Can Bambu Studio be altered to support a nozzle cleaning filament between color changes to flush the nozzle and reduce the wasting of valuable main colored filament?
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This is great! As I mentioned elsewhere, feature requests need to go on the GitHub page for Bambu Studio:
New Issue · bambulab/BambuStudio (github.com)
Wont you still need a flush of the cleaning filament? You’re adding in an extra flush which takes time as well as extra filament. I’m not sure what you gain?
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It all depends on the effectiveness of the cleaning filament. Theoretically, if the cleaning filament is perfect, it would need a fixed length to remove any color. If the first filament is black, and a small flush of cleaning filament removes it, there is a saving. The orange should then need a small flush to get rid of the cleaning filament. If black is next, the cleaning filament should quickly flush the orange, again a saving, and again a small flush should remove the cleaning filament. This needs to be tested.
I’m not convinced there’s such a filament that’s more effective than a standard filament. It would be interesting to know if there was. The way the Bambu works, in that it cuts the old filament you have to at minimum flush that regardless.
I have a Prusa with MMU which retracts the filament then inserts the new one. You still need a reasonable purge to flush the old remaining colour.
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i personal use Esun Cleaning filament , but for the purpose it is designed for and that is for cleaning out clogs instead of collor
the reason why is because it is even more clear filament then petg , it just get real glassy and when it cools down it becomes back white
it does handle temperatures of 300 degree just fine, but it wont help at all with flushing colors
it just does not stick at all, so that cause it to clean out any clogs/debrees that is left in the nozzle as it can not stick to it and it get pushed out instead causing a clog
but for a color change you get color bleeding because small parts keeps sticking to your other color filament , then the cleaning filament wont even perform as you like ( as it does not stick )
if i am not wrong , after i used the cleaning filament i even got color bleed when the cleaning filament has none ( makes kinda sense if you think about it )
then this will rise a new question, what is cleaning filament and where is it used for ?
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That’s the serious downside here. If you are doing a complex print with hundreds to thousands of swaps, you suddenly have made it four days long instead of only two since swaps consume most of the print time. You have effectively doubled the print time now that you added a cleaning filament purge to every swap. Also, as I noted in another thread, the amount of cleaning filament needed to clear the old filament will depend on the strength and concentration of the dye or coloring agent of that previous filament and not even every color is the same. For example, it is generally easier to purge a white PLA than a black PLA of the same brand and material series (e.g. Polymaker PolyTerra) given the stronger dye employed in darker colors. It will differ.
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Good idea, I’ve had reds and greens that don’t seem to want to go away after a flush. But I noticed that it also depends on the amount of “color chips” used in the filament and of course, using a cleaning filament will add more time to the print … (not to mention cleaning filament is more or less the same stuff as “support W” and comes in 250gr or less, so $$)
How is the cleaning filament more effective at removing clogs than other filaments? If it eliminates clogs, why does it not remove color too? The world is very against wasting plastic, yet we only offer to purge and poop a lot of plastic to allow multiple colors.
By the way, no one is subordinate to anyone else. Don’t talk to people as if they are fools and don’t assume others are lower than you.
Mike, please don’t take the previous comments as insulting to you or that you are less than them. The comments were intended for everyone on the forum who may come across this thread.
Your idea is actually an interesting idea and I’m not sure existing cleaning filaments are the answer. It would take possibly a new type of filament and a lot of testing. I’m not saying we at Bambu Lab can’t do it, I’m saying we may not have the resources to do something like that right now. In my opinion it wouldn’t add more time than using support W for models with supports. But it would eat up one of the AMS slots available. Now sure you could have multiple AMS so may not matter. I see both the pros and cons to something like this.
I’m not sure it would make much difference but testing could sure help. A way to test would be to bypass the AMS. Load some black filament manually. Extrude it until you see black coming through. Unload the black filament. Load cleaning filament of your choice. It would have to work at the same temp as the other filament being used since we don’t support changing nozzle temps for different filaments in the same print. Measure how much it takes of say a white cleaning filament to extrude before you see no hint of black any more. Then for comparison repeat the test with say a White filament, and see how much of it it takes to purge the black with no hint of it anymore. See what the difference is. You could do it by weight of the purge.
Is it worth the cost? is it worth the time? Cost I say because any specialty filament is going to cost more. If you can find and test various filaments as a cleaning filament, and that cleaning filament can also purge out very quickly before the next filament. And all in all it is a cost saving not just a filament purge saving (if there is one even). then great. I suspect there will not be a saving of cost or wasted filament when it is all said and done. But again, that is what tests are for! If you wanted to try and test feel free. But something tells me it will take time and cost more $ than I personally would want to spend on it.
Your idea is noted. As I said it is an interesting idea. And it might come out as a great idea, but it might not.
I hope you understand my thoughts and concern are for everyone who contemplates this idea, and not as superior to your thoughts on it. Like I said idea is noted and I’ll even mention it to my superiors.
Have yourself a great day
FYI, my name is Will and I work for Bambu Lab Support.
