I like that the Bambu software has a built in filament library to track your spools and remaining filament, but I wonder how you guys manage your library (if at all), and what the guidance is on managing it?
Specifically;
As I buy refills and reuse my existing spools for a particular filament and colour, when I slot in my refill, it appears as a new spool. Often times the spool that has just run out and been replaced doesn’t show as depleted and may still show a few grams remaining, so I am unclear whether I should delete the entry or just mark as depleted?
As I throw away depleted RFID tags, I don’t see the point of retaining a depleted entry in my library, but if I delete it I am told I lose usage history? I’m not sure exactly what history it refers to.
I’m sorry to see no one has replied to this yet. I was just looking up the filament library in the Wiki because I’m not really sure what it’s good for. @Eds89 what do you use it for? I don’t think I can use it to select filament when I load new spools in the AMS or when I’m choosing filament in Studio. So, what’s the point? Is it just for materials management? Like, to look up which spools need to be replaced soon or something? I’ve been adding my non-Bambu filaments and while it seems like a good idea, I don’t really see it integrated anywhere useful. Am I missing something?
In my experience it lacks many required features and isn’t brilliant at managing filaments.
Maybe it is my own experience, specifically due to having so many in-use spools and many or core colour & type matches at any own time.
I have over 160 unique BL spool combinations in active use and many of white, black and other key colours in use on multiple printers at the same time.
I experience ghost filaments, filaments reporting incorrect availability and other issues.
I can’t search for a filament to see which printer it is on (I have 6) or not (so on a shelf), I can sort the list, and the list goes on.
Why it reports I have 6 BL PLA Basic Black spools in play when I only have two is beyond me.
Why there is no way to scan the RFID tag with Bambu Handy is beyond me. I have far too many spools that all look identical to another one unless you have each one next to each other (the matte range is the worst), a helper would be gratefully welcome.
Thanks to @JVSwan as I missed this great question as well. I concur with all of those points, well made.
For me, I’m essentially using it as a stock counter.
I don’t run a farm or anything, and just have a single printer for general personal prints, but I have quite a number of different filaments. Being able to see what I’ve got in one screen, without having to physically check/measure my spools, is kind of useful.
Agree though, the integration is a little lacking, and it might be nice to be able to check a print profile’s requirements against your stock, to see if you have the correct type, colour and amount of filament for a particular print.
I also use BamBuddy for a nicer graphical interface, and it pulls in filament library information to provide the same overview. My main issue though, is because I use BambuLab refills on the same spool once it has run out, I end up with all these “depleted” entries that just sit there until I delete them. I think my main query is, what do others do with their depleted spools; do they respool them or chuck them out?
I agree the library built into Studio is ok, but certainly room for improvement. I use BamBuddy which imports filament library details, and I tend to do most of my filament inventory and management from that.
You certainly have a much larger filament library than I do. How do you deal with depleted spools? Presumably you just buy refils and chuck the old cardboard centers and RFID tags out? Then just deleted the deplete spools from the filament library?
I think your suggestions of an RFID scanner built into Handy would be highly beneficial for those like yourself who are managing quite a large number of spools and filaments
I am very new to 3D printing and bought my first printer a couple months ago. I got the H2D Combo. Just recently started wanting to track and make a labeling system for my spools. I am using 3dfilamentprofiles.com which seems pretty good mostly because it has a very nice label making system. They coolest thing about this one is it can read your PDF invoice from Bambu and store the info in your library. Super cool. A buddy of mine told me I should really try the built-in filament management in Bambu Studio. It is very nice because it communicates directly with your printer. But only really works good with Bambu Spools. Doesn’t work well with other brands. I had not heard of BamBuddy yet but will try it out. I assume its a free program you download and install. Looks like it is not cloud based which I like.
I have over 300 spools and use this free app to manage it from my phone. My problem was I never knew what color I had and may times I was buying way more then I needed of the wrong color: With this app you just scan the label and it adds to your inventory. 3D Print Vault App - App Store
@Eds89 to your original question, depleted vs delete: depleted is only worth keeping if you actually use the history, e.g. to see how fast a color goes before you reorder. If you never look at that, deleting it loses you nothing and keeps the list readable. Binning the tag and deleting the entry is a perfectly normal way to do it.
the few grams left on a spool that’s obviously empty is the estimate drifting. It’s worked out from what the printer thinks it fed, so small errors add up over a whole roll, it’s not real filament. If you want the actual number on a spool that’s still going, weigh it and subtract an empty spool. Weigh one of your empty plastic spools once and write the weight on it with a sharpie, then you never need to look it up again.
For refills I’d just let the new entry be the new spool and mark the old one depleted, rather than trying to keep one entry going per physical spool.
Honestly, I haven’t used the Filament Manager inside Bambu Studio very much. After far too long managing this in spreadsheets and then Notion, I built my own app, Filament Inventory Manager (FIM), before that feature came out.
However, the problem I was solving sounds like yours. A refilled spool, or a second spool of the same colour, shouldn’t become a brand-new entry that loses its history.
In my app there are two lists: the Catalog is the filament itself (brand, material, colour), and the Inventory is the physical spools under it. A refill or rebuy is the same filament with a new spool quantity, so there’s nothing to delete and the usage history stays.
I’m also testing a Bambu-only feature called Print Automation; letting you review your finished Bambu Cloud prints, and it logs the grams used against a spool and optionally a project so you’re not typing it in.
If this sounds like a possible solution to your problem, take a look at the site https://filamentinventorymanager.com/ (hope it’s okay to share this?) and sign up for the Beta if you are interested; you get full feature access during the beta and my plan is to keep core Catalog and Inventory tracking free after the beta.
