What does it cost to 3D print something?

[spankytaz 1944xp 1]

OK, so this is more of a question about answering the above question.

I’ve written a couple of ‘articles’ (for want of a better word) regarding what you can physically print out of a 1kg spool of PLA and roughly how much does a typical piece of scatter scenery ‘cost’ to produce. My question is twofold:

• Is this something anyone actually wants to know?
• Is this something that belongs here in the forums or should I turn it into a project?

The idea was to give a physical demonstration (i.e., this stuff laid out on the tabletop came from a single spool) along with the methodology of how you work the costings out for materials and power usage, etc. so that folks can do the same at home. It also covers what extras you should consider if you’re going to charge people to print things for them so that you don’t at least wind up out of pocket.

Thoughts?

[limburger 21708xp 0]

I’d say this is exactly the kind of info that is missing from articles telling us about the ‘joys of 3D printing’
What are the running costs like ?
Power consumption is usually easy to calculate (device uses X watt / hour, print costs Y hours to complete … )
The material costs are tricky to predict and understand.
How much does a bottle of resin print ?
How much does a spool of material print ?
Even a single ‘basic banana man’ reference would help a lot and give us something like ‘one spool prints X amount of banana men at the ‘standard’ settings.

[danlee 22443xp 1]

I use a resin printer and have tracked all expenditure on it (printer, replacement parts, ultrasonic bath, IPA, etc) and I’ve also kept track of the resin I’ve used. The current cost comes in at 11p per gram. The only thing I haven’t accounted for is electricity. The more successful prints I can get without a system breakdown the better the cost will get. In theory the best I can get is about 4p per gram, which is the cost of resin.

[collins 16358xp 1]

You’ve got to take account of whether it is you doing it as a hobby for yourself or whether you plan to make money like a business.

The thing that everyone above is forgetting is to account for failure rate and your own time.

Everyone always forgets that time costs money and its before you even talk about profit margins.

The other hidden costs (that are mentioned above) are the consumables like resin/PLA, IPA, kitchen roll, gloves, masks, goggles, power and then finally any and all tools /spare parts that are needed should it break. If it’s for a business, you’ll need to pay licensing costs for STLs, tax, pension, tax, tax again and all the other business related expenses (maybe an accountant etc).

That I suppose is why 3D printing is expensive to get someone to do it for you and doing it yourself is cheap (if you can afford the 300-800 for reasonable machines).

[bloodmoonorcParticipant 1763xp 0]

As Collins states, the biggest cost that is rarely accounted for is the hourly/day rate of the user processing the 3d prints. That is by far the greatest cost to a business.

[spankytaz 1944xp 1]

OK so I’ve taken the plunge and created my first public project to (a) cover the first part of this – How much can you typically print from a single 1kg spool of PLA?, and (b) pop my project cherry and get to grips with the site mechanics.

Turns out the project system isn’t as bad as I had feared, although thanks to a Cloudflare error while uploading a chunk of images, I’m sure glad I had already written everything in Word and saved the pictures!

Here’s the link to the project for those interested: https://www.beastsofwar.com/project-entry/1662471/

Hopefully, someone may find it interesting. I’ve already written the second article (What is the actual cost of a 3D print?) and done my initial screen grabs. However, it’s just gone 5 am here in the UK so I’m calling it until later today when I’ll sort out the photos and create the second project.

[blinky465 17028xp 0]

I’ve had an Anycubic Photon for over 18 months and I still couldn’t tell you how much it costs to print a mini! It’s about £30-£50 a month in Patreon costs though 😉

(I’ve found that collecting digital minis isn’t much cheaper than plastic and resin – though the “pile of shame” exists only in your head and a 2.5″ SSD with 500Gb capacity takes up almost no space at all!)

[spankytaz 1944xp 0]

Righty-ho, that’s the second project done: What’s the cost of a 3D print? (https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/1662724/)

@blinky465 I would say you have more self-control than me but instead, I’m going to claim that the reason I’m juggling the last few gigs on my 4TB NAS is that I’ve had my printers longer. I’m not an addict. Honest.

Being a licensed printer for a lot of these Kickstarters and Patreons doesn’t help either.

[seldon9 12954xp 0]

Good idea, buttons pressed 🙂

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