Broken filament inside AMS - simple solution

Bambu Lab AMS
1

Just let us purge old broken filament with a new spool!

It’s such a pain in the ass to disassemble AMS, disconnect wires, pull out old filament, push everything back together to realize that short cords inside AMS got disconnected during assembley.

Current process is unnecessary complicated when you can just push it through with a new spool that won’t break and manually push it through the tube. Flush old filament through the nozzle. See when new spool color appears. … profit.
Not like you’d be repurposing that broken piece anyways, I bet 99% of people just toss it to the waste bin!

Currently AMS motors are locking the filament not letting it through, but why should it be this way?..
Yeah, you can burn the nozzle if you’re not fast enough, but I’d rather be fast with a new spool than very slow with a screwdriver and lots of curses.

2

I have a long piece of piano wire, like 1.5mm diameter, very flexible. I use that to push filament through the system. Diameter is small enough it gets past all the filament drive wheels and stuff.

4 Likes
3

That’s a great idea. I’ve got some MIG welding wire that should work perfectly.

4 Likes
4

Do you not get your filament blocked somewhere on the way? I for the love of me can’t push it through with a different spool. I instead push the ptfe tubes in/out of fittings but not the filament itself like AMS or something else holds on to it.

5

To add to the problem, I once had issue with filament broken inside AMS and the printer decided that it got broken in the main tube. I cleared AMS, I made sure I can purge through main tube, and it was still thinking something was stuck in the main tube. It was 4x the pain of normal AMS break filament to get resolved and I kid you not I spent about 2 hours diagnosing it, restarting stuff and resetting printer as last resort.

6

This is a huge hassle, every time something breaks in the AMS I have to open it all up, even though I could just stick some filament down the tube if the motor opened up and let me… Why isn’t this an option?

7

just make a ptfe tube remover

8

or better yet, push it through manually while pressing the manual extrude button.

9

I agree…
Considering that things keep happening it would make sense to have some quick and EASY purge options that won’t require taking the entire AMS apart…

10

I was on the trail once with a guy who broke his front u-joint in the axle. It’s like a 2 hour ordeal, and very similar PITA to this. He and some other guys got it up on jack stands and 15 minutes later they were done and packing up. Someone asked him how he’d done it so fast and he said “It happens so often, I just leave all the bolts finger tight”.

I stopped putting the screws back in my AMS tray (technically I have the Hydra mod printed tray) and it really makes the whole process quicker.

2 Likes
11

Is it a solid wire or wound wire? I’m wondering because I can pick up a heavy set of guitar strings and the low E will be a wound wire and about 1.45 mm

12

Go on Amazon and search for “metal rod 1.5mm” and you’ll see plenty of easily attainable options. I have a stock of various diameters I use for my radio control aircraft.

I wouldn’t use a wound guitar or piano string, the winding might make it so the wire can catch and bind on something.

3 Likes
13

Thanks, I asked about the winding for the reason you stated.

14

Hello. I was reading because I have a problem.
I’ve had the A1 for 2 days and the filament inside the tube broke.
I don’t know how to get it out.
Could you help me?

15

While there’s wiki about it, I’ve bought myself a string for locking luggage, and it’s wide enough to go through PTFE tube, while being stiff enough to allow me to push through. Already managed to get out several tricky pieces THROUGH ams motor even.