[Bambu Lab AMS1] Add filament drying function

To the mods, I'm hoping for more of a discussion/general advice than specific buying help so I opted for a post rather than the megathread. Apologies for the essay, but I needed a bit of a rant. I've gone from so excited to join the world of 3D printing to pulling my hair out. All prices mentioned are the current offering to me with sales n such included - in euro (€). So I've been interested in 3D printing for a while and recently started researching what I could get as my first printer, and the search is driving me mad. The main two companies I knew of coming into this were Prusa and Bambu. I had heard a little about the relatively recent Bambu shenanigans so I was determined to understand more of what they were doing before really considering them as an option. So I started watching some general videos and some reviews and learned more about 3D printers, about their general workings (I'm still very new), as well as the Bambu controversy (altho I still don't fully understand the scale of the issue). I knew Prusa were a fan favourite for delivering quality printers with an excellent open-source ethos, I just wasn't prepared for the price. For the cheapest CoreXY machine I would be shelling out €1050 for the DIY Core One. As I said I'm new to this space but am confident that with some decent instructions I could assemble it, however €1050 is more than I really want to spend. And watching some reviews, the Core One doesn't seem to be fully up to the Prusa standard, with one reviewer really highlighting the vertical artifact problems it has. I like to support open-source when I can, and am generally happy to pay a premium if I know it's going to a decent company supplying a quality product, but I am just one man heavily limited by his financial situation, and dropping over a grand on the entry to this hobby is more than I can manage, despite my desire to support Prusa's ethos and working conditions for their employees. And €720 for the MK4S diy kit, if I'm to settle for a bed-slinger I'd rather bite the bullet on a Bambu A1. Save my money for the AMS lite or a future coreXY. Looking at Bambu next, the A1 is obviously a tempting choice at just €320 currently. Many reviews touted it's excellent print quality for such a cheap machine, and how quiet it is during prints. But I'd rather invest a bit more in a reliable coreXY machine upfront, as I have no plans (nor space) to be starting a collection/print farm any time soon. The P1P and P1S are the next contenders. While I'd love to spend just €400 on the reliable P1P, the lure of the P1S enclosure for 500 is too tempting. It would facilitate quieter prints, a serious concern of mine as the printer will be in my bedroom, as well as the possibility for more complicated materials. The dated screen is a concern, as well as the low quality camera, but the app seems well developed enough to mostly ignore the screen, and the camera ultimately isn't a major problem. While many Bambu and non-Bambu reviews have praised the ease-of-use and quality of the AMS system, and while I would love to have multi-colour printing, I find the pricing strategy for the combo vs separate purchases wholey abhorrent. The P1S + AMS combo is €700 (saving €110), and the AMS 2 combo is €820 (saving €30). One video commented on what an insane markup the AMS systems must have as the actual electronics/components needed to make such a device can be had relatively cheaply. I also can't ignore the huge poop waste the AMS's seem to generate. And the AMS1 not having a drying function I think is a bit of a piss take and Bambu know it, hence why it's combo is barely reduced. I would think one of the draws of having a fully enclosed, air-tight filament container would be its ability to keep said filament dry, but solely relying on silica gel in the AMS1 is ridiculous given the price of the product. The X1C is out of my price range but is interesting to compare to the Prusa Core One diy as both can be had for €1050. Next, I noticed many people on this sub recommending the Elegoo Centauri Carbon. A 256mm^(3), coreXY printer, aluminium body (over P1S plastic), decent touch interface, hardened steel nozel (not a necessity, nice to have), all for just €330 and shipping on Sep 5th. Also with a promised multi-colour system, and while I don't like to purchase on the basis of promised specs, saving €170 compared to a base P1S for a seemingly comparable printer is hard to argue with. So I began my research, watching and reading absolutely every review I could get my hands on. Every channel from a couple hundred subs to a couple mil got a visit. The camera light issue, since been fixed, the ptfe tube pathing, been improved and easy to further improve, the flexing side panel for the spool holder, apparently fixed by a thicker panel. Multiple strange software bugs in the first few months, all fixed. Broken components, while shipping for new parts takes a long time from China, Elegoo support seems to be responsive and helpful. Seems like it can be used with Orca slicer with full functionality instead of Elegoo's branch (I obv haven't used a slicer yet personnally but have learned a little about Orca generally). Many reviewers with 100s of hours logged being pleasantly surprised by the quality and realiability of the printer, and for the wide range of materials it advertises. But then I learn of the firmware shitshow. Where Elegoo are using a modified version of Klipper, but actively denying it, refusing to release the firmware, thus breaching the rules of the copyright and preventing the community from implementing fixes for the printer. I briefly looked into the Flashforge Adventurer 5M Pro. For €480 it's not a bad offering, and its fancy air circulation/filtration system seems very handy (see FauxHammer review), but its smaller build size, non-capacitive touchscreen, apparent lies about 50db printing, and most importantly its fairly locked down approach to software, has put it out of consideration. Videos n such have said that there are so many options that it's never been a better time to get into 3D printing, but as far as I can tell there's 3 categories and only 1 is remotely affordable. There's super good but super diy offerings like Voron. There's really good, really \*trustworthy\*, but ultimately really expensive offerings like Prusa. Lastly, there's affordable right up to flagship, mixed quality, mixed reliable, offerings from pretty solid companies that just have some really not solid business practices like Bambu, Elegoo, Flashforge etc. So that's my summary. I'm at a loss. I'd probably be quite happy with a P1S, or even a Centauri Carbon, but I don't like the practices and the attitudes towards customers of their respective companies and I don't want to risk limiting my future self by buying into a locked down system now. I know that both Bambu and Elegoo anyway both have really positive reviews for their customer service, but I can't help but feel like that's just to try and appease people before they realise the real underlying problems. Right this minute I mainly want to get into the hobby of printing things more so than the hobby of 3D printing, but I don't know what I'll find when I actually start nor how deep I may want to go, so I worry about the limiting factors of all of the options in my price range. If you've read this far, thanks for taking the time to indulge my rant. If you've any advice, I'd gladly accept