AMS Lite compatibility with other AMS units

[June]

wait, do you mean the filament retraction of the AMS Lite is actually done by the spool holder’s spring rather than the feeder unit motor?
If that’s true,

@June

I’ve searched around and found other AMS Lite users asking the same thing, but I couldn’t find a definitive answer. Some comments claim it’s due to a mechanical limitation of the AMS Lite: if you add a hub to connect both AMS Lite and other AMS units to the printer, the AMS Lite supposedly can’t retract far enough to pull filament back through the extra hub. The reasoning given is that filament from the AMS Lite is retracted passively by the spool holder’s spring-rewind mechanism, so it can’t achieve the required retraction distance.

I don’t agree with that. In the AMS Lite, retraction is performed actively by the feeder motor, not passively by the spool holder. There are numerous AMS Lite mods on MakerWorld that remove the spool holders entirely and still work fine. I’m using one of those mods myself, and I’ve confirmed that the motor actively retracts filament from the hub.

shouldn’t AMS Lite mods that removed spool holders not work properly? As far as I understand, spring mechanism of the AMS Lite’s spool holder is just for an additional function to rewind the spool in order to prevent possible tangling of the filaments - not really a necessary function.