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Reply To: 3D printing and the enviroment #teamseas

November 4, 2021 at 5:23 pm #1691295

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4936xp

How much wear there will be on a 3D printer depends on what your requirements are. If you want to print out a few 10mm KoW/Warmaster armies a few hours will be enough to get you months for of stuff. If you want to print out a Battlefleet Gothic fleet its going to take you a lot longer.

In the first month of having my Mars I got through 98 hours of printing as I was gaining experience and fine-tuning a few designs. In the second month I pretty much did nothing as I was away for work a lot. In the third month with everything set up as I want it I will easily get through another 100+ hours.

I don’t see that as a problem and have factored in wear and tear. That coupled with other consumables like resin, gloves, clearer, the packaging etc. doesn’t make the process particularly green. And most printers used for private purposes are at the end of a long supply chain from China. As I said somebody with the right knowledge could work out exactly the footprints are.

Printers are getting faster and these later generation ones are using components better suited to the task so have more longevity it them too.