Hi,
I once had a cleaning filament with me as a sample when I placed an order. but honestly. I couldn’t see any real benefit. For my understanding, such a filament would have to be very abrasive in order to get all residues out of the nozzle as quickly as possible. plus an extra filament change with every filament change ? So definitely no advantage in terms of time. In addition, in my experience, some filaments stay in the noffle more stubbornly than others, regardless of the color. (possibly the quality of the dye or color pigment?)
These are just my thoughts and experiences and of course have no scientific evidence.
Sorry for my BAD English.
Great`s Michael
My experience with moderators on discord and here are of being spoken to as a fool. I have over 40 years as a software developer, twice won Microsoft’s MVP award. Held patent-pending for an inkjet-resin hybrid. I tried the default setting for purging, then tried the auto calculated settings. They were not sufficient. I got insulted and berated for dating to suggest an alternative like the swapper 3d concept. Socialist media thinks a minimal amount of respect is sufficient. What that does is make people not contribute.
It depends on the nature of the cleaning filament. With the hardened nozzle, it could take a more abrasive filament.
Cleaning filament is very effective at cleaning a hot end, and is superior in doing so vs any other filament. The reason is, it softens, but does not become molten, and not only does it push the previous filament out of the nozzle, but residual previous filament stuck to nozzle walls stick to it, and are dragged out. It also takes far less time to extrude just enough cleaning filament to push the previous filament out, and clean the nozzle walls.
Keep in mind that purging is NOT a cleaning process, it is a replacement process. And, that is why it takes more poop to remove all of the residual previous filament that might be in the extruder, and on nozzle walls, and replace it with the new filament (purity of color being the most common motivation).
In response to a previous comment, yes, the next filament must perform a purge to remove the remaining cleaning filament, but it is only the length required to push the residual cleaning filament strand out, because the cleaning filament never becomes molten, and leaves no residue on the nozzle walls.
So, there is not the normal amount of filament waste, or additional time required, if standard purging can be replaced with running a relatively short cleaning filament strand through the nozzle. Further, the next filament requires far less purging length to eject the residual cleaning filament strand.
Now, cleaning filament is not cheap, but it takes very little to clean a nozzle. So, the ideal process would be to insert the cleaning filament on a spool in the AMS, and have within the G-Code at a filament change: 1) unload previous filament; 2) load cleaning filament; 3) extrude only enough cleaning filament to push the residual strand of the previous filament out of the extruder/nozzle, and clean the nozzle walls; 4) cut the cleaning filament; 5) unload the cleaning filament; 6) load the next filament; 7) push just enough new filament to push the remaining cleaning filament strand out; 8) continue print.
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That is precisely what I thought. I would leave one spool for the cleaning filament. Now I have more reason to buy a second ams. That is how to provide an answer. Excellent.
The cleaning filament would make it possible to have a universal support material or even materials of different temperatures. Right? I could print a very different temp support material, one that will not mar the main materials, without risk of clogging.
I will be patent pending within a month on a new way to make high quality metal parts.
Mike, sorry for my delay. That is correct. In fact, I am dealing with what I think is the same workaround process as you. I am having to employ PETG for certain prints, and have found that PLA is the best Support Interface filament to use with PETG, because it can be printed with zero Z distance, and with zero spacing, and easily peels away from PETG leaving a pretty smooth surface (almost as good as a top-printed surface).
The problem is, on a filament change/swap, sometimes the PLA (I’m not totally sure now, but I think this doesn’t occur when the PETG loads, only when the PLA loads, and not all the time; also, the swap temperature is the same at 250°C, so that’s not the issue) is unable to push the previous filament out of the nozzle from apparent build up on the nozzle walls. I can then clear it using Cleaning Filament. So, I would like to add a pause between filament changes, and specifically have the pause happen right after the previous filament has unloaded, and before the next filament loads.
Now, I’ve read some comments on similar posts where it appears some users think adding a pause at a layer using the Preview right slider is the solution. However, it’s not because I have filament swaps within the same layer.
And, some comments also presume adding a pause purposed to run cleaning filament between filaments is going to add lots of pauses, and lots of additional time, which, in my case is not correct. I only want to clean the nozzle between dissimilar filament types (not between PETG and PETG, but between PETG and PVA), and that only occurs when Support Interface is encountered.
Further, I only use two (2) layers of Support Interface, and whatever filament is printed last on one layer, Bambu Studio is smart enough to check the next layer, and if the same filament is used in it (along with other filaments used in the same layer), it prints that filament 1st before swapping filaments, to reduce the # of filament swaps. The result is there are only two filament swaps when Support Interface is encountered.
So, again, I would like to add a pause between a filament swap within the same layer, and specifically have the pause happen right after the previous filament has unloaded, and before the next filament loads, so I can then manually push cleaning filament through the extruder and nozzle. I’m wondering if anyone knows what G-code to add, and where to add it, to accomplish that?
And, what would be even better is if the pause G-code could instead be G-code that would load cleaning filament from the AMS, push only enough through the extruder/nozzle to to purge the previous filament, and then unload the clearing filament, and then load the next filament to continue printing.
Anyone possibly know that code? Thank you!