Though 3D printing does have a part in my business, I am by no means in the business of 3D printing. As a result of that – and the lack of time on my hands for numerous reasons, including the business itself – I don’t really have the opportunity to read about and research such a fun topic.

I’ve been trying to make more time for that lately, but I’m not currently in one of my couch potato phases, so… Yeah.

Yesterday I ran a print that consumed the last of a roll of your average black Bambu PLA Basic. I’ve been printing a fair bit with it because it works well for prototype cases. No big deal. I just stuck another roll in the AMS before starting the job, knowing that the AMS would seamlessly switch to the new filament when the first roll ran dry.

Right?

Thankfully, I have gotten some reading in – and if you own an AMS or AMS Lite and are not already aware of the “fliament tape problem”, you should definitely read the rest of this post!

The Issue

I don’t remember where I originally saw it – probably on reddit somewhere – but here is the thread at the Bambu Community Forums. It covers the issue pretty well, and yes, by all accounts it’s still an issue.

The short version: Bambu (or their filament manufacturer) is now taping the end of the filament to the core of the spool. When you reach the end of the spool, this tape may fail to release properly. This can cause it to be pulled from the cardboard core – and into your AMS.

The idea of tape going through my AMS – let alone the actual printer parts further along the path – gives me nightmares!

And that is exactly what it almost did yesterday, much to my surprise. I figured it was one of those things that “can’t happen to me”…

The Workaround

Thankfully, having read about it a couple of weeks prior, I was keeping an eye on things just in case. I’m paranoid like that.

In my case, the solution was simple: I stood there with a pair of diagonal cutters; when the filament reached its end – and started to pull tape off the spool core, followed by cardboard – I quickly snipped it, heroically saving my AMS from a terrible fate.

Problem solved, and my AMS is still perfectly healthy as a result.

For me, this isn’t a big deal; I don’t tend to print super-long unattended prints. For some folks, though, this will be a very, very big problem. It also renders the auto-spool-switch feature of the AMS useless if you manage to get bit by it, which is rather annoying.

Someone over on MakerWorld invented this toy to hopefully mitigate the problem. I have yet to print one, but I’m probably going to, just as a safety precaution. If it works, I’ll make it standard equipment on my AMS.

Where’s The Actual Fix?

This problem has apparently been a thing since 2023 – well over a year, and heading toward two. Bambu’s response has been… lackluster, as far as I can tell. Yes, they claim they’re fixing the manufacturing process…

…by fixing how the tape is applied.

This does not reassure me.

I do not want adhesive residue traveling the paths of my printer – that sounds like a recipe for lots of money replacing tubes and printer parts! And there is bound to be adhesive residue on the end of the filament even if it pulls free “correctly” – not to mention, what will happen when a two or four year old spool is popped into a printer?

Tape often ages poorly in my experience, and the results of that vary widely. Sometimes it just stops gripping – but others, it becomes an awful, unremovable sludge…

So to answer the question… so far, there isn’t a solution. Well, other than standing there with diagonal cutters or turning your AMS into a Rube Goldberg contraption with printed parts from MakerWorld, anyway…

Final Thoughts

I confess myself… disappointed.

The whole point of spending the money on a Bambu printer was to buy a “fire and forget” tool, because I lack the time and energy to tinker with it overmuch. Bambu’s reputation back when I bought the thing in May was nearly spotless in that respect as far as I could tell at the time.

I hadn’t heard of the tape issue, even though it was certainly already A Thing. Live and learn, right? Do better research, I tell myself.

That said, there’s also the recent near miss with them almost making LAN mode useless. Lo and behold, my X1C does not talk to the cloud, except for the occasional firmware update. That has been the case since I unboxed the thing. LAN mode was make-or-break on the sale, because I do not want cloud-dependent critical tools if they can be avoided!

“Optional cloud” is fine. “Required cloud” is not. If the internet goes down, I don’t want to be stuck unable to work!

Now it looks like I’m going to have to use “developer mode” or whatever; that’s far better than what they originally proposed at least. But seriously, what’s the point of “LAN mode” if you have to login to the cloud first? That defeats the whole purpose! And worse, they’re trying to tell people that it’s all about improving security for users?

Newsflash: if you force me to give my printer an internet connection just to use the damn thing, you have done the opposite of improving my security!

Hey, look, a soapbox! How did that get there?

So yeah, I’m a little disillusioned. Sadly, I’m not so flush with cash that I can just go randomly buy a Prusa or something (though the Prusa XL does look incredibly cool!). I’m also inclined to give them a bit longer to resolve the issues, so we’ll see where it goes.

If they don’t fix the filament tape issue soon, though, it’s an indicator of a larger problem with the company IMHO – namely, their lacking customer focus. If they aren’t trying to make the best product possible to satisfy their customers, I’ll start spending my money with someone who is.

For now I’m just going to have to watch my printer carefully when it’s near the end of a spool; it’s either that or start buying a different brand of filament (unless that nifty mod works!). I’m hoping they get it fixed, though, because – much like the printer itself – the Bambu filament has been very good to me other than that.