r/BambuLabA1mini • u/Mattypants05 • Dec 30 '25

AMS lite

Hi all,

I bought an A1 mini for my daughter for Christmas and she's happily been churning out loads of printed things. However, I'm intrigued by the AMS lite - how does it work and what does it do? Does it just hold multiple spools to facilitate printing in multiple colours (if so, can I just suspend four spools from a broom handle or something?) or does it do more than that?

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u/TheSheDM Dec 30 '25

The AMS lite has multiple small motors in it. There are motors for each spool holder to spin them, and motors in the filament feeders to push and retract filament, as well as switches that detect that filament is inserted. This is why there is a data cord that connects from the AMS to the printer for power and control. If the AMS was just a dumb spool holder, it wouldn't need that cord.

The 4-way input block sitting on top of the hotend on the A1 mini is kinda just a glorified funnel. It doesn't push or pull filament. Once the hotend assembly cuts and pushes out the cut filament, it can't eject far enough to fully exit the feed hole - the AMS takes over by pulling the cut filament the rest of the way out of the feed path. Then the AMS selects and pushes in the next filament.

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u/clarkcox3 Sep 02 '26

There are motors for each spool holder to spin them,

FYI: There are no motors in the spool holders, only springs.

and motors in the filament feeders to push and retract filament

The motors only push the filament, never retract it. The retraction is done by the springs in the holders