Reasonable hourly rate Um2+ ?

[PjotrDuMat 0]

Since I would like to start producing small 3D printed objects by FDM, what is a reasonable hourly rate for an Um2+ printing PLA effectively 12x7 (incl machine costs, replacements, power, excl material)?

 

Tnx, Rein

[yellowshark 153]

Lol how long is a piece of string! It depends on two major factors, firstly how much money do you want to make in a year and secondly what is your market place (i.e. what is the market tolerance on pricing and how much CAN you sell). I can only give our pricing model but you can adapt it. We do not try to compete in the world of 3D hubs and similar, far too cheap for us and also we do design and modelling, i.e. we never just get a 3D model and print it.

Printing cost:

Decide how much money you want your printer to make in a year. A

How many hours will you use your printer for in a year. B

Leave time for testing and maintenance

A/B gives you your hourly print rate

 

Work out your filament cost per metre

Cura tells you how much material you will use in metres, so you  can calculate your material cost per print

For simplicity we use the same rate for all PLA and PLA/PHA even though the cost to us will vary depending on supplier and or quantity. We have a different material cost for Nylon.

 

Finally you need to recover overheads. Get an annual total for those and then divide that by B above and that will give you your hourly overhead recovery rate. This may include things like electricity, depreciation of equipment etc.

 

And finally finally we also add a setup cost of 15 mins. i.e.  loading the filament, heating up the bed and extruder, cooling the printer down so we can remove the part from the bed.

 So the price you charge for an individual print is

               Model print time from Cura * hourly print rate

               + calculated material cost

               + Model print time from Cura * hourly overhead recovery

               + setup time * hourly print rate

Plus postage and packaging

 

Design cost:

We use a standard hourly rate for Solidworks designers in the UK. We charge a higher rate for the first 4 hours as there tends to be a lot of talking and thinking early on.

Also do not forget sometimes you will need to give some thought as to how best to orientate your model for printing and you may even want to do a prototype for yourself to decide which way (and indeed settings) work best. We nearly always do this thinking during design, which is why I include it here. Anyway, you may want to include this in your pricing.

              

[PjotrDuMat 0]

Tnx for that !

Now, I am only looking for the costs related to the printer if it is effectively printing 50% of all time available for, well three years.

Costs per part will of course include this rate, multiplied by the time the part is on the printer. Other cost wil be added, like material costs, design costs etc.

So, for me its currently only the hourly rate that matter.

 

I see these elements

1. Price of the machine minus remaining value after effective usage (E2k)
2. Period of effective usage, like 3 years (3 x 8.765hrs)
3. % effectively used time for printing, like 50% (pretty high for an Ultimaker I guess, but let's start with this; 3 x 8.765 x 50%=13.150hrs)
4. Reservartion for repais, incl sapare parts (E1.000?)
5. Power costs (I prefer to use an average value here and invclude it in the hourly rate, in stead of relating this to what is actually printed; it's easier calculating; E 0,50/hr?)
6. ...