Ghost external filament spool on A1 and in Bambu Studio

Bambu Lab A1 Series Troubleshooting
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Somehow due to the A1’s incomplete firmware logic when running out of filament on the AMS Lite (combined with all the possible associated scenarios…see end of this post), the A1 now thinks there is an external filament spool loaded. Despite only ever using the AMS Lite, both in the printer and in Bambu Studio, when filaments are displayed, it displays the ones on the AMS plus a ghost spool of imaginary filament as an external spool.

The problem is the printer won’t let me go in and manually select “no filament” or “N/A” or “none” for the external spool. It only lets me select filament type (again, with no option in the list for “none”, and color.

So now in Bambu Studio, every time I load the filament types and colors from the printer (which I do dozens of time each day as I am printing on 3 different Bambu printers), the A1 shows the AMS-loaded filaments plus another filament type and color that do not exist. I want to get rid of the imaginary spool, both in the printer and in Bambu Studio. HOW?

Bambu Lab has not programmed the A1 for all possible scenarios with filament AMS Lite. Such as:

  1. running out of AMS filament just at the very end of a print, but with not enough filament left to retract, yet you proactively replaced the spool while it was printing, and now it cannot retract the filament. Removing the newly inserted filament does not solve the problem. That is, it does not cause the filament to be pulled forward and melted through when another filament is chosen for the next print. The next print cannot be started unless you actuall manually push the new filament through to the point where the extruder gears can grab it.
  2. And even though you decide to start a new print, the printer just can’t get its head around it, and somehow decides to think that you’re using an external spool instead of just trying to load the AMS.
  3. Now you have an external spool of nothingness registering in the printer and in Bambu studio.
  4. The printer won’t let you select a “nothing” or “no filament” for the external slot. You can only select a type of filament and a color.
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SOLUTION: OK, I figured out this can be done in Bambu Studio, but not in the Prepare tab where filament values are loaded and applied to models. You have to go to the Device tab, select the filament, then hit reset. Not intuitive. Leaving this post up so others having difficulty finding it can also figure it out.

It’s also quite a bit frustrating that the external filament spool cannot be reset on the printer screen itself. Not everyone uses Bambu Studio. Some people print directly from Bambu Handy.