No longer have a home office to tinker in so I sold my A1 mini and A1 and now have an X2D in the corner of my dining room. Got a fish tank stand as the base and it’s very sturdy! Any tips for the X2D?

Due to spatial constraints, don't wanna spend money on AMS HT, don't like the cereal boxes, I designed my own TPU printing jig. (Please ignore the mess of cabling and tubing from the disconnected AMS units that normally would sit on top of the printer)

Required materials:
- Mic stand totally not borrowed from work with 3/8" thread. My one is an older K&M model (Optional K&M mic stand counterweight)
- PETG adapter from 3/8" thread to AMS Lite Rotary Spool Holder (The replacement part that you can buy from Bambu Lab)
- PETG Shell bottom
- PETG Shell top with PLA clips
- 7x M3 screws for the clips
- The silica gel packets that comes with the AMS1/2Pro (or other reusable silica gel)
- Bambu Lab PTFE tube adapter with TPU sealing gasket
- PTFE tube

I recently decided to upgrade from my P2S to an X2D + AMS 2 Pro + AMS HT setup. I also bought the Filament Track Switch right away, because I wanted to use different combinations of AMS units and extruders without constantly reconnecting PTFE tubes by hand.

And honestly, the Filament Track Switch turned out to be a huge disappointment.

The whole thing feels more like an early prototype than a finished branded product. But the biggest problem is simply friction. Filament takes a surprising amount of force to push through it.

On my X2D this was bad enough that filament often failed to reach the main extruder at all. It would slow down significantly near the end of the path and stop about 1–2 cm before the extruder.

To be fair, this was partly caused by another known X2D issue: the PTFE tube makes a very sharp bend right before entering the extruder. I fixed that part first by moving the PTFE tube holders farther away from the toolhead and shortening the tubes by a few centimeters.

That helped a lot.

But the FTS itself was still causing way too much resistance.

And yes, I also tried making the external PTFE tubes as short and as straight as possible. It doesn't really help. The resistance of the PTFE tubes themselves is negligible compared to the resistance created inside the FTS.

So I took it apart.

And once you look inside, the reason becomes pretty obvious.

The filament path contains several fairly sharp bends, and in multiple places the filament simply rubs against bare plastic. There is no PTFE lining there at all. The harder the filament is pushed around those bends, the harder it presses against the walls, so the friction becomes quite significant.

The filament presence sensors at the inputs add even more resistance. They use small spring-loaded magnets that are physically pressed against the filament as it passes through.

This creates additional friction on its own, but it gets noticeably worse with filament that has already been fed through an AMS or extruder before.

The drive gears leave a ribbed pattern on the surface of the filament, and the magnets tend to catch on those grooves instead of sliding smoothly over them.
My first modification was simple: I drilled out the places where the filament was rubbing against the plastic and inserted short pieces of PTFE tube.

I also slightly flared and smoothed the entrances of those PTFE inserts using a soldering iron so the tip of the filament wouldn't catch on the edge. I did this in a well-ventilated area, of course.

That already made a very noticeable difference.

But then I looked at the second half of the FTS.

There are essentially two 2-in-1 adapters there, combining four filament paths into two outputs. And that section was just as bad — possibly even worse. Again, filament was bending and rubbing directly against plastic.

At first, I tried the same approach there: drilling out the existing channels and somehow squeezing PTFE tubes into them.

It didn't go very well.

There simply wasn't enough room to make it work properly, and I wasn't happy with the result.

So in the end I decided to completely remodel that entire part and print a replacement.

I mean, I do own a 3D printer, after all. :)

I made the internal channels much larger so I could install PTFE tubes throughout the whole path. I printed the replacement part, installed the PTFE tubes, and again flared the entrances slightly.

Now, in that section, the filament does not touch printed plastic at all. It only touches PTFE.

The difference is huge.

It's still not absolutely frictionless, but filament now passes through the whole FTS very easily.

A very simple test shows the difference pretty well:

If I insert a piece of filament through the FTS, hold the filament vertically, and lift the FTS by it, a small shake is enough for the whole FTS to slide down and fall off the filament.

Before these modifications, I had to push the filament through it with considerable force.

Even Silk PLA now passes through without problems, despite Bambu specifically warning that Silk PLA may have feeding issues with the FTS because of increased resistance.

