AMS purge waste calculator
Every AMS filament change flushes the old color out of the nozzle — straight into the waste chute. Enter the change count from your Bambu Studio preview and see what the purge costs in grams and euros. Watching your spool drain? Check the spool remaining calculator; pricing the whole print, use the filament cost calculator.
€0.00
purge waste per print
| Waste volume | 0 mm³ |
| Waste weight | 0 g |
| Share of a 100 g print | 0% |
| Purge overhead vs your part | — |
| Part + purge material cost | — |
| Purge cost per month | €0.00 |
| Purge cost per year | €0.00 |
| Tuning flush to 60% saves | €0.00 per year |
Estimate only — actual flush volumes depend on the color pair and your slicer's flushing-volume matrix. Copy the exact change count from the Bambu Studio preview, or paste its total flush volume into the optional slicer field, for a precise figure.
How it works
Total waste is changes × flush volume + prime tower volume. Bambu Studio's default flushing volumes for PLA→PLA run roughly 100–160 mm³ per change depending on the from/to colors (light→dark flushes less, dark→light more) — hence the 140 mm³ default above, adjustable with the slider up to the 800 mm³ multiplier cap. This is not a niche complaint: BambuStudio issue #4526 aggregates more than seven Reddit threads of AMS users reporting purge ("poop") waste that outweighs the printed part, and Bambu's own flushing documentation explains the per-color-pair matrix these defaults come from. Weight converts through material density (1000 mm³ = 1 cm³) and prices at your per-kg filament cost — the same per-print economics as the filament cost calculator. To see what the waste does to the spool you're printing from, weigh it with the spool remaining calculator.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the AMS waste so much filament?
Every color change has to flush the old color out of the melt zone before the new one prints cleanly, and that flushed plastic goes to the waste chute. With dozens of changes in a multicolor print it adds up fast.
How much filament does one color change waste?
Bambu Studio’s default flushing volumes for PLA run roughly 100–160 mm³ per change depending on the color pair — light to dark flushes less, dark to light more. Copy the exact numbers from the slicer’s flushing matrix for precision.
How can I reduce purge waste?
Lower the flushing volumes in Bambu Studio’s filament matrix, purge into infill or a sacrificial object, and order colors to avoid dark-to-light changes. The slider above shows what each saved mm³ is worth.
Does the prime tower count as purge waste?
If you enable one, yes — its full volume is extra material on top of the flush. Tick the prime tower option to include it in the grams and cost.
Why is my purge total lower here than on other calculators?
We compute the color-change flush and the prime tower separately, so each is counted exactly once. Tools that lump both into a single per-swap gram figure double-count the flush and can overstate waste 5–10×.