Is Zero Waste possible with a BambuLab AMS 3D printer? 

A lot of people are asking about cutting early and returning to the print before finishing the layer. I had that same thought initially, and even mentioned it in the previous video about this subject, but this solution is more complex than it seems at first. First of all you have to stop the layer early to do the cut. This sounds simple but but often GCode has long lines be a single command, and what if the optimal place for a cut is in the middle of a long line? Do you stop before doing the line? Do you try to calculate where in the middle of the line to stop and turn a single GCode command into two so you can pause to cut? Either way you're adding a new seam to your wall, which is unsightly. Then, what if you're adding only small amounts of several different colors to a layer? I'm talking small enough that you actually need to cut for that color, 2 or 3 colors before the last one gets added? That's a lot to coordinate. And you'll need to be sure you haven't missed anything, like the effect of travel moves, or your color could start changing too soon, or too late. And since every color combination needs a different amount of purge, it gets even more complicated! Not saying it can't be done. Put enough time and effort into it and anything's possible. But if there's a more simple solution, that's more time that Bambulab's programmers can focus on other things. For more ways Bambulabs can improve things, check the blogaroo: www.3dpprofessor.com/2024/03/09/is-zero-purge-on-the-bambulab-ams-3d-printers-possible/

If you are printing 4 objects in different colours you can select print by object instead of by layer and this will print each object before moving on to the next, this will save you oodles of wasted filament as there will only be one filament purge per object.

You get a thumbs up just for the tie alone!

My favourite Technique is still "Purge to infill". Since you generally can't see the inside, it doesn't matter if the infill is funky colored, but you need the infill anyways, so might as well use the purge.

I love your veggie tales tie, 10/10

Thanks for the detailed explanation of the thought process behind this.

they’ve added retraction before color change in the latest version. not sure if it’s yet out of beta, but they’re listening to the feedback :)

Just got an X1 Carbon and AMS and am printing my first multi color print. I watched your other Video on the subject and this came on next. from an hour ago! perfect timing! haha I love my 3 collored articulated FOX and hope I can reduce the poop! XD

Plastic waste is on my mind more every time I print. I'm going to have to start thinking about various purge "blocks" that I can create where color doesn't matter. Possibly various brackets, gears, or basically any other section that would normally be hidden inside of something doesn't matter if it's a muddy grey or a dirty light color. Also, I have a feeling that the modified g-code would work for most of my prints that are printed with basic PLA. Hopefully it's updated to immediately push the clipped filament back into the hot end before it has a chance to cool down in the heat break and cause a clog. That would be my only concern about using the change as is.

dear youtuber i like the info you provide, but i will subscribe because of the wholesome personallity, keep it up hello from colombia

Love my AMS, it allows me to use multiple materials and colors one one plate (do print by object, so that it only changes materials after finishing one object, and before starting on the next object). Not needing to manually change spools between your most used filaments is also very nice. I’ve not done a single full multi color print, just a handful of icons, or maybe some text in a different color on the first, or last two layers. Though I have made extensive use of multi material supports, setting PETG as support interface material for PLA, ABS, and ASA, and use PLA for PETG. Using them only as support interface materials gives you super clean, easily detaching supports with minimal waste. Just make sure to increase the purge value by 2x, or set the primary filament to pure white, and the support to pure black regardless of actual color. This is to ensure you get only the pure material in the print. If the mixed filaments are not properly purged away, your print will get a very weak section in the layer above the support, because that layer contains a mix of two incompatible materials that do not adhere to each other, and thus the layers detach almost as easily as the supports do.

Good info thx!

Love the tie!!

Anyone else feel like the Duplicates methods was the best waste saving solution per unit? Loved the video, thank you!

I wrote you a message on printables! Thanks for doing a video!

Bambulabs could do some things to make this better as well. www.3dpprofessor.com/2024/03/09/is-zero-purge-on-the-bambulab-ams-3d-printers-possible/

🤷‍♂️it's progress, thanx for all your work

Worth noting that the reduce purge script was included in the latest beta release of bambuslicer

I don't have one of these but one of my printers can do 2 colors and it's the same thing. It drops all the poop down a little shoot on the side and I end up with a big pile of waste on the table.

I think another way Bambu can save on poop is to cut the filament early. Imagine if it cut the filament before it needed to and then continued to print with the cut filament until the cut line was near the melt chamber. It may be less reliable since the filament is cut, but i think it's worth looking into

The perfect every time overkill option should be the default, though there should be a setting or option that allows you to do the waste reduction procedure you mentioned, maybe even give it it a little pop up warning and confirmation button and a troubleshooting guide to minimize the amount of support requests this would inevitably cause

If I select a filament change on my Tenlog TLD3Pro it slowly pushes it forward then quickly extracts the filament all the way back. I always wondered why they made it do that instead of just heating up and pulling out. Wondering does that purge reduction script do that also? Push a little, quickly pull back, cut and then push forward again then extract all the way.

