3D printing costs

One of the first big questions that comes up when starting in 3D printing is; How much does it cost to make a piece in 3D? Well, let's try to explain the main costs that must be attributed to the printing of a piece to calculate its actual cost of impaction.

The first cost that comes to mind is always the cost of filament, which can be defined knowing the grams of material used. This can be defined either by calculating the meters of filament consumed taking into account the density of the filament (projected by the software of generation of 3D printing files), or weighing the part with all the supports and others when removing it from the base of the 3D printer.

The other great cost that must be attributed to the pieces is the amortization of the 3D printer since it would have to recover the cost of the 3D printer in a term inferior to the expected life of the 3D printer. It could be amortized by fixed time or by hours of use. A reasonable time period for a printer with an average usage (5 h/day) would be two to three years. Also within this time it is possible that technologically the equipment is slightly outdated. In addition, you should consider the repayments that for an average use of the 3D printer during the amortization period previously considered can be considered as a general rule that it will be 10 % of the price of the 3D printer. Therefore the €/hour of the amortization of the 3D printer must be withdrawn and thus be passed on to the final piece. The printing time of a part in addition to the actual volume of the part depends on the print resolution chosen as well as the internal filling of the part itself. In both cases it is directly proportional.

Another major cost that most 3D printing users ignore is the cost of non-quality or also called cost of failed printouts. Either because it appears during the printing warping effect, cracking effect, or because the current goes and you don´t have a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply), or even because you had badly designed the piece. When it is presupposed it is not known if there will be non-quality costs, but it should always be considered to cover possible failures.

Other costs to consider are the preparation and post-processing. Here, for example, lacquers (AVG = 0.5 cm3/print) or antiwarping films, lubricants, finishing products, as well as the time of post-processing and supervision (removing substrates, sanding, polishing, painting, etc.) are introduced.

The older the consumption of electricity in 3D printers is about 225 W (0.225 KW) and the average cost of electricity in Spain is currently 0.12 €/KW. On the other hand are the software costs although there are basic programs of the open source environment that allows to print in 3D without any cost. This point already depends on each user depending on the software used.

All these costs are attributable to 100 % of the pieces made in 3D printing by any type of user. While there are more costs that can be imputed or not. This is the case of operating costs such as the time of design of the piece, software licenses, equipment, transportation of parts, rental of spaces, collection procedures, salaries and contributions, etc. All these costs are normally only considered when printing 3D parts are for profit.

Therefore, it´s important when you want to calculate the actual cost of a piece printed in 3D to take into account all hidden costs since otherwise you may be assuming a manufacturing cost lower than the real and therefore in the case of profit You will be losing money and in the case of not having them you will be transmitting a value inferior to the real one.