Automatic spool creation when syncing materials

When SimplyPrint syncs the spools loaded in a multi-material system, it can sometimes add a brand-new spool to your inventory for you, or assign one you already own to the slot it is sitting in - all automatically. Whether it can do this depends entirely on what your hardware reports. This article explains exactly when automatic spool creation and assignment work for the Bambu Lab AMS, the Anycubic ACE / ACE Pro, and the Creality CFS, and why the differences exist.

In this guide

• What auto-create and auto-assign mean
• Turning it on
• Bambu Lab AMS: full support
• Anycubic ACE and ACE Pro: not possible
• Creality CFS: only for tags written through SimplyPrint
• ELEGOO Canvas and QIDI Box: not yet integrated
• Why these differences exist
• Related articles

What auto-create and auto-assign mean

There are two separate things SimplyPrint can do during a material sync:

• Auto-create - the spool loaded in a slot is one SimplyPrint has never seen before, but the printer reports enough to identify it (brand, material, color, and a unique tag ID). SimplyPrint adds it to your filament inventory automatically, using data from the Open Filament Database, and assigns it to that slot.
• Auto-assign - the spool is one you already have in your inventory. The printer reports a unique tag ID, SimplyPrint recognizes it as an existing spool, and assigns that spool to the slot it is now in.

Both only work when the printer reports a unique spool ID - typically an NFC / RFID tag ID baked into the spool. Without that ID, SimplyPrint can still read the material type and color and keep them in sync, but it has no way to tell one physical spool of "black PLA" apart from another, so it will not create or assign on its own.

Turning it on

Auto-create and auto-assign are controlled per account under Settings, in the printer settings area ("Printer material syncing"). They are only shown when you sync from the printer (or use 2-way sync):

• Auto-create spools when syncing materials if possible
• Auto-assign spools to printers when syncing materials if possible

When these are off, syncing still updates the material type and color of the loaded spools - it just will not add or assign inventory spools for you.

Bambu Lab AMS: full support

Bambu Lab spools with the official RFID tag report a unique tag ID to the printer, and the AMS passes that ID through to SimplyPrint. So both behaviors work:

• Load a tagged spool SimplyPrint has not seen, and (with auto-create on) it is added to your inventory and assigned to that AMS slot.
• Load a tagged spool you already own, and (with auto-assign on) it is recognized and assigned to whatever slot it is in.

This is the smoothest case: nothing to write, nothing to set up beyond turning the options on. It relies on the spool carrying a Bambu Lab RFID tag - a plain, untagged spool in the AMS has no ID to report, so it is synced as material and color only.

Anycubic ACE and ACE Pro: not possible

The Anycubic ACE and ACE Pro sync their material type and color to SimplyPrint, and the loaded slots are tracked normally. But the ACE does not report a unique tag ID for the loaded spool, so SimplyPrint has no way to tell two otherwise-identical spools apart.

Because of that, auto-create and auto-assign cannot run for the ACE / ACE Pro. This is a limitation of what the hardware sends, not something SimplyPrint chooses to block - there is currently no way for us to get a per-spool ID from an ACE, not even from a tag SimplyPrint wrote. You can still manage these spools fully by hand in the filament manager, and material and color stay in sync.

Creality CFS: only for tags written through SimplyPrint

The Creality CFS is a middle case. It syncs material and color like the ACE, and by default it does not send a tag serial that SimplyPrint can use - so out of the box, it behaves like the ACE: material and color sync, but no auto-create or auto-assign.

There is one important exception. If you write the CFS / NFC tag through SimplyPrint, SimplyPrint embeds its own spool ID into the tag. We are not reading the tag's factory serial - we are reading the ID we put there ourselves. When you then load that spool into the CFS, SimplyPrint recognizes its own embedded ID, finds the matching spool in your inventory, and can auto-create or auto-assign it.

So for the Creality CFS:

To write CFS tags, see the Creality material standard article.

ELEGOO Canvas and QIDI Box: not yet integrated

The ELEGOO Canvas - ELEGOO's four-spool module for the Centauri Carbon - and the QIDI Box are supported in SimplyPrint today as RFID tag formats: you can scan a spool to identify it and add it to your inventory, and write tags for any brand. A full multi-material integration that reads their loaded slots into SimplyPrint is not available yet, so there is no automatic sync, auto-create or auto-assign from these systems at the moment.

ELEGOO Canvas mapping is planned; sync and auto-create / auto-assign for both the Canvas and the QIDI Box are not yet confirmed. To add an ELEGOO or QIDI spool now, scan its tag - see the ELEGOO material standard and the QIDI material standard.

Why these differences exist

The single deciding factor is whether SimplyPrint receives a unique per-spool ID when a spool is loaded:

None of this changes how mapping works for the integrated systems - you can still map any of them for a multi-color print. It only affects whether SimplyPrint can manage your inventory hands-free during a sync.

Related articles

• Multi-material printing in SimplyPrint: mapping and syncing your AMS, ACE or CFS
• The filament manager: track, organize and manage your filament inventory
• All about NFC / RFID for filament spools
• The Creality material standard: NFC / RFID for the Creality CFS
• The ELEGOO material standard: NFC / RFID for the ELEGOO Canvas

Updated on: 26/06/2026