The issue with that custom gcode is that its very filament dependent, which you mentioned. I was excited when I first saw it circling on reddit a while back and tried it for myself.....until the jams started...oh the jams lol. Silk filament is a no-go, as the creator said. But so is certain colors of regular pla, even BBL brand, silver BBL ABS jams, every brand of Galaxy PLA I tried jams, Sunlu Clay PLA jams, Sunlu Matte Light Blue jams, Eryone Fuscia PLA jams. Those are all I can remember. Like i said, it's great when it works. But if it's a filament that hasnt been tested with the gcode, you have to babysit it to make sure it doesnt jam.

3:47 you could do sequential printing which makes it so it does one first then the next and then the next, but the only downside is that they need to be printed in a specific place on the plate. I own a p1p so I don't know if the feature is on the a1 series but im pretty sure it is as bambu lab is great at adding similar features to their family of printers. Lol

15:07 you say there's no bleed over into the white but in this clip you can very clearly see a ton of bleed over into the white. What's the deal with that?

even the 3 block purge was higher than a no purge object print on my tool changer lol.

So you said you lose 2 cm every time the ASM cut filament then got purged, but is it possible to cut the filament and purge 1.5 cm on the print itself before you really need to change color ?

Can it purge to an object that's not as tall as the main print, but wide enough to absorb all the waste? (Nozzle would have to lower for each purge).

Having an object on the printbed that the color doesn't matter like if it where to be painted anyway then it should theoretically remove all the waste exept for the small droop block? The machine might need to use more extra filament whenever the filament changes if the layer on the extra figure is a bit larger and only when the layer on the extra objects layer is smaler then the needed purge it will give some waste?

Maybe this exist but it would be nice if there was a mode to use purge as infill.

3:20 Nobody does that...and even if they did, there is a setting to print each part in series...so there would only be 1 color change per part...

I was wondering rather than a purge object could you make a section of an object material neutral. I.e. you might have an object that is big enough that the infill could use the purge waste?

I want to print some key chains for my sons school band. I want to print in a hard tpu. Any recommendations? I just want them to be durable and not break easily. I will be buying a new bamboo printer for this. Should this work and the newer less expensive bed slinger or the carbon?

@3dpprofessor Why not cut it before the color change to avoid retractions entirely? Once you have [cutter to nozzle distance]mm + [color 1 purge endlength minimum]mm remaining to the color change, cut. Retract color 1. Push with color 2 for [cutter to nozzle distance]mm, purge for [color 1 purge endlength minimum + color 2 purge startlength minimum]mm. No retractions, and your amount of the first filament in the hot end to purge goes down to just a few micrograms. This would require having your GCODE analyzed to find at what point to do the cut by measuring extrusion lengths... but subtraction is a concept that exists.

I love to paint figurines. So this feature to purge into an object might be very useful if I'm gonna paint it anyway.

The printer knows when the next layer is coming I feel like an early cut would be the easiest way to reduce waste because the end of the last layer could be finished by whats in the nozzle. The only timing has to ensure the "transition" is the only waste..

this is how the mystery flavor in Dumb Dumbs was created.

Is it possible to purge as an infill or a model that say is holding a weapon were the weapon is entirely made from purge material, if this don`t make sense its because I don`t own a 3D printer yet. 😐

A version of the false hydra would be very cool to see in the Cthulhu series.

I wish bambu lab would come out with a multi head printer with each head dedicated to a color and even type of filament, but I imagine you would go from a x1c $1500 printer to double or triple the cost. But there would essentially be no waste.

you mentioned the transitioning sections, can you not reduce those zones? edit: also I've seen hotend on ali express that has 4 filament going into it, i wonder if that could be of benefit?

My primary problem with AMS is the time needed for filament switch. It takes about 1min30s for one change and if print has thousands of these... (no idea how long that is on "AMS Lite").

I will finally be getting a P1S here in the next few weeks and considering the AMS as well. Does anyone here really use it that much? I think I might wait on the ams for now.

Holy cow! You still have some useable 3D solutech? Man, I ran out of the awesome green color years ago.

Biggest factor for me is orientation and using surface text printed horizontally instead of embedded.

