I know for a fact that you can really influence the total time spent in color changes/flushes by having a longer/shorter PTFE path from the printer to the AMS. It would be helpful to give users the option in BB Studio or BB Handy to input the total time it takes for a single filament load/unload process so that when an object is sliced, the given total time is more accurate.
You can reduce that duration to less than half of stock in some extreme PTFE shortening cases or more than double it if you use your AMS unit(s) on the side of your printer and have a relatively longer PTFE path. I am currently experiencing up to 1-hour discrepancies on multi-color prints that are expected to take 4 to 5 hours.
tl;dr I shortened my PTFE tubes, now my 4-5h prints finish an hour faster approx, need an option to adjust the time spent in load/unload during color changes in slicer
Just out of curiosity, what times did you get down to? I’ve never measured my real load/unload times. With all my AMS units on RH in 2x2 stacks, to be really exact I would need to specify times per AMS. Or put another way; For prints with ahelluvalot of color changes, it might be worthwhile to put all needed colors in the two nearest units.
FYI: some weeks ago someone asked Bambu Lab what exactly is done with theese two numbers. It looks like they are not used for print time calculation but only to set have some sort of load/unload timeout.
That is substantially shorter than the default times, I can see it makes a significant difference on 50-100 or even more color changes. I should move two of my AMS to the LH side and turn the hub 90° so I can run as short tubes as possible from all of them. Then again I’m not often printing many colors interleaved like that. I do need that for support interface though. Perhaps I should concentrate on just one AMS. But then I wouldn’t be able to edit those figures to something that would be correct for all cases…
I’ve managed to bring the load time down to sub 6 seconds currently. Initially, I was doing this for multi-color prints, but I’ve discovered that with these short PTFE paths (I have the Benlevi AMS riser, could prob. get it down even more if I didn’t use a riser), the movement of the spools inside the AMS is much less prone to problems. I’ve occasionally encountered a spool jam (approx 1 in 100h print time) when unloading because the length delta between the spool and the AMS pushing out filament increases with the length of filament path. However, with these new short paths, I’ve had absolutely zero problems. No load/unload errors, failed retract errors, or anything similar. Additionally, I’ve started printing more PETG/PLA as support for each other and have been able to add more supports without worrying about a significant increase in print time. Don’t tell bbl this but I can also print w tpu inside the ams with some software workarounds (not the flexiest tpu but still…)
