I’m trying to think of what the use case is for custom RFID.
Are you often swapping spools in your AMS? For me I put 12-16 spools in my 4 AMS and they just sit there since they also function as decent dryboxes and I set the color once and I don’t really touch it again until I use up the whole spool.
The reason why I’m asking is because when I’m in a situation where things are outside of my control, i.e, vendor owned decision, I think about what I can do to ease the pain points.
I think using the on-printer UI for assigning the slot material and color is a little clunky for those of us with big fingers that exceed pressing the 3-4mm wide box color, but not too bad, or Bambu Handy, and I also know that Bambu Studio can be used to set the material and color.
One thing I’d be interested in doing is looking at if MQTT payloads are used to set the AMS slot material and color. If that is how it works, then developing another interface, like a local website, or even a physical device that sits next to the printer with a better UI.
Anyways, custom RFI tags would be cool, but I think as most of us are probably engineers to some degree it’d be cool to come up with another solution that may even be better than custom RFI tags. Especially since changing the tag implies disassembling the spool
I hope they don’t pull a Dymo kind of thing where the device only works with their filaments.
It would be extremely awesome to have a feature in the mobile app to select filament color, type, temperatures, and how much is left on the spool. Then, we could write this information to an inexpensive NFC tag with the phone’s built-in NFC capability, allowing us to attach them to regular spools."
Custom RFI tags would be great addition to the system, with the recent introduction of flow and K value calibration prints its tough to manage all your spools with custom values for optimal prints.
With custom RFI tags you could print two calibration prints and add the values with colour/temp/manufacturer information on the tag and everything would be automated after that.
On a side note, would it be possible to combine the two calibration tests in to one since they don´t take that much on the bed, better yet use all 4 spools so you´d get 8 different tests done at once?
Usecase: Bambu Labs UK store was sold-out of PVA support and glass transparent PC PolyCarbonate filament. So I purchased some on Amazon instead.
Now the autodetect filament feature in Bambu Studio is broken and it would be really nice to custom print my own RFID tag to fix autodetect, rather than having to manually specify which numeric slot I have mounted it in each time.
PS. Bambu filament store always seems to be out-of-stock for half their filaments and this seems like an ongoing logistics issue.
It looks like I can’t edit my post to add this, but … and I hesitate to say this out loud, but … if Bambu was really worried about 3rd party knockoffs, they could sell you a cheap RFID tag color set that was tied to (and only usable by) your printer.
Creality’s K2 Max and I think it’s called the “CMS” (Color Management System) utilizes their own spool RFID’s now. I have yet to see if they’re deciding to open source it to allow others but it’s looking like they’ve taken the approach of following Bambu labs and trying to create a proprietary line of filament…
Funny,. my first 3D printer, an XYZ Davinci Jr, had proprietary RFID tags and they were hacked with an Android app and writable RFID tags from Amazon… That was almost 5 years ago, lol never thought I would be seeing the need to do it again… Honestly, if Bambu would provide even a once or twice ability to write to the RFID tag to name it and describe it, that would be sufficient for me. Especially if I am just getting a black PETG refill for an empty spool I named Black PETG. After that they can just charge a small fee if you want to rename it a 3rd time,. something mediocre like .50 or .75 by inserting the spool into the AMS and then Bambu Studio can unlock and write to the spool.
I don’t think introducing micro-payments into the system will help anyone.
The RFID tags should be for the users to benefit from and make the BL system easier to use.
By not allowing users to create an RFID that we provide (think sticker) BL are closing off potential users. They harm future diagnostic opportunities slowing down their support people resolving issues far faster.
I can buy a roll of RFID stickers that the Bambu Handy app can read from and write if it enables the feature. They could then identify the type of RFID tag (they are not all the same) and encode the data accordingly.
The benefits of knowing the brands of filament people use, the colours chosen, the types of materials selected and how often they are used is excellent marketing information.
If BL want to be a filament company, they should have excellent stock levels and sell at a competitive price, they fail badly at both. They also do not offer decent shipping or speeds. Having filaments as a side business isn’t an issue, but, locking people out of the convenience they sell the printers on with RFID support is pure isolationment.
As much as I would prefer to make my own RFID tags, I would gladly by spool adapters or empty spools with generic colors and materials preloaded for quick filament management, IE; PLA Black, PLA Red, PETG Green, PETG Clear, etc.
In a recent AMA (ask me anything), BL was as,Ed about opening up the RFID tag system and they said they have no interest or plans to let anyone else do anything with their RFID filament tags.
I assume they hope it helps sell filament whilst ignoring the idea that opening it up helps sell printers!
There’s a couple of RFID holders here. One fits Hatchbox spools nicely and Hatchbox filament so far seems ok with Bambu parameters on PLA.
It’s a bit of a kludge but if you use the approximate Bambu color tag for whatever other spools - and they print ok using Bambu’s parameters - you’re golden.
What Bambu has done is show people how useful the system can be. What they are doing now is showing competitors how not to manage this going forward. Bambu’s “lock-in” doesn’t, but it does inconvenience users. If someone else can make a good multicolor/material printer with filament tags open and unlocked, they’ll have a ready market.
Good luck with that… You can get the keys to read the tag, but the contents are signed with a 2048 bit RSA encryption key … unless you have Bambu 's private signing key, you can’t write a tag with a valid signature.
While they managed to get the rudimentary keys to read the RFID tag, they haven’t got the signing key (2048 RSA) to write an RFID that the machine will accept. I expect eventually, someone will sacrifice their AMS, and figure out how to read the private key off the chip, and then once the signing key is compromised, we’ll be able to program and sign our own RFID tags… In the meantime, I expect that Bambu labs is taking advantage of this “feature” as something that only works with their branded filament, thereby giving you an incentive to buy it over cheaper options. Consumables is an important revenue stream that I’m sure they’re not going to give up willingly.
Unfortunately that’s not how RSA works - the private key is not on the AMS, only the public key is. The private key stays closely guarded in the factory that programs the rfid chips. The only way we will get it is if they release it. Even if it is somehow hacked/leaked from the factory they can just issue a firmware update to rotate it to a new key.