This is what I have been doing with Manuel color swaps on my main printer ( I have a s1)

I don't use flush towers or objects. You can turn it off on my X1C carbon. I also reduced the multiplier to .3 to get the smallest poop as possible.

You can do this for color changes, but for supports it's important to purge a lot to avoid filament cross contamination, otherwise you can end up with weak layers.

11:55 is sort of like how mosaic does it in the palette 3 in the heater cartridge thing.

Will printing multiple of the same objects increase the waste or will it be able to do a single purge for multiple objects?

Why arent the default settings to purge to infill

New to 3d printing and I've got a Prusa Mk4. Not tried messing with any custom gcodes but, I've asked ChatGPT for help! Arbitrarily, I've told ChatGPT to retract the filament by 1cm, cut it, then advance the filament again by 0.75cm - these numbers will almost certainly need tweaking with experimentations! Here's the result: *** ; G-code for filament color change with retraction and advancement ; Set units to millimeters G21 ; Set absolute positioning mode G90 ; Set initial feed rate F3000 ; Start printing ; Layer 1 G1 Z0.2 ; Move to layer height G1 X10 Y10 ; Move to starting position G1 E10 ; Extrude filament ; Layer 2 G1 Z0.4 ; Move to next layer height G1 X20 Y20 ; Move to next position G1 E20 ; Extrude filament ; Filament color change G1 E9 ; Retract filament by 1 cm G1 E8.25 ; Cut filament G1 E8.25 ; Advance filament by 0.75 cm ; Layer 3 (with new filament color) G1 Z0.6 ; Move to next layer height G1 X30 Y30 ; Move to next position G1 E28.25 ; Extrude new filament ; Continue printing *** In this G-code: Layers 1 and 2 represent the printing process before the filament color change. Before the filament color change command (G1 E9), the filament is retracted by 1 cm (G1 E9), cut (G1 E8.25), and then advanced by 0.75 cm (G1 E8.25). After the filament color change, the printing process continues with layer 3 using the new filament color. You'll need to adjust the X, Y, and Z coordinates, as well as the extrusion amounts (E values), to suit your specific 3D printing project. Additionally, make sure to test the retraction and advancement distances to ensure proper filament handling during the color change process.

Surely the purge could be used as infill on the next layer on certain models?

The waste blocks, 100% infill? Thinking that prime could be hidden inside an object being printed maybe

Have you tried adding the command for feeding the filament to his script yet?

If you have more flush object area per layer than you need to flush (it prints straight color into some of it because it has to finish the layer and it's already done w/ the change), if you cut the flush volume down to say, .1, I wonder if it would poop less and then finish into the object even though it THINKS it's already done flushing (when it really hardly flushed at all).

TY for the video but are the purge blocks NOT waste? It all seems to be about the same waste no matter what you do.

Why not print the purge to infill ?

Another method would be to properly calculate how much more you need of that particular filament before swapping and then doing the swap early - so that the 'purge' is actually used in the part. The end result would be the same, except you wouldn't need to retract and extrude. The risk would be that if you don't calculate it properly you could get color mixing - but that's the risk with any of this... The retraction idea is good - but I think the risk there is hot-end jams/issues - where as you wouldn't have that risk if you were to say swap from the first filament to the second one before the first one is done printing but not so far before it's done that you end up with the transition in your parts. Downside to this would be that I don't think it would be a simple gcode modification for before/after the cut. You would need the slicer itself to calculate when to do the cut earlier.

Always love being smart with what you have to reduce waist. Great video. 👍

9:55 isn’t it the other way around purge area bottom then transition then overkill. I suggest the diagram is right but the labels aren’t. So you want to shorten the top black area…

Why dont they use the internal structure as a purging space? no one is going to se it. it seems like the perfect space to lay what would be waste material?

The modified G-Code you used should reduce the waste dramatically. If that’s not the case you did not modify the flushing volumes correctly. With the modified G-Code a 0.35 is always fine and in most cases 0.25 is enough purge.

What if they made the purge another model?

The most unnecessary waste is when you're not using the AMS and just prototyping a single object using the same filament each time and it purges every time you start a print. Why can't we have a tick box like we do for bed leveling where we can select skip purge and just go straight to print?

what about flush to infill?

Ähm what are these "printer Blocks" for ? i dont get it 😩

what if u just pull out the filament real slowlike, and let it cool CONSIDERABLY while moving, in the cooling block? might be able to pull out "all" of the fillament, and not even need to cut it, no? 😅

One setting you should enable is "purge into infill" (I believe that is the name)

Why pull the filament up to cut it, why not just pre cut the filament, finish the layer, then retract the pre cut filament and change to the next color?

