5 Pounds of ABS
Nick Starno did some math here at the Botcave:
A very common question I hear is the cost of material, and how much a 5lb reel of plastic will actually make. Here is an interesting perspective of how to envision it. Based on our current MK5 setup (MK5 drive gear + MK5 hot end), and assuming a stock 0.5mm nozzle, the DC motor running at 2RPM with a 3mm filament, and specific weight of ABS being 0.00104 g/mm^3]:
- It takes almost exactly 2min to extrude 1 gram of ABS.
453grams/pound means- it takes over 15 hours of continuous extrusion to go through 1 lb. of ABS
and- it takes over 75 hours (3+ days) of continuous extrusion to go through 5 lbs. of ABS
At some point we’ll print out an entire 5 pound roll. Needless to say, that’s a lot of printed things!
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3 Comments so far
JohnA-Sr
Thanks! I can not tell you how many times that question was asked at last weekend’s Maker Faire. Now we have an answer!
Tom
Since Skeinforge tells you the estimated cc of the build I think of it as 0.5 cents a cc.
Based on: $65 or 6500cents for 5 lbs or 11 kg or 11000g, density of ABS is about the same as water eg 1g per cc, so 65/11000=0.5 cents.
Randy
@ Tom – its actually closer to 3 cents per cc. 1kg = 2.2lbs, not the other way around. At $65, its actually $28.60 per kg.
At about 86 cents per hour, that’s still not so bad though.