had a problem with, and the filament reduction is an unintended side effect.
Awesome! I though I saw a print go by object the week I got the printer, but somehow missed the print by object option in the settings! Will definitely be using that in future after seeing you point it out.
Thanks for this video. It's very helpful. I don't have a Bambulabs printer yet, but I am keen on getting the A1 Mini with AMS lite. The only thing that was troubling me about it was the amount of wasted filament. You've offered good solutions. Thanks!
@bhartissimo Glad this was helpful. One option I didn't cover that you can also use is changing the amount the printer purges each time by changing the flushing volume multiplier. Something some people play with.
Thanks for the info ! Great video
Glad it was helpful!
Great video, thanks for sharing.
It would be nice if there were an auto-adjust of infill density tuned for each filamnet swap so that the wasted plastic is used for up to 100% infill rather than being pooped.
Greast video! I am glad I stumbled on this channel today. I have subbed :)
You didn't give the most important advice: changing gcode saves 50% filament in poops
Tell me more about
@@Vagabondpilot See on printables there is exactly what to change in gcode
Great tip, seems very straightforward
What about purging into infill?
I think this is what I'll be doing
Purge into infil barely makes a dent unless you really crank up your infill percentage. And at that point, it's basically the same waste for a heavier print
While purge into infill in theory is a great idea and can make a difference if the other model is big and has a lot of infill or the infill percentage is high it's not that big of a game changer is saving filament for many situations.
Great tips!
What do you think about flush to infill combined with reducing the purge amount at each swap? Maybe it will be okay for filaments that are not too far apart like two shades of the same base colour.
With the freedom to optimize a design, is it possible to modify the volume of different colors in the objects so that there is near-zero waste? For example, make each area/volume slightly larger (or smaller) as necessary to absorb the waste. Like trying to make the fill volumes an integer multiple of the maximum waste-change volume.
Or even simpler, is it possible to completely flush the waste into the next layer (if color accuracy isn't critical) so that there is zero waste?
If you’re flushing into a second identical object could you just not have a prime tower?
Ty mate ;D
you missed flush into infill
That’s not a dirty secret, everyone knows about it.