I was thinking of using the purge inside the object as infill. This doesn't have to be 100% correct color.

what about purge infill ?

Would be interesting to purge into infill, shouldn't be "hard" to calculate when there isn't enough internal infill and will purge as waste. On larger prints that might make a significant difference. What i would like to see is a tool change that only changes the nozzle itself. Remove having to have multiple extruder motors and gears, etc. This will also make it far smaller and economical. I can already imagine it, fully functional.. someone send me a few grand to cover materials and living costs for the week or two it would take me to develop it np 😅

Reminds me of an old saying...... waste not, want not!

Really bro . That song nice video tho thanks

Don't forget you can print per object instead of per line

Why pull any filament back? just make the cut and change like two cm of extruded filament before you want to actually change the filament. then, when the "purge" is consumed by printing your actual important part you just go to the purge area, extrude the transition and overkill. This has the benefits of not pulling back and clogging the cold end and also reduce the wasted filament when purging. Only the slicer has to be adapted, as there is now a new step in the whole process that is not brought out to the UI in current slicers.

2:03 that first hidden one looks oddly similar to Big B 🤔

Love that tie!

Purgefect results 😅

3:30 literally noone does this, print by model rather than by layer ensures that each model prints to completion and then does a single purge to the new colour before starting the next model. There's more than enough genuine areas to find where someone can save filament without manufacturing fake ones.

Automatic Material System system.

I have some cash set aside just so i can buy the Carbon XL when they release it

honestly not sure why this wasn't done from the jump it's the "obvious" way to do it

It sounds good but Bambu is all about worry free printing. This is far too reliant on filament types & brands and will cause clogs & lots of headaches if not dialled in perfectly, the opposite of what Bambu is about. I think it's much better to use a purge model for practical stuff for which the colour doesn't really matter. I keep a collection of those just to print stuff that I know I can always use like clips for sealing bags, cable ties, etc.

Just reduce your vertical resolution to 50% and you reduce the waste the same amount.You’re welcome.

you havent heard about print order by object i guess

Seems like a simple solution for Bambu, make it automatically retract when using Bambu filliment where they can test them all. Then they can claim use Bambu filliment and you will have less waist. I think it will be fair to say you may have some people saying they are monopolizing there filliment, but I feel it's fair to say they can't test all other manufacturers and at the end of the day you could probably trick your printer in thinking it's Bambu filliment at your own risk.

Hello, that's very interesting. I don't have any Bamboo but it crossed my mind and it's precisely the mess that made me change my mind. However, I have a question about these blocks that you've printed with the "purges", I can't see what purpose they serve at all, in fact I think that's also waste, could you tell me or show me a video explaining what these blocks are for because at the moment it makes me think of a roundabout way of making waste that in the end amounts to the same thing as "poo"?

You could check the ERCF v2 color changer for klipper machines. It does EXACTLY what you expect but is clearly for passionate and advanced makers, not for a customer that use it as an appliance. We can control the amount of cut filaments, tip forming for more reliable feed, cooling and ramming etc..

How about using purge as infill?

VeggieTales!

"Printer blocks?" Can we all pause for just a moment to acknowledge that these are indeed 100% waste as well? They're just not strings in a bucket.

you can't do the long retract ike that because it will freeze the hot filament in the heat brake

Or get a Prusa XL with 5 individual print heads instead of 4 colors with one head. I own neither so can't vouch on purge waste volume but would think the Prusa would beat the bamboo hands down.

That prime block could be replaced with brass bristles

Id love them to make the AMS open source so i could use it with 3rd party 3d printers, even if it was limited to something like Klipper.

The simple solution to make a filament machine that is affordable, that hooks up to the poop chute and it turns it into filament. If people could just recycle their filament, this would not be an issue at all, and even something to look forward to after prints since you could just turn it all back into filament. Filament machines are too expensive, and the affordable ones are not a plug and play system which makes it really troublesome to use for the average user. If Bambu could make one that communicates with the printer, you could organize colors, filament types, and even mix colors depending on how you set it up.

No reason to "push back" with the same filament because the next filament will do just that.

Zero Purge Waste is not just possible however inevitable The nozzle however needs to be modified not the gcode The nozzle stratification as you mentioned explains it all A hole needs to be drilled into the nozzle at the upper stratification A pipe with a liquid pump is inserted into the nozzle Thus when a new color is required the AMS system prompts the cleaning thank to flush the nozzle by running liquid through it after which the new color is introduced. The toilet tank or flushing system also does not waste liquid as it is reused several times over I believe in supporting a green environment and this will help a lot in promoting zero emissions Sincerely Ejike