I ran through one spool without thinking about it, but when it was gone, I saw that it had RFID tags in it like Bambu first-party filaments. I thought, “Oh that’s neat, they must be working with some other standard than Bambu. Oh well…” But when I put the next spool from that 4-pack in, and resync’d the AMS, it was able to read that this filament was PLA without me entering anything. It did NOT read/infer the color, but I didn’t enter anything, so I assume there’s something being read off of that RFID tag.
Am I nuts? Or has there been some movement on third-party RFID compatibility that I missed along the way?
No. It just defaults to the previous filament that was in the slot. There are several other companies that are using RFID now, but (unfortunately) none of them are read by the AMS.
@BambuLab, if you’re listening: This closed RFID system is, plainly put, not cool. Please open it up, or at least create some subset of functionality that’s open.
After more than a decade of everyone doing their own thing, it is time for all the filament makers/suppliers to come together and standardize. Among the things to standardize:
Filament spools
Various parameters of the spool should be standardized to facilitate development of automatic feeding systems.
The way the filament is anchored to the spool during factory winding can also be standardized (this is related to the complaints about the tape at the end of the spool).
Filament property certification and presentation
Standardize the way filament properties ( eg. strengths) are measured. Possibly by a independent third party. Standardized the presentation so different filaments from different brands can be easily compared.
Other useful features, such RFID tags, can be standardized so the printer can read any filaments from any brands.
