I developed an adapter to quickly move an AMS from one printer to another, without tools and without damage to the PTFE tube, or to the filament hub. In addition, single or multiple external spools can use this adapter in manual mode. The access in case of broken filament is easy. A switch takes two seconds, plus the time to switch the electronic cable from one printer to the other.
Bambulab A1 filament switching -beta test by phildc - Thingiverse
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How do you keep the PTFE tubes from kinking as you take them from a printer on the left to a printer on the right? I really like the idea, just having trouble envisioning it.
Thanks for this good remark. The position of two printers as suggested in the picture, is probably not the best. Maybe do some kind of “pre-klinking” to ease the movement? Use longer PTFE tubes? The beta test will tell us, and hopefully give advice concerning devices position.
You may wish to look at this other post which took a different approach to a related scenario. They also answer the problem of switching power sources problem people will have.
If I m not wrong the author of the message speak about AMS lite .
Which is why I said…
…and…
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Thank you for the reminder to this project that we know. It switches one input ptfe to one of two output ptfe’s (which is not applicable to an AMS-lite), but interesting thing, it shows the electric part of the switching, which is not covered in our project. So it opens the path to a future project to have a switch for the electric part, instead of manually switching the cable. Of course the mechanics would be reduced, not having to route the filament from the input ptfe to one of the output ptfe. We have already the pinning of the 4 pin cable, with 24V, ground, signal+ and signal-. But it is another project. Anyone volunteers ?
Yes sorry my English is not yet perfect 
I see now
WOW! This is genius! I can’t wait to try it on my A1M!!!
Unfortunately it is in use right now.
I have attached a photo of my set-up and what I use to pass a single filament from the middle level to the extruder.
Seems like I can make 4 of them and just run 4 PTFE tubes to this gadget that you have designed.
I have been up all night, and heading to sleep now, but this will be the first thing that I try when I wake up.
I will update you when I have more info.
Thank you!
Thanks! Looking forward to read your experience and feedback.
Designed this "anti-twist to reduce the problem.
PTFE anti twist by phildc - Thingiverse
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Hi Phildc,
I believe that you can use a circuit similar to that in the AMS switch that I designed, see here:
The schematics are available in the “AMS A_B Switch Build Notes.pdf” file.
I don’t have an A1, but from your description the 4-pin cable to the AMS Lite is identical to that on the P1S, i.e., 24V +/- and a RS485 pair.
The 6-pin cable used by standard AMS units (not AMS Lite units) has an extra RS485 pair between the hub (on the back of the printer), and the AMS units. This extra pair is used by the hub motor in the back of AMS units to periodically move some more filament into the printer hub. This is necessary because of the long PTFE tube lengths between the Printer Hub and the AMS units. And as long as the P1S is not actively printing, you can flip the switch. One printer sees the AMS go away, and the other thinks you just attached one. The Printer doesn’t recognize any AMS changes; connects, disconnects, filament loads/unloads, while printing. With the P1S if you have more than 1 AMS unit attached to it, I found that disconnecting an AMS that is not being used while printing is OK, but disconnecting an AMS unit that is being used by a print will halt it.
Note that Bambu blocked my post of this design on MakerWorld. They didn’t say why, but I suspect it was due to warranty issues. If you don’t wire it correctly, you can put 24V on the RS485 signal lines, which could cause very bad things to happen to your printer (which I warn against). I’ve made 2 of them, checked the wiring 3 times and haven’t had any problems.
The tricky part was designing a low resistance filament switch. Any discontinuity in the path can cause the filament to hang when multi-color switching.
Steve
Hello Steve, I did not go in the electronic switching direction, as it was not my intention to do a lot of switching. Meanwhile, my system now lives for six months, and I had never the ptfe problems that many people report. I keep to 4 colors, and the separate color(s) if needed (as many as you want, 4 per adapter). I have also an easy access to the extruder. I was following your project since the beginning, nice development! Best regards, Phil.
