electricity usage  

Re: electricity usage

Hi there

The PSU can provide about 250 Watts of power at 12 Volts maximum.

Power usage however depends on what and how you are printing and the inefficiencies within the PSU.

The heated bed is the primary power consumer, so if you are printing PLA without the heated bed, the power consumption will be around a 50 Watt maximum.

The only way to really find out the consumption is to use an averaging power meter, but as a general rule, Josef has stated that the maximum when printing ABS is about 200 Watts.

Peter

Re: electricity usage

Thank you PJR.

I'll get an averaging meter for the tool kit eventually. I don't have the funds for it right now though.

Except for adjusting the feed rate a little, I pretty much use this at factory settings. PLA only at 210c and 50 for heatbed.
I just need some ballpark wattage around the factory setting. It doesn't need to be exact.

I'm running my printer on 110v.

I don't understand what you mean by 12 volts maximum. Is this different than 110v that I assumed is running through there full time?

Re: electricity usage

The PSU supplies a maximum of 250 Watts at 12 Volts. The actual current consumption will vary between 50 and 200 Watts, depending on what and how you are printing and the environment in which the printer is being used.

Then there is the inefficiency of the PSU to take into account, so very approximately, the power used will possibly be in the range 60 to 240 Watts.

There is no way I can be more accurate than this, sorry.

There are other factors to take into account when costing, but I am sure you are aware of those. For electricity usage, I would probably use a costing of around 0.15kWH - EU Average cost of US$0.03, a rather insignificant amount when compared to design and filament cost, depreciation, etc.

Peter

Re: electricity usage

Thank you, Peter. That helps.

Super cheap!

Re: electricity usage

Would $0.03 be per hour? Because that seems ridiculously cheap. Sorry, not very good with his sort of stuff.
Thanks

Re: electricity usage

The printing, environment and the efficiency doesn't really matter, the heatbed it the most wasting component.

It's a big difference if you printing PLA with 55° or ABS with 90° heatbed temperature !

Thomas

Re: electricity usage

In a warmer environment the heater for the bed will run at a lower duty cycle (it will be off more).

In a colder environment the heater for the bed will run at a higher duty cycle (it will be on more).

But from a cost perspective, the TIME spent in design, setup (including calibration and filament change) and printing and the filament costs (don't forget some percentage of failed prints) should really dominate the overall cost of a print. Other consumables should also be factored in (at least in a rough way): PEI sheets, Nozzles, belt wear, etc. With repair time for each.