New user trying to get 3D Chameleon working on a P1P

I just received my MK4 version of the 3DC to put on my P1P, and I have to say, this process is the most frustrating thing I've dealt with in a long time. I printed the mount plate and switch mount while I watched a bunch of long, but ultimately not very helpful videos of how to set it up. I tried bench testing it while the parts were printing, as per the getting started video on the 3DC Youtube channel, and the very first problem is that when I hold the switch for 10 pulses there is no feedback to tell me what mode it is in, so I don't know if that is a thing on the MK4, or mine is defective. I still don't know so I assume it's just not a thing anymore? Moving on, I spent literally hours trying to get the different filaments to load and unload in each slot. What I didn't realize, mostly because I just assumed that the filament had to unload out of the 3DC completely, was that I was doing it wrong.

Overnight I figured out that I'm mostly a dummy, but partly because the instructions are so vague, and the videos don't show any useful footage of WHAT IS ACTUALLY SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! I appreciate the work on making the videos, but please, have some closeup/overhead footage of what the extruder looks like while you are loading it, and how the plate mounts, and where to mount it, and how the switch is supposed to mount, with closeups. I finally got it loaded with filament, then I removed everything, and started actually mounting it on my printer, along with a dry box that I built.

I found the switch mount to be a bit flimsy so I put in some threaded inserts for the screws, and even though it was screwed with two screws from the back of the printer it tilted down toward the front of the printer and would scrape the top of the print head. I didn't like that so a quick fix was to drive a screw into the top of the switch mount so that it caught the edge of the printer frame and pulled the switch tight. This worked perfectly to align the switch, so I moved on to mounting the extruders and control box to the plate. That was a whole other journey, but I won't go into that, it's mounted on the printer well enough.

Now that I have everything mounted, tubes run to the 3DC and then to the splitter/printer, I can start loading filament. Hah! I followed the instructions and homed the extruders on the 3DC, and could not get any filament to pass through. I had to manually slide the plates back and forth in various ways to eventually get 3 of the filaments loaded. It took me quite literally 20 minutes to get the last one loaded. I then powered it all up and by manually triggering the switch I could get it to move all 4 of the filaments, although it struggled on number 4. I traced it down to the bowden tube I ran from the box to port 4, for whatever reason it would bind quite a bit. I cut a new piece and that seemed to work. Now I have all 4 filaments loaded and ready to try some actual printing. I am about 8 hours of work into it at this point.

I followed the link from this site to the printables page that supposedly has the G code that I need, but there is only print files, and nothing for the P1P, only the X1. I tried one of the files and it seems to load the config, but as I said, for an X1C. I didn't like the actual print design so I found a simpler multi-colour print, loaded it up and sent it to the printer (I'm using OrcaSlicer nightly, for reference). I get a warning that the printer is not compatible with the config, but I soldier on, since there is no other instructions to follow, and the site says the config is for X1C and P1P/S. The printer goes through it's initialization, but it is quite different from the normal one, I assume it is the X1C routine. It tries to load filament, but all it does is unload what was there and not load anything. The print head held the switch for quite a long time, I'm assuming to feed the filament, but the controller must have been in a different state, because it was just vibrating. Eventually the printer said it was out of filament, and with a bunch of manual switch manipulation I was able to get filament 1 loaded and continued the print. It printed the first bunch of layers in the first filament colour, which was fine, but when it got to the first colour change (I wasn't actually at the printer at the time) it looks like all it did was unload all of the filaments (I can see they are all backed up the tube towards the dry box) but it never actually loaded anything. I cancelled the print, and here I am.

What I need to know:

- proper startup procedure of the 3DC from power on

- does it reset to a basic state at power on, or does it keep it's previous state? If the former, great, if the latter, how can I reset to a basic state?

- what steps or state should it be in before starting a print? should there be filament loaded to the print head, or not? should a particular filament be selected, or not?

- the correct gcode for a P1* printer. I've found this link https://www.printables.com/model/424814-p1p-mount-and-gcodes-for-3d-chameleon/files that claims to have them, and I have downloaded them, but I don't know if they are correct. Bill has stated in multiple threads that he has working code for Bambu printers, but the only links I've found are at least a year old, if not more, and from what I understand the MK4 is pretty new, so are the codes the same? I assume not, since the switch presses that I experienced don't match what Bill shows in the video, and the printer doesn't actually control the 3DC properly with the code that I got from the 'official' link.

- with the correct code, how to actually update the code in Bambu Studio/Orcaslicer? I'm not a newbie to technology, far from it, but there are a lot of moving pieces here that are not immediately obvious. For example, from the site I linked above I have filament change code, start code and end code. Do I replace the complete contents of those sections with code from above, or should it be added?

Based on some of the threads I see, I don't think I'm the only one with a problem, and in the comments of some of the Youtube videos I see lots of people who just gave up because they couldn't get it to work, and didn't get support. I don't want to do that, I feel like this shouldn't be so hard, but the lack of information is so frustrating, and the information that is there is old, so I don't know if I can trust it. I had plans of buying multiple 3DC's, but if I can't get one working at all, then there is no point to buying more. I feel like the Enraged Rabbit might have been a better choice, even though that looks like a nightmare, at least it is cheaper.

With the growing popularity of the Bambu Labs printers (even though I get purists think they are toys, I have 2 Ender 3's, I just want to print!) I feel like it is a missed opportunity to leave us out in the cold with no specific instructions when you could be grabbing a portion of AMS sales, if only it was a straight forward setup and more people knew about it. I would be willing to build that documentation, but at this point I can't because it doesn't work.

That is a lot of text, and I don't blame anyone for not reading it, but I really like the idea of the product, just not the execution. I'm willing to help, but I need help myself.