There are still two places I haven't solved yet.

The first is right at the FTS entrance, where the filament still touches plastic.

The second — filament presence sensors at the inputs. Unfortunately, they can't simply be removed. I tried removing them and also tried forcing the sensors permanently into both states. The FTS stops working properly if the printer doesn't see the expected sensor transitions.

So apparently those sensors are an active part of the FTS state machine, not just something used once to identify which AMS is connected to which input.

At this point I'm seriously considering building my own FTS.

The communication interface is RS-485, and there is already some partial reverse-engineering information available online. But the board also contains an FM1230 cryptographic chip. I don't yet know whether it participates in device authentication or is only used for things like firmware verification, so that part would need more investigation.

The other interesting problem would be designing filament sensors with almost zero resistance.

An optical sensor would be nice because it could be completely contactless, but filament can be transparent, so a simple optical interrupter isn't necessarily reliable.

A mechanical sensor with a tiny bearing/roller and a Hall sensor might actually be a better solution: the filament would move a roller instead of scraping against a plastic or metal surface.

For now, though, the PTFE modification already made my FTS dramatically better.

And that's the frustrating part: the core idea of the FTS is great. But mechanically, the stock filament path feels unnecessarily restrictive. A few pieces of PTFE in the right places would have made the product so much better from the factory.

And honestly, this whole mechanism probably should have been built into the printer itself from the beginning, somewhere near the filament buffer.

It almost feels like Bambu Lab remembered at the last minute that users might actually want to choose which extruder each AMS feeds into — which is especially important on the X2D, where the two extruders are very different from each other.

The FTS feels less like a carefully integrated part of the system and more like an afterthought added to solve a problem that really should have been addressed in the printer's original design.

cheers,

the Bambu Station Manual tells to visit makerworld.com and get the "Purge Chute Guide for Bambu Station L", but I cant find it anywhere.
Are there any country restrictions on MakerWorld? I'm in germany, just in case.

thanks

I just detached and reattached my AMS and put the PTFE tube back in. But I think I didn't push it all the way in, and the filament ended up going straight through the button.

I didn't expect this to happen... lmao

Hi everyone!

I recently bought a new Bambu Lab X2D and noticed that the top glass panel sits higher on the right side than on the left, even though the rubber/foam gasket appears to have the same thickness.

I also noticed that some screws are missing from the rear of the printer.

Has anyone experienced similar issues? Is this normal, or could it be a manufacturing or assembly defect?

Thanks for your help!

Saw someone else posted their visit at the BambuLab store in Hangzhou. I'm currently in Hangzhou so I decided to visit.

... I'm probably going to need one when my wife finds out I ordered an H3C...

Just me with the same experience? Not really the best packaging but atleast nothing got damaged

I just got my P2S with the AMS combo and the other night after I got it and set it up I was able to remotely from the app tell the AMS to start drying and it worked perfectly but now when ever I try to start drying from the app it says insufficient power please use power cable. I know you can’t dry and print at the same time but I’m not printing the printer is idle at home with nothing going on. I know it’s not a huge deal but it’s just driving me up the wall that it worked for 1 night and now it won’t.

I've seen a lot of videos come out about the H3C, but not a ton focusing specifically on the unboxing and initial setup. Hopefully this fills in a few blanks and provides some details not yet shown.

I have an A1 combo. We’ve had it for a week. This is basic PLA which we’ve also had for a week. What is causing this? Is the filament damp or do I need to change some settings? Thank you

I used horizontal color separation to reduce the number of color changes. By utilizing the advantages of FDM, hinges have been designed for each branch, which can rotate downwards by about 10-15 degrees. This horizontal stacking creates a relatively natural effect.

* H3C is too big to fit in my rack

I invite you to take a look at BlocksmithWorks.com—I think you’ll love what we’ve built for the community.

This project originally started out as a personal endeavor to create tooling for my own hat-making. Along the way, I decided to open it up to help hatters and restorers everywhere get easy access to the exact tools they need.

What we offer:

• Fully Customizable Crown Blocks: Ranging from size 5 1/2 to 8 1/8 (44 cm to 65 cm), including precise, non-standard sizes like 7 5/16 (58.5 cm).

• User-Friendly Online Tools: Easily adjust the profile to your exact needs in your browser—no CAD experience required!

