1.9 Loading filament into the AMS
Module 1 · Part 3: Your print, step by step · Lesson 9 of 14 · about 4 min
Put your nametag on the printer first. Once you start loading filament, the printer is yours, and the tag tells everyone else.
Check the spool
It is solid moulded plastic, like the spools from Bambu Lab and most other brands. Cardboard, 3D-printed and homemade spools never go into an AMS.
It has your label on it, or it is free filament (a FREE sticker over the owner's name).
It is ordinary PLA, because that is all an upper-row X2D takes: not silk PLA (Bambu PLA Silk+ is the one exception), not filled and not glow-in-the-dark (1.6 Filament: what you may use, and where it lives).
Three spools in an AMS, each with a crossover: a loose strand runs diagonally across the winding and is caught under the turns. On the white and black spools it is easy to see, on the blue one much less so
Check the winding
Filament is wound under tension, and the loose end springs back onto the spool as soon as you let go of it. If it slips under one of the loops below it, you get a crossover. You won't notice it now, but four hours into a print it will lock the spool and ruin the job.
So keep hold of the loose end, and before you load:
Unwind two or three turns.
Look at the winding. Every turn should lie neatly next to the one beside it, with nothing crossing over or tucked under another strand.
Wind the turns back on, keeping the filament tight, and feed the end straight into the AMS without letting go.
If the end gets away from you and springs back, don't just push it in. Pull a few turns off, check the winding, and start again.
Load the spool
Loading an AMS 2 Pro. Left: the open unit from the front, with a white feeder tab at the front of each of the four slots and a spool in the second slot. Right: a hand pressing a feeder tab and pushing the filament end into the slot
Unlatch the lid of the AMS 2 Pro, then lift it open. Put the spool in a free slot. It should sit flat on the rollers, turn freely when you nudge it, and not wobble.
If the end of the filament is bent or crushed, cut it off cleanly first, with the cutters on the pegboard. Then press the feeder tab and push the filament end in. The AMS grabs it and pulls it in by itself.
The AMS will turn the spool back and forth a little after you insert the filament. It is looking for an RFID tag, and it does this whether there is one or not. That is normal.
Bambu Lab filament is read automatically from its RFID tag. For other brands, set the filament on the screen yourself (see Filament from other brands below).
Close the lid and latch it.
Close-ups of an AMS 2 Pro lid. Left: latched, with the latch buttons turned up and back. Right: not latched, with the buttons lying along the front
That's it until it is time to slice.
Filament from other brands
The printer screen's filament menu in three steps. Left: the AMS view, with a PLA spool in slot A1. Middle: the menu that opens when you tap a slot, with Edit, Load and Re-Read. Right: the Edit Filament screen, set to Generic PLA
Tap the slot on the printer's screen and choose Edit. Set the brand (Generic if yours isn't listed), the type and the colour, then press Confirm. Make sure the type is right, because it decides the temperatures.
What the printer does by itself
Loading: you don't press Load. The AMS pulls the filament into its own feeder when you insert it, and the printer pulls it the rest of the way into the print head when the job starts.
After a print that finished normally: the printer pulls the filament back into the AMS by itself. You can just lift your spool out.
After a cancelled job, or one stopped by an error
The filament does not get pulled back. It is still in the print head, so run Unload on the screen before you take the spool out. That is the only time you normally need Unload. It is also how you'll find a printer after someone else's print failed (1.7 Taking over a printer).
If the filament will not feed in, first check that the end is cut off cleanly and that the spool turns freely, then try again. If it still won't feed, or will not come out, don't force it. Ask in the Slack channel #3D-Skrivare, or follow Bambu Lab's official guide for that fault (1.13 Faults, fire, and who to tell).
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