Unable to close reusable spool with Bambu filament refill

I currently have the problem with this refill that it does not fit on the Bambu spool. The spool cannot be closed because the refill is apparently wound too wide.

The cardboard core is fine (the refill and the previous coil are ~59.7mm wide), but the windings seem to be too wide and go way over.

I don’t have any other free reusable spools to try it with - nor do I have any way of winding spools myself. The refill is therefore useless for me if it doesn’t fit on a normal Bambu coil.

I have to say that this is the first time this has happened. All other refills so far have always been problem-free.

I am pretty sure that this is due to the way the coil was wound.
I also cut the notch in the cardboard core a little deeper, as it is not as deep as the previous reel - by about 1mm, which should be within tolerance. That wasn’t it either.

Is there anything I can do here? I already created a ticket with support.



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I haven’t had that happen with Bambu refill, but with a 3rd party refill and an adapter for Bambu spool (my own fault - I cut the zip ties too early). I eventually got it to lock using brute force but was afraid the filament would bind. In the end it worked just fine.

Maybe not quite what you ask for, but a workaround is to close the spool as much as possible, then lock the halves using a threaded desiccant spool center.

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What I did now as a quick fix (since I had a paused print due to this) is to press the halves together and just use a lot of tape to somehow keep them together.

The spool is a tangled mess anyways, but at least I am now able to continue the print.

Let’s see what support says. And let’s see whether any filament and reusable spools will be available for sale again in the EU. I have a little spool shortage here, since refills are only filaments you can buy most of the time.

If there is another spool that I can print myself with PETG (for bambu refills) - could you shoot me a link? I think I’ll print one just in case.

did you line up the notch on one side of the cardboard core?.
If not the spool won’t close.

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Of course. It would have an even bigger offset otherwise ^^.

It’s 3am and I just taped it together.

Good enough. 6 more hours of printing to go.

There is one built-in but maybe that only works with PLA? But the STL for it is here. Also, there’s countless of variants on Makerworld.

I have like 20 empty spools wasting storage, because refills were out of stock when I wanted them, plus I bought 4x AMS which all came with 4 spools.

excuse me then. good luck

Thanks, I’ll take a look. And yea, I’d print them in PETG or ASA, because I’m not sure whether they’d survive a filament dryer (when drying PETG refills).

Thanks. And no worries. It’s a very valid question, since it is the most common pitfall ^^.

I’ve had this happen to me before once with a refill spool. My solution was to clamp the problem spool together with one of the threaded spool centers and respool it onto another empty spool.

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Hey Jon, I have a screw together spool that i printed way back when I first started using polymaker products. Never had to use it yet. Lucky I guess.

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Same here, today I received my order of refills and they do NOT fit in the reusable spools WTF!

Yep agree, We’re gonna have to dik around with the Pasta-matic or similar to get this stuff usable…

Yep, I’m just finishing up a PLA Orange spool that was exactly the same. I tried doing what you did, and ended up with a number of filament retraction errors early on. The greater spool size also created greater friction in the AMS, which also caused problems. Eventually I got through it - once through the first 1/3rd or so of the spool it seemed to settled down and has been working fine since.

The spool winding was all over the place.

It has definitely got me wondering about the QA processes of the manufacturers, and has got me thinking about printing a Pasta-matic in the not too distant future.

Support came back to me. They told me to either apply more force or to just respool, lol. How? I don’t have an empty spool (they are never in stock), nor do I have a respooling setup.
I’ll just stop buying refills or switch brands if there there’s QA issues and I have to re-spool every time.

As if these options never occurred to you.
I would have gotten snarky with them and said something like, “How about you trade me for one that works as it’s supposed to and you can worry about re-spooling this mess?”
I loathe bad customer service.

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I had the same problem. I ended up removing those plastic straps (which aren’t supposed to be removed until after), which loosened the spool, and then pressed on the spool top with my weight. That worked, but I wouldn’t call this process ideal.

Just FYI, this helped me thanks! I’ve done refills before but I forgot there was a notch. Was worried I ruined the refill and then saw your post. Cheers.

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Thanks for that hint. It had a problem with the refill spools of PETG HF and used that method now. It did work. :+1: :+1:

This IS BS same happened to me just now WTF!?

Thank you! I was trying a refill for the first time and didn’t know about the notch.

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