How many AMS do you use and which printer? There are certainly use cases where it improves things, but also many where it doesn’t or even slows down prints. And it completely prevents side loading material without disconnecting the FTS. If those don’t apply to you, then you are one of the lucky people without drawbacks.
I have the same experience as you, though I do not have any resistance warnings since I added a mount for the device and optimized my PTFE routing.
Complaints are either about the resistance- which is an issue for many, and that you cant use external feeding with it attached (though I would think this could be fixed with a firmware update), or the regular prusa shills that always compains about AMS systems while waiting for their tool changers to release.
The filament track switch is not worth it….ever since purchasing this I’ve had so many errors that there was ro much resistance coming from the ams slots…I thought it had something to do with the tubes I was using….I couldn’t even make it through a full print without having to go attend to my printer which got so annoying….but once I removed this FTS everything flowed just fine without any error messages….I am using regular PLA from anycubic
This thread deserves an update with my most recent experiences. As some have said, the convenience is definitely there. There is less filament carrying for some nozzle configurations, or prints where you don’t need to optimize for print time. For many, this makes a big difference in practice. And I think an important aspect to note is that the FTS doesn’t have a negative impact on print time - it’s a pure upgrade and sometimes it helps.
The concern I had originally was that it only rarely actually saved any time at all. And depending on your nozzle and AMS setup, it often does not offer any extra convenience on the H2C (you could already put all your AMSes on the Vortek side and get full convenience). And we could see that with a little bit of extra hardware it could do so much more, so this feels worth pointing out (hoping for the next generation of AMS/FTS). Lots of good comments about this above. But in any case, some users definitely extract some convenience and sometimes print time wins, so that should be celebrated:) (also, if you are using external spool, that obviously also kills any convenience win, having to uninstall the FTS each time)
There is the common issue of “excessive resistance” though, with AMS failing to feed. If you have even just a few of these, it immediately nullifies any gains and those are the people who get quite unhappy and uninstall it. That was my situation in the beginning. I have since figured out how to completely fix it in my setup, and I have some key things to try:
- Do NOT put your 4-in-1 mergers near the FTS. They must be near the AMS. The printable brackets that put 4-in-1 mergers next to the FTS are a trap.
- Do not put more than one new-style H2C-bundled 4-in-1 merger in each line. They are much higher resistance than the old one. One of my sides has an old merger feeding into a new merger, and that works fine.
- Manage PTFE tubing bend radius carefully, especially close to the FTS. You want minimal resistance the further away from the AMS you are. The FTS itself isn’t that draggy.
- Make sure to print and use the small plastic alignment pieces for the PTFE tubes going into the FTS, and carefully align the FTS with the inlets. I use a side mount bracket so it’s a pretty straight shot.
With these, I was able to make my 4xAMS + 4xHT work without any failures. I’m not uninstalling the FTS. I think it’s neat tech. But I’m really hoping for new AMS models with builtin FTS.
I’m not sure about this bullet. Mine has been flawless since I installed it. I think the biggest problem most experience is improper routing of PTFE tubes. I saw similar complaints when AMS Hub support was added for the A-Series printers. Same thing, most issues were just bad routing of tubes, and most people don’t have several feet of PTFE tubing available to work with to replace everything. I’m also not using the PTFE guides that Bambu released to attach to the AMS devices.
The first point is really not a universal rule, I have 2 (new) 4-in-1s 2cm from the FTS and there is very little resistance, I have them fixed on the same mounting bracket as the FTS and had to experiment a bit with the angle to get it right. My experience is that you need to be careful about the angles of the ptfe connectors and just try manually with a bit of filament until they are in a low resistance angle.
The second point mainly comes down to the little rubber wiping pad thingy on the new 4-in-1s (that is supposed to protect against “micro particles” from the filament entering the vortek nozzle system). If you remove this pad there is barely any resistance in the 4-in-1.
I am also noticing that I feel like a shill for this gadget, it seem to be the only thing I talk about on this forum, but it have saved me so much headache. It should really be integrated into the next dual head printer they make.
I was curious so I tried moving the 4-to-1 closer to the AMS 2 Pro & HT. I cut new PTFE tubing and got lots of excessive friction errors. I used new clear PTFE w/ the larger Bambu ID.
Afterward, I tried an experiment with a filament scrap on both types of PTFE tubing (Bambu & 3rd party) and the difference was mind-blowing. The new clear PTFE tube had considerably more friction than the Bambu. The feeder motor striations cut into the filament made the friction must worse (unavoidable).
I’m running the same test print again now with Bambu PTFE and I am not getting excessive friction errors. I can’t conclude if the placement of the 4-to-1 nearer to the AMSs’ is affecting the overall friction. You would need to run a push force test with both configurations but, in my head, the logic is sound that closer to the AMS would reduce the side friction in the first piece of PTFE.
I did re-configure my set-up today with the direct feed FTS holder arm today. Had 2x weather power bumps yesterday evening while printing the ASA part (white) and the H2C recovered like a champ! It would be very difficult to shorten the PTFE tubes much more than they are now. They seem to flow smoothly and with the shorter retract length, there should be less AMS extruder filament “chew” powder.
It’s somewhat useful for the H2D.
For the H2C, I find it completely useless.
Furthermore, it drastically increases the resistance of the filament. Quite a few users are having problems with it.
If your AMS (Automatic Print Stems) aren’t directly next to the printer, or if you need to print tight curves, it’s really not recommended.
I tested and used mine for a week, then removed it.
For Bambu, I find this part rather underdeveloped and cheap.