You can turn off the AMS feature that lets it recognize the RFID of the BBL spools. Based on your rejection of the idea of enabling this for non-BBL spools, I have to assume you’ve got this turned off permanently so that whenever you load a filament in the AMS you manually select it from the list instead of making use of the automation designed in to the machine, and you’re going through the same manual process for any roll of filament be it BBL or otherwise.
But for users like me who like the convenience afforded by this feature, RFID for non-BBL spools has the exact same value as RFID for BBL spools. The use-case is identical. The only difference is that the user has to load the filament’s parametric data one time when “programming” their RFID equipped non-BBL spool, where BBL spools get that data from BBL. But once the printer knows what the filament is, you can mount and dismount filaments to your heart’s delight and not have to manually select anything when you do. Whether they’re BBL or non-BBL rolls of plastic.
Seems to me like few if any owners are buying 100% BBL filament. BBL derives no revenue from the sale of those other filaments. But if the RFID functionality could be extended to support non-BBL spools (which it unquestionably can be), BBL would derive revenue from the market segment they are completely missing out on now, the purchase of non-BBL filament by users who want to take advantage of the convenience of the AMS’s automation, who would also buy BBL RFID tags for their non-BBL filament.
Yeah, they could be worried that doing this would cannibalize their filament sales. But I think that’s based on the assumption that most of their buyers would be non-technical users who wouldn’t want the hassle of figuring anything out for themselves, and most of the filament bought for the machine would be “pre tuned” BBL filament. The classic “HP Printer Ink” marketing model (which didn’t work too well for HP or anyone else who tried it). But from what I see in the forum and FB, it’s pretty clear the majority of (more advanced) users are running non-BBL filaments. So I think that BBL’s marketing assumption (assuming my assumption about their assumption is correct ) is not correct and if they revisited their strategy they’d see there’s untapped revenue in making tags available for non-BBL filament…
Yeah, but if you had an RFID tag for it then you could swap rolls in&out of the AMS and not have to re-enter stuff each time, plus the AMS would remember how much filament was left.
I mean the closedness where:
you can’t get RFID tags for non-Bambu spools
you can’t enter filament types that Bambu doesn’t sell (PCTG for example)
there is no published API for the cloud features
there is no published API for the printer
there is no information on what data is sent to the cloud service
there are many parts you can’t buy to repair a problem
Together with the evidently horrible customer support this makes for the type of company that I don’t really want to do business with.
I have no need for custom RFID tags in my AMS, even though I use 4 different brands and I change spools daily.
In fact, even if the Bambu spools didn’t have any tags it wouldn’t matter to me. It’s a nice to have, nothing more. I don’t get why some are all riled up about this.
Hey, that’s great! Does the fact that you don’t need it mean others should not need it either?
I think it depends a lot on how you use the AMS. If you have multiple AMSs with all your filaments loaded then setting each spool up is a one-time thing. If you have only one AMS and swap spools in&out all the time then the manual set-up each time starts getting tedious and error prone and being able to slap an RFID tag onto a spool once becomes a nice feature.
I don’t put words in other people’s mouth because I think it’s rude.
I have 6 AMS, I replace about 10 eSun spools / week, and in my experience their lack of tags isn’t making it more tedious or error prone. It’s only a matter of being organized. YMMV
My exact reasoning for the post was it would add value for me as a customer while also providing revenue for them as a company. I’m not sure where you are getting anyone expecting anything for free. If they license the encryption keys to filament manufacturers to sell their own tags, that would only be a new revenue stream for them
not knocking you sharing the info but the development of this method has been stagnant for 6 months. I assume it was abandoned due to the massive amount of work for such a minor payoff for someone unable to market this process.
Agreed - I’m not part of the group - but I did add my thoughts about use of BL tags in one of the issues in the Github more recently.
I’ve wasted a fair bit time having to cancel prints due to wrong filaments, bed types and nozzle sizes.
I have tried to work out how best to manage BL and Non BL filaments - including things like QR codes, OCR or even a separate RFID readers as I really value how well things work when you are doing looks of different types of prints some of which are 9+ colours out of a larger total, on multiple AMS’s on multiple printers with sometimes different beds and nozzle sizes.
For me labelling every filament with a magnetic tag that I place in the right place on the front of each AMS has worked quite well - and for complex prints I generally double check by going through each auto assignment and checking it against the actual filament loaded in each AMS slot.
I personally find the RFID’s useful enough to have gone to the extent of extracting some of the RFIDs from one side of BL filament and sticking it on the side of another spool when I have split BL filament rolls to allow them to be used across two different printers. So personally if the price was low enough I would certainly be willing to buy RFIDs if they every become available.
I think the build plate and nozzle size issues are solvable too. I know the build plate gets auto checked - but that’s quite a long while into the startup process - and I find it a bit annoying when you accidentally select Textured plate in the slicer on a printer with a cool plate the process spends a fair bit of time heating up the cool plate before telling you its the wrong plate.
With nozzles it seems to be worse - because despite setting the nozzle size in the printer I haven’t seen any evidence of the printer actually checking and telling you its the wrong nozzle for the sliced print.
Actually this could be doable. If they just sold generic RFID tags, that you set that unique identifier in the slicer to a color/type (or other custom settings). The AMS would recognize it each time you put it in, even the estimated levels left. You don’t even have to have the ability to “write” to the tag, just a generic unique ID, the rest is stored in a table on your install or cloud account. I would pay for this too.
They could sell separate tags, yes, but since Bambu’s products, like anyone else’s in the 3d printer industry, are built upon the shoulders of numerous others that have tried and failed and sometimes succeeded, Bambu should embrace this and choose to open up the RFID specification to allow for a common standard on this. I can only guess that there are others that also have their own standards for this already, so we’ll end up with a total chaos in everything until some years have passed and perhaps, maybe, the EU or someone steps down and forces a new standard through, like with USB. Remember the “good old days” when all cell phones had a unique charger with tiny differences for the connector? Bambu was early (or first?) to adopt RFID for this use and they can’t have anything to lose on opening it, except that they won’t sell as much filament. Regardless, they’ll never be dominant in the filament industry whatsoever, so the best choice would be, again, to just open up.
) is not correct and if they revisited their strategy they’d see there’s untapped revenue in making tags available for non-BBL filament…
