Average consumable consumption?

[lucamaz 0]

Hi all Ultimaker friends,

I'm a new user and I'm waiting for my new Ultimaker arriving. In the meantime I have a curiosity about the average consumption of consumables.

I've calculated that in a "3mm 0.75kg reel" (bought at Ultimaker Shop) there are about 728 cm3 of material.

Anyone of you has ever measured how many cm3 per second Ultimaker dispenses, based on a typical mid-quality Ultimaker/Netfabb setting?

I'd like to answer to this real question: how long does a reel last?

Should be made different measurements, for ABS and for PLA, because I know that PLA is more "fast" due to its lower viscosity at the same temperature of ABS. Please, can you confirm that?

Doing those measurements we can have an average time duration of a kg of ABS/PLA (surely depending on how much we print), so we'll have the confirmation about the convenience of Ultimaker versus its market competitors!

Please, anyone has those measurements done or could do it?

Thanks in advance to anyone who read this post and can help me finding an answer.

I wish you a nice time with your Ultimaker!

Regards

Luca Mazzotti

[Daid 306]

I'm still printing with my first 2.3kg, about half way trough it. But Joris can print multiple kg a day.

As the prints can be hollow, and it depends on what you print to see how much filament you use. So what are you planning to print, and how often?

[mm_build 1]

2.3 KG lasts me about 3-4 months. Have not done any additional calculations

[lucamaz 0]

You're right about the "what & how often" but I think I can simplify my question in these terms: ABS has the same volume (cm3) both cold and fused? And what about PLA? If so then I can forecast how long a reel lasts by considering the average volume of Customer objects to print.

One last question: what's the percentage of volume lack, concerning the infill material? We can say about 80% of the fully filled volume or what? I imagine there are settings also about that.

Sorry for my weird questions but my Customers/Prospects will ask me those info to calculate the yearly costs of consumables, and I'm tring to figure it out.

Thanks for your support and for your precious answers.

Luca

[Daid 306]

80% would be a high estimate, but you are better off estimating high then low. It really depends on the object. You give in a fill percentage, which is used to fill the object inside (default is something like 15% fill) but because of the top and bottom layers, and any layers put in as support this isn't accurate for usage.

You could take Skeinforge, configure it right for the Ultimaker (or take my preconfigured Skeinforge_PyPy) and slice a few models, it will tell you how much filament it will use.

[lucamaz 0]

I'll follow your suggestion and I'll make some test slicing and measuring the filament used.

Thanks!