I don’t know about the manual switching but here’s an answer for your other question.
You can set more colours in Bambu Studio for multiple reasons:
you could have multiple build plates in the project that each use different materials, so you would switch the materials out between prints.
you can buy an AMS hub and connect up to four AMS to a single printer to automatically switch between a total of 16 different filaments in a single print.
A helpful way to think about it is to consider the “Prepare” tab more like an overall project, that can include multiple plates and multiple color combinations. When thinking about the slicer in the traditional way, it can feel weird, but when you think about how you can organize a larger/more complex project within there, it makes more sense. Since changing my way to this thinking, I haven’t synced the AMS at all. (where it syncs what’s loaded into the slots in the prepare page) Although I do select filaments from the dropdown, from ones currently loaded. That’s just convenient though.
I have a few projects I have split up between multiple printers. Each one has their own filament loadout. Those loudouts don’t necessarily confirm to what I have setup in the slicer. I set the slicer up so each plate is setup with the settings I need, and the color palette I want for the parts on that given plate.
When I go to print, I usually just load up (if they aren’t already) the colors I want into the AMS, and the slicer slots everything in where it needs to go.
Haven’t done it in a while, so I don’t know if the firmware still doesn’t care. But as an experiment, I tried swapping a roll in my AMS mid print. It worked fine. AMS didn’t care if there’s a spool used for the print job until the spool was in use. Printed some black, then had some layers where it wasn’t used and while another filament was printing I swapped the black for orange. When the printer wanted “black” again it happily used the orange spool.
So if you’re clever about how you orient your models, you could print more than 4 colors with the AMS, swapping in a different color when the slot is idle.
I have done a 6 color print on my X1 Carbon with a single AMS where one of the AMS slots had a Bambu Labs PLA spool with RFID and I swapped it with Sunlu PLA + back and forth several times.
When the Printer has a print in progress it does not check the RFID tag when spools are swapped even if the printer is paused when the spools are swapped.
Hello. I ask you please if you can explain how you print 8 colors with a single AMS. I don’t speak English and I don’t understand how they do it. Do they add 8 colors in the bambu studio? If so, how do you make color 5, 6, 7 and 8 1, 2, 3 and 4? I hope you can help me. Thank you
Add the colors in Bambu Studio. At the beginning of the layer insert a pause or time it out to when one color is done printing you’re there to swap out the color add another pause at the beginning of the next layer and switch it back. Just remember where they go and the order they print in the slicer.
You have to create a model made from several bodies. Each body will be printed in one color. No need to tell fusion the colors. Just export the model as 3MF and import in bambu studio. There you will have a single part with several “sub parts” ( each body will be a sub part) and you can select a color for each one of those.
I have the A1 with the AMS lite. I’ve asked for a feature where you can designate one of the spools as a “manual” spool so when you need to print with a color that’s not the other three, the software would pause and ask you to “Load “blue” onto position 4”. This feature would be great if you have multiple colors on the same layer. Still waiting for that feature.
I agree, if it’s more than 4 filaments in the print, the printer should ask for the filament and the user designates the new slot. I have a 6 color HueForge print, where one color is printed per layer, so it would be perfect if it paused when it needed colors 5 and 6, and asked for the user to load the last 2 spools. Hellooooo. It’s not magic, it’s common sense! HUEFORGE can have >4 colors, and I’ve successfully tricked the printer into printing them. I designate spools 5 and 6 onto the AMD positions (1-4) that have the same type of filament (matte or basic). BambuLab pay attention to this simple request! (please )
I just purchased this becuase I assumed that the additional 3 slots in this accessory would allow me the AMS + 3 additional filaments externally. At least that’s what their website says. Is that not correct?
Hey I realize this is an old thread but I recently had to do this to use 8 filaments in a print for the AMS lite. It’s doable AS LONG as you plan it out so that you don’t need to swap filaments much. My print, I needed the first four colors in the first half of the print, then, I set a pause point and swapped out all the spools mid print. Worked fine.