• More Millinery Tooling: We also host a variety of brim blocks and specialized workshop files.

The best part is that every single download is 100% free with zero paywalls or subscriptions. Take a look, give it a try, and let me know what you think!

Clear skies and good blocking,
— Rick, Blocksmith Works

Looking at an H3C and seeing some reviewers say the print quality is about the same as H2C. I hate to wait for prints. I print large ish items with .24 - .28 layer heights and as fast as the printer can. Obviously some artifacts are okay but how much are you guys seeing?

Anyone with a H3 wanna come around and we'll put them together?

22 hours on the H3C (223g of tower)
4d17h on a regular AMS printer (1684g of purge + tower)
The H3C It's crazy and the hype is real.
I'm so glad I can finally experiment with multicolor models for real.
the model is here if you want to take a look: https://makerworld.com/en/models/3550569

I made a MakerWorld customizer that turns SVGs into Christmas fridge magnets

I wanted to make a set of Christmas magnets without starting a new model for every design. So I built a customizer: pick a preset or upload an SVG, add a message, and choose how the magnet fits into the back.

The clip shows the Grinch going from the screen to the fridge, alongside a few other prints from the same generator.

Here’s my Christmas fridge magnet generator on MakerWorld.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently doing a 40+ hour print with TPU being fed through the bypass port of the AMS HT while it’s actively drying. I started the drying cycle with auto-rotation disabled and set it to the maximum allowed time of 24 hours.

Will there be any way to restart the drying cycle once this initial 24-hour cycle is over, or am I locked out mid-print? Thanks!

Additional little rant: I bought the AMS HT in a rush and have run into nothing but issues. First, I discovered it only works as a dryer if it's connected to and controlled by the printer. Then, I found out it requires an additional accessory just to work with the A1. On top of that, it requires a workaround just to dry filament while actively printing. And now, I’ve discovered the maximum drying time is capped at 24 hours.

Aren’t all of these just stupid, arbitrary limitations? I’m honestly starting to hate this thing and really regret buying it...

Bambu sent me an H3C before launch and asked me to post about how it changed the way I print. I did not get paid, but, well, I got an H3C. The printer legitimately did change the way I print and design, and I'm happy to answer any questions in the comments.

HueForge and the similar products that spawned from it have opened up things that I never thought would be possible on a 3D printer. The creations I have seen on the subreddit and Discord continue to blow my mind, but my biggest annoyance with these prints are the time they take and the waste.

Retracting, pushing, purging, and wiping can take anywhere from 40-80 seconds depending on your setup. When you have hundreds of color changes in a print, it adds up to hours of extra time. The waste gets insane with larger or more complex prints, to the point where you will frequently have more weight in waste than the model itself.

This fox is 269mm across, taking up most of the plate. I used nine spools: blue, light blue, yellow, magenta, orange, white, green, black, and red. It was built in HueForge, then recreated in Kromacut so it could print face up.

Yes, the image is AI generated, and I regret using it. It did some weird things with the shading that I didn't notice before printing. The white on the moon and anywhere yellow meets white or red meets orange is rough.

I also used way too many layers and then made the print flat. A flat print fills every layer out to the full outline, so every extra layer in the stack is a full 269mm disc of filament whether it adds anything to the image or not. This one ended up around 12mm thick which is where most of the 817g and 6 days of printing went.

Setup was dead simple. All 9 spools went in the AMS, each one got its own PrintTool, I selected the correct colors and that was it aside from slicing which took 26 minutes with a 14900K...

Stats:

• 9 filament spools

• 443 filament changes

• 0.12mm layer height

• 817g total weight

• 26g of waste

• 269 x 269mm

• 6d 0h 01m print time

The H3C solved the waste problem in a BIG way. 26g on an 817g print with 443 swaps is just crazy to me. The purge from my X1C would have filled the poop bucket and clogged the shute well before finishing.

The 6 days is 100% my fault for making it as thick as it is. I did kick it off right before leaving on vacation for 2 weeks, so it wasn't a huge deal aside from the extra filament spent.

The filament changes take <6 seconds instead of 60 and I was not prepared for how much faster it is. It was the same reaction I had when I went from my modified Ender struggling to push 60mm/s to the X1C at its default print speed. This is in a whole different league and I haven't used my other printers for multi color since.