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 @Cygnus3D as I missed this great question as well. I concur with all of those points, well made.