Transfer presets (filament/process) to another printer

I have some saved filament and process presets that I am trying to transfer from one printer to another, but I can’t get it to work. When I select the other printer, these saved presets disappear, and I can only see them when I switch back to the other printer.

I’m trying to use the settings in this project: Transparent PLA & PETG Filament Test Model by MalcTheOracle - MakerWorld
Bambu Studio opens it with the A1, but I have the X1C. Even if I save the presets before switching to X1C, I’m not offered to save or keep those presets, and they disappear.

I have tried to find answers by searching this forum, but I’m not finding anything usable.
Any tips?

1 Like

You’ve gone down a rabbit hole that many people have gone down and unfortunately there are no clear answers. I can give you a method that works sometimes but it ain’t pretty. You have to actually edit the files and add “compatible_printers”. Also, full disclosure, I’ve only tried it in Orca Slicer so I’m not even sure it works in BS.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ender3/comments/1c5lv8t/orca_slicer_share_filaments_between_printers/

The real question is why isn’t there an easy way to share custom filaments and process settings between printers, in either Bambu Studio and/or Orca… and that has me just as confused as everyone else who attempts it.

1 Like

I got tired of trying to figure out why modified files are not being imported right so I just took a screenshot of each tab under the filament and created my own new profile.

You can export all your profiles and settings to import them again later or for another printer - that’s what the Bambu support told me in the beginning…
Found some slight problems with it though…
The things of interest SHOULD all be in the user folder but they are all over the place.
Bambu uses a rather weird and somewhat protected system for the profiles.
The Username for the account matters, same for the parent structure for filaments.
It is all linked back to either the generic default profiles and on top the custom filaments still get ID numbers assigned.

PrinterMcgee already mentioned the rabbit hole, so let me say that it is a VERY deep one indeed.
I tried a few times to get a proper filament allocation sorted that I CAN transfer or import after a clean install for an update.
Things you really don’t need to waste time on >
Making a copy of the user folder(s) and copying over to a new install…
Exporting your filaments and settings and trying to import them for a new printer or for a Studio linked to a different name/account…
Manually copying all custom files, even those Bambu leaves out…

What MIGHT help, and I really stress the might as I only tested it for a single printer and single account >
Set the printer to Lan only mode.
Export what you need AND make a backup of the User folder.
Install the new printer and preferably a new install of Studio for it - I used a VM here.
Before starting Studio copy over your settings and profiles.
Chances are Studio will find your customs but still refuses to show them anywhere or make them usable.
If that happens it is bad luck.
A workaround is to copy all content from the user folder to the default folder, basically doubling it.
For me this method works most of the time but as said, I only do this for a single machine.

The big issue is the ID system.
Every machine comes with a different lot of filament and settings ID’s used for the correct addressing.
A totally over-simplified example:
The genric PLA profile comes with ID 001 and you just created a custom one for BestFilamentEver PLA, wich might get the ID 287.
In this profile 287 is the link back to the profile 001 and only what is different is included in the 287 one.
Of course same is true for the user account…
So a profile 287 works fine for the same account and printer but change either and it disappears.
I found a Reddit post back in the day where a guy claimed he ‘copied’ his profiles and settings from the first printer to the other 9 printers of his little farm by using the cloud services.
Even had a few screenshots.
For me the problem already started when this famous cloud synchronising did really nothing at all in terms of getting my profiles and settings working.
Seems it won’t work if the machine was/is in Lan only mode.
I got the profiles working in cloud mode but when changing back to Lan only they disappeared.

Am hopeful Bambu will come up with a working import/export option that includes multi-machine setups…

I appear to have successfully exported a custom TPU filament profile that I created within Studio on an A1 profile into an A1Mini profile.

In Studio, make sure you have the printer where you created the preset selected in the device tab (and just to be sure select that same printer on the prepare tab). I can’t link the bambu wiki on bambu’s forum, weird, so search the wiki for “Exporting printer, filament, and process presets, and allows for sharing with others”. Follow this to export and save the filament presets config file.

unzip the exported Filament presets.zip that was saved. Within this, you should see all of your custom filament profiles.

Now you will have to create a copy and make some edits. I initially created a copy of my “Inland TPU.json” then renamed it as “Inland TPU A1M.json”.

(This is for windows) Now, you should probably open an explorer window (or whatever folder navigation) and navigate to the users//AppData/Roaming/BambuStudio/system/BBL/filament/. This stores all of the default profiles for all of the printers. You will notice each printer does have its own profile and there are a ton of them.

open your new, renamed JSON file, there will be several settings depending upon what you modified from the inherited profile. I’m pretty sure the key here is to make sure you define/modify the value for the “inherits”: “”, property for the printer to which you want to import. e.g. I created the profile on A1 and I want to import it to my A1 Mini. So I looked in the windows folder above for the filament profile for the A1mini that matched the same profile from the A1 that is being inherited.

Example:
My A1 profile said: “inherits”: “Generic TPU @BBL A1”,
So I changed it to this for my A1M: “inherits”: “Generic TPU @BBL A1M”,

I also went ahead and changed any of the other properties in the json file that matched the initially exported profile:

“filament_settings_id”: [“Inland TPU A1M”],
“name”: “Inland TPU A1M”,

Save this file.

In studio, make sure you have the new/other printer you want to import to selected in device and prepare (just to be sure).

Now import>configs and select that new filament profile json file you just created.

Studio should tell you it was imported. Now you should see it in your filament dropdown. It appears to work after closing all open instances. Currently printing a TPU test on the mini now to compare it to the object I printed earlier on the A1.

I do not think the selection of the printer matters in the process above. When you export the Filament Presets.zip, those are the presets for everything. You just need to create a copy of any of the existing custom source profiles and within that copy update these attributes for the destination printer.

//This one needs to be unique from the stored profile
“filament_settings_id”: [
“Inland PLA Glass A1M”
],

//This one needs to reflect the correct name for each printer
“inherits”: “Generic PLA @BBL A1M”,

//Unsure if this one needs to be unique from the stored profile. probably safest to change it to match the id above. My guess is this is the display name in Studio and the other one is the key. In which case, you could leave this name the same as the source and both printer’s dropdowns will simply display the same verbiage
“name”: “Inland PLA Glass A1M”,

My assumption was correct. All you have to change are these two parameters. You can leave the “name”: attribute alone if you want both printer’s filament dropdown to read the same.

“filament_settings_id”: [
“Inland PLA Glass A1M”
],
“inherits”: “Generic PLA @BBL A1M”,