Month: May 2018

How much power does 3D printing take? Well, let me tell you.

I’ve seen a lot of posts of people who are looking to understand how much power does a 3D printer consume when operating…but no real answers, just guesses. So, I hooked up my printer though my KillAWatt and logged the power usage.Printer: Creality CR-10sFilament: Zyltech PLASome base numbers first:Just after turning it on, just sitting there idling: 7wThe drives are only turned on for the motors when you move them, so here’s each axis’ individual drain:X 6wY 5wZ 8wSo if you turn it on and home the printer, it’ll be using 26w at idlePart cooling fan: ~1wNozzle heat: 52wBed heat: 201wWarmup, motors off: 270wPrinting with (seemingly) no heaters running: 60wPrinting with (some?) heaters on 243wI printed a one-hand bottle opener, which took 2h 37m to print. My bed temp was 60°C, nozzle was 200°C, room temp was 73°F/23°C. In that time, the printer consumed 0.38 kWh. That works out to 0.15 kWh per hour of runtime. My juice costs ~$0.07/kWh, so it cost me $0.03 in electricity to print it out, and $0.32 of filament to make it from, for a total of $0.35, excluding wear and tear on the machine.Hope this helps answer the question for those who are wondering. https://ift.tt/2sjWOnd