AMS Light doesn't pull filament

I have a brand new A1 Mini with an AMS Light and when I push the filament into one of the ports nothing happens. I tried disengaging the gear and pushing it in a bit, still nothing. This applies to all 4 ports. Not sure what I am doing wrong. I am placing the tip of the filament in the yellow port hole.

All firmwares are up to date with the latest as of today.

Would appreciate any help. Thanks

Hold down the button & push the filament in, when you feel it grab, let go.

The basic process is insert, it grabs, you let it do its thing.

If it does not do this it is usually in one of two states.

  1. No power to the AMS lite, are there light in the AMS lite, is the printer on, is the data cable plugged in to the printer correctly?

  2. The printer is busy, it could be starting up, printing, downloading, calibrating, loading another filament (you ruled that one out by implication).

The AMS has power. The LEDs on the 4 bosses with the numbers are flashing. The printer is definitely not busy starting up etc. I tried pressing the button and inserting the filament. It goes in about 10mm but then still nothing happens.

I should add that I checked the cable is seated correctly in the port on the printer, I also tried both ports.

EDITED: For incorrect information.

The four flashing lights are waiting for filament.

Wrong AMS, the OP has an AMS lite with an A series, they operate differently.

Are you sure it is only 10mm, could it be a few cm’s?

The AMS lite does not load the filament all the way to the print head when you load the filament. It handles that when you go to print.

After the motor grabs it and stops, can you then select that slot in the filament section if the screen (give it a few seconds), press the slot, this should enable the edit button, can you set the filament type and colour?

Apologies! Thanks for the clarification.

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There is no motor movement at all. Not when i place the filament in the mouth of the port, or when I insert further by pressing the gear disengage button. When disengaging the gear the filament goes in maybe a couple of centimeters then bottoms out. Then releasing the button engages the gear so the filament is held on to, but again, no motors turn what so ever. The lights just continue flashing just like before.

The filament section on the interface also doesn’t seem to register anything. All four slots show “/“. I have tried bamboo filament as well as generic.

I really appreciate everyone’s inputs.

Which way do your light flash based on this guide?

That would be the first case. White, flashing in turn.

That means it thinks all is fine, clearly it is not.

Unless you are accidentally pushing the filament into the out ring of the filament slot rather than the central hoke, something I have done too many times, it should grab it and start the process.

This article has some suggestions to try, if you have a meter (most don’t you could check those things) or you could check the cable positions.

https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/ams-lite/manual/ams-lite-cannot-be-detected

It does sound like a support ticket needs to be created though as something is not working when everything suggests it should be. Given it is brand new, is is likely to be a technical issue from the manufacturer and not wear and tear as you have yet to be able to use it.

I feel for you, you have a great tool/toy that you can’t fully use yet.

Ok, so I did the multimeter checks and everything checked out. I was about to raise a support ticket but I thought let me give it one more try. It worked!

Embarrassing to say but it does seem i wasn’t inserting the filament properly and it was snagging on something and not reaching the filament detector.

Thank you all for your help, much appreciated.

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