Power consumption of MK3 over time "2H"
Hello,
I know there is a thread about the actual power consumption which can be used to buy the correct UPS, but my question is actually regarding the power cost, did anyone managed to measure the electricity cost of 2 hours print for the 3D benchy for example from the SDcard ?
Nozzle should be around 210 degrees
Bed should be around 60 degrees
Print time is around 2H
I tried to read online and find some more resources, but so far I am not doing a good job 🙂
Also I get confused when people write: 200W, is that average per hour ? or this is the wattage rate ?
Regards,
Sherif
Re: Power consumption of MK3 over time "2H"
There is a thread discussing this (among other cost factors):
Print cost calculator
That's "MISTER Old Fart" to you!
Re: Power consumption of MK3 over time "2H"
I measured mine with a Kill-A-Watt power meter. The highest measurement is slightly under 300W at powerup when both the bed and extruder heaters are on. The lowest reading appears to be around 30W for the first layer before the fans start up with short spikes to 80W when a heater turns on. Normal operation is typically between 60W and 100W, with spikes as high as 150W for the heaters. I have never noticed a spike above 150W during normal operation, but that doesn't mean that they never occur. It may be possible that the OS only runs one heater at a time when the steppers are on.
The average power usage is probably between 80W and 100W.
These numbers are with a stock MK3 in the US with 120W power. They were measured with PLA in an air conditioned room around 78F or 24C.
Steve
Re: Power consumption of MK3 over time "2H"
Sherif,
It is both. If a power supply has a load of 200watts, and it runs at that load for one hour, it will consume 200 watt hours of electricity, two hours = 400 watt hours, etc.
However, as Steve said, the "load" is not constant so you have to aggregate the consumption. The easiest way to do this is to break down the loads into minutes. 200 watts for 10 minutes (200*10) + 80 watts for 40 minutes (80*40) + 60 watts for 10 minutes (60*10) for example. Add up all the times totals and divide by 60. Above example 4000 + 3200 + 600 = 7800 / 60 = 130 watt hours.
Dan
Re: Power consumption of MK3 over time "2H"
Oops, fuzzy math 😳
2000+3200+600=96.67 watt hours.
Dan
Re: Power consumption of MK3 over time "2H"
Here is a bit more information:
I just finished a 3 hour print that used slightly less than 0.3 kw-hours of electricity. Our electricity is somewhere around US$0.30 per kw-hour. This puts the electric usage at 3 cents per hour of printing. The 3 hour print used 9 cents of electricity.
I typically buy PLA at around US$15 per spool or 4.5 cents per meter (assuming 330 meters per kg). The 3 hour print used 5.6 meters of filament with a cost of around 25 cents, nearly triple the electricity cost.
The power numbers might be slightly higher with other material that runs at higher temperatures. It is still a small number compared to the filament cost.
Steve
Re: Power consumption of MK3 over time "2H"
Thank you so much everyone, I did get one of those UK power monitoring and ran couple of 2H jobs and I found the following:
- While the printer is heating up the nozzle and the bed, It gets a bit above 300W around 330W for few seconds
- While printing it's average is 90W with some spikes up to 200W and 300W at some points
- The total consumption for 2H job was around 260W
Thanks again everyone for the responds, it is really helpful !! I was a bit worried that the electricity bill will be very high, but it seems not.
Sherif
Re: Power consumption of MK3 over time "2H"
UK should be more like 20p/KwH, so about 5p/hr