Hi, I was wondering if it is possible to use 2 AMS lites for the A1 and A1 mini?
I doubt they will ever enable it, as having 8 ptfe’s running to the top of the extruder would become a bit unwealdy.
A mix of AMS lites and normal X1/P1 AMSs on an A1 would be more practical if BL ever decide the make the software changes to allow it.
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I hope that they will release an update where you can connect two AMS Lites 
that would be great
Why did they bother putting two AMS lite ports on the A1 and mini then?
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It is a bit of a mystery - because the X1/P1 only have one port - but you can put 4 AMSs on them (an hopefully even more in the future) whereas the A1s have two ports but only scope for one AMS lite.
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Its bus ports are not only for the AMS units but also for the often teased extension board used to customize your printer and/or attach a camera for better time-laps setups.
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Maybe daisy chain farm setup. One command print from slicer send to all printers.
From what they’ve told us thus far it’s 4 only… Likely to drive anyone who wants more to the X series
Don’t need them to run into the extruder all at once. They can set it up so that the 2x AMS lites run into a mixer module or AMS hub which will only run the current and next three colours to be printed to the extruder. All other colours will wait before the mixer module and be swapped out when needed automatically. Similar to the AMS hub I guess as the other printers design by Bambu also does not run all 16 or 20 colours to the extruder if you have more than 1 AMS for a single printer.
It’s not an AMS lite port, it’s an port for periphials such as an AMS lite. If they only put one port then, there would be no easy way to add some else later. Whether or not Bambu has addons planed for later, it makes sense for them to have an extra port to leave themselves easy upgrade options.
Biggest issue is rewinding of filament when you retract back from the 4 way hub to your mixer module - the AMS lite reel springs can only rewind the filament a few cms.
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You sir are correct! Means a bit more modification would need to be done to the AMS lite to make each spool holder motorised. Obviously not something that would be feasible for existing AMS lites…
The AMS lite does have a motor for each color. It currently only runs forward to feed the filament, but there is no reason it couldn’t run backwards and pull the filament back a little more.
If they had some sort of hub that attached to the top of the frame with a Y splitter for each of the 4 inlets they wouldn’t need to back up very far to swap to a color in the second AMS, so it wouldn’t need to worry about rewinding the spool itself, it would just need to back up an extra couple inches to let the other color feed in.
Agreed I presume they already run backwards to pull the filament back the few mm’s it already retracts (or perhaps they just freewheel so that the springs pull the filament back).
If you need to retract several inches then I think you will need some sort of buffers or much longer springs in the spool holders in order to avoid the retracted filament getting tangled up (like it does in the Prusa MMU2 if you don’t use the buffer or other rewinding solution).
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Do you think having an extra 2" of filament hanging off the bottom of the inlet tube on the AMS would really cause an issue? I’m new to 3D printing so I don’t have a ton of experience with this. Do they tangle that easily?
It would be nice to have an option for additional AMS/AMS lite units for the A1… what I’d really like is for them to use to use the amount of power the motors use on the AMS &lite to give an estimate to how much filament is on the spool. Or have it ask when we put it on and it just say how much its used since that spool was attached. There is no reason for the printer not to keep track of how much filament its used or has on the spool and with careful/precise monitoring of the electric load on each would allow an estimate of how much is there as Heavier loads would require more power for the motor to turn, wouldn’t need to be perfect either could just give a range based on estimated weight with the range being defined by how much the heaviest commonly used spool(while empty) is and same for the lightest… heck allowing the user to set those min & max spool weights would allow people who use specific brands to dial it in to be more accurate. Would sure be nice to have an idea of how much filament is left before I start a print… to know if I need to change one of my extra spool colours to match if I’m gonna be close to emptying it during the print.
Whilst there are two bus ports on the A1 mini, that you can plug your AMS lite into and some of the suggestions here on how the retraction process and y-splitters could theoretically make it works at the print head, it is more likely a bigger point.
Differentiation.
The A1 mini & A1 are the entry level machines the gateway to the more profitable machines.
It’s likely more that BL don’t want you to be able to connect multiple AMS lites as in doing so would cannibalise their P series printers.
If you only ever wanted to print using PLA/PETG and their derivatives, ignoring the more temperature intense filaments, but, have 8 or more colours/materials available then that is a P1S sale lost and their increased profit margin reduced.
The A1 (not mini) is a confusing model as it creates an uneven step between the A1 mini and the P1S (I’m purposely ignoring the likely to be discontinued P1P).
The price gap between the A1 mini and the P1S was a means to say we have an offering for the entry level, the first timers, those transitioning from a single colour entry level printer for whom the smaller bed size isn’t an issue. But, if you need the bigger size, you need more AMS’s at the same time, you need more types of materials x the P1S has you covered. The cost difference pushed you between the two.
Allowing two AMS lites would mean less people choosing the P1S.
If you want to know, you could just weigh it and subtract the spool weight, but the resistance would be way too similar to tell the difference, especially with a motor since they can’t tell small differences in resistance.
Yeah, I agree, I don’t think they would be doing that any time soon, and it would probably be easier just to make a new printer that supports that.