Protopasta Cardboard Spools are Bambu AMS Compatible

We love printing with Bambu Lab 3D printers for their ease, speed, and reliability. While printing a single material is most reliable, fast, and efficient, multi-color and multi-material printing with the AMS is novel. There are lots of opinions about cardboard spools and the AMS specifically, but, in short, Protopasta spools work.

We retooled from 8 inches to 200 mm OD to fit the Bambu AMS with the lid closed. When changing the spool OD to 200, we added features to make Protopasta spools more adaptable (more details in our previous blog). Still, we found that we prefer printing with stock cardboard spools. Why? Protopasta 200 mm OD cardboard spools work, often as good or better than modded spools, and without risk of making something worse when modifying.

Most 500g and 1kg 1.75 mm diameter filament spools are now 200 mm OD, but some SKUs (in our clearance collection) are still 8 inch OD. Both 8 inch and 200 mm ODs fit the AMS lite.

While not as durable as plastic, choosing cardboard has avoided 100,000s of kg of single use plastic waste!!! Locally-made and assembled in-house, spools typically hold up well enough for a single use and are highly recyclable when done. While good enough most of the time, we are still working to improve spool durability and reliability without increasing waste. Stay tuned for more innovation, and, in the meantime, see how to use plastic below if you prefer!

If your spool is dropped or damaged, it may not work. Outlying cases like these may require modifying or replacing your spool. More details in our previous blog. Below is a video from that blog, showing how to transfer a Protopasta 1kg spool to Bambu plastic if required or preferred. If you have any questions or trouble, please email support@protoplant.com. We're here for you and want you to have an exceptional experience!

3D printing has many variables, and when the AMS isn't working, our experience is that problems have typically been independent of spool type. For example, stiff and rough filaments can create excessive resistance and wear tightly bent tubes + other soft inline components which can require cleaning and eventual replacement. Settings and geometry do matter and while moisture isn't a problem for us when printing Protopasta PLA in WA, OR, and CT, some folks swear by drying their filament.

3D printers are complex systems. It's amazing they work so well most of the time, but there are times when they don't and you'll have to figure out why. It's easy to point at spools or moisture, but, for what it's worth, we get exceptional printing results in an office environment with cardboard spools and without drying when using Protopasta PLA filament. For us, when things go wrong, it's usually related to settings, setup, modification, maintenance, or wear.

We hope knowing this helps! Take care and happy printing!!!

-The Protopasta Team