Bambu Lab AMS useful for filament dry storage?

[ebastler]

I am thinking about upgrading my oldish Anycubic i3 bed slinger for Christmas, with an enclosed CoreXY machine. Now that Prusa has announced their Core One, I am dithering between that (ready to wait until the kit comes out in April) or a Bambu Lab P1S. In general terms, I like the modular/upgradable/long-lasting philosophy of Prusa; I also like the attractive prices of Bambu Lab.

One technical feature that I find tempting in the Bambu Lab unit is the optional, fully enclosed AMS multi-filament unit. I don't see myself doing multicolor prints often, and am aware of the major filament waste on every switch-over. But am hoping that this would provide me with a convenient way to keep my most commonly used filaments dry while having them ready for printing. (The printer is in the basement, i.e. not a particularly dry-air environment.)

In your experience, how useful is the Bambu AMS in that respect? I guess that mainly depends on how well-sealed the unit is -- and on the environmental humidity of course. How often do you need to replace the desiccant to keep the humidity inside the AMS low? Do you happen to know the typical humidity of the room you keep the printer in? Many thanks for sharing your experience!

[wraper]

It's sealed and works well for keeping filament dry. I also put additional silica gel bags in gaps between the feeders to keep it dry for longer.

I don't see myself doing multicolor prints often

I don't either but it's very convenient to just select right filament in the app and not bother with filament change and it getting wet.

Do you happen to know the typical humidity of the room you keep the printer in?

I have quite high humidity here, with some additional silica gel bags I think it's good for more than 6 months (moisture indicator card not going above 10%).

[InvisibleMan]

I use the AMS on my X1C with it set up so that it always has my most useful 4 rolls of filament in it. This makes it very convenient for quickly setting up ready for a print even if it is only using one colour.

I track the humidity with a SensorPush sensor and have found that the level rises naturally by about 1% per week unless you are actively printing (in which case it will rise a little quicker as the natural feed and retraction of filament tends to result in a little air exchange with the ambient air. I too have installed extra silicone bead containers in the AMS and generally change them about once every 2 months or so. This keeps the humidity in the AMS between about 9% (when fresh silicone beads are installed) and I recharge the beads when the humidity gets above about 20%. The house humidity here in the UK is around 45% to 60% normally.

[MSP_TechLab]

I also didn't think about multicolor printing and ignored AMS for while. But then I found a few cool features which pushed me to by it:
1. It keeps filament dry as mentioned above and allows you remotely select necessary spool, which is very handy if you use different materials (for me it is PLA and ABS).
2. Despite on fact I'm yet not in multicolor printing, I found that two color printing is very useful in electronics hobby. Now I can print all text/labels etc directly on enclosure which makes them very easy to read and ready to use after printing. It is not a good option for text on vertical walls (because of lot of filament changes), but horizontal - cheap and quick.
3. You can use filament with different type of material (or special filament) to print supports, in this case now you can print objects with horizontal overhangs and then easily remove supports.
Note: only interface layer can be print with different filament, so it doesn't take to much time for filament change.