How Much Electricity Does a 3D Printer Use

The typical 3D printer uses 70 watts of electricity with a temperature of 205°C and a heated bed temperature of 60°C. It would take 0.7kWh (about 9 cents) for a 10-hour print. The amount of electricity used by your 3D printer is determined by:

• The size of the printer
• The temperature of the heated bed and nozzle

There's some more valuable information in the remainder of this post that you'll want to know, so keep reading to learn everything you need to know about electricity and 3D printers.

Determining the Power Used by 3D Printers:

Your 3D printer specs for the power supply and maximum/minimum power ratings will provide you with the information to understand the power consumption constraints.

For example:

If a printer has a 30A 12V power supply, it will have a maximum of 360 Wattage (30*12=360). Although, the printer will not constantly operate at this maximum. These maximums will be activated when the appropriate pieces are heated to begin the printing process but will gradually decrease as the printing progresses.

The Ender 3 (Amazon) is a low-power 3D printer. It's an all-around popular machine. It is ideal for beginners and has a quality that rivals the most expensive printers. You can tell from the rave reviews how excellent it is!

Power Has a Low Relative Cost:

When it comes to the total cost of 3D printing, power expenses are modest and should not be a concern. Of course, some printers will be more efficient than others, but not to the point where it is a major deciding factor when selecting one printer over another.

Now, the amount of power used by a 3D printer varies slightly based on what the machine is doing. If the print bed is rather big, the printer will consume more power when preheating to the set temperature than during printing.

The first actual consumption of power is the heating of the print bed. It is followed by the heating of the nozzle to the temperature required for the specific material. Power use will surge during printing depending on whether the heated platform is turned on to maintain the optimum temperature.

What Influences the Amount of Power Used?

Strathprints conducted a test to assess the power usage of four different 3D printers and validated some findings. The smaller the layer thickness of the material, the longer the print will take, resulting in higher total power usage.

If you can speed up your prints, you'll use less power overall, so see my post 8 Ways to Speed Up Your 3D Printer Without Losing Quality for more information.

When the heating efficiency of a print bed or hot end is good, less electricity is utilized since the temperatures do not have to be kept as hot all time.

Using an Ashata Heat Insulator Mat is a fantastic way to reduce the amount of heating your bed has to perform. It has a high thermal conductivity. Hence, it significantly lowers heat and cooling loss from your heated bed.

The MakerBot-Replicator 2X used 40-75 watts to power the controller and motor, but it could reach 180 watts when the heat was required. The higher the demanded print bed temperature, the more often the 3D printer needed electricity, as indicated by variations in the wattmeter.

The test revealed that the power consumption of 3D printers varies greatly. As a result, it can be determined that 3D printers do not consume the same amount of power and depend on various parameters.

Your 3D printer's setup options will impact total power usage. It is critical to understand the 3D printing process so that you can produce high-quality objects while using less power.

How Can I Save Money on Electricity With a 3D Printer?

• Make use of a smaller 3D printer.
• Utilize 3D printing materials that do not need a hotbed or high nozzle temperatures (PLA)
• Implement 3D printer settings that speed up 3D printing.
• Change to a bigger nozzle to make your prints last longer.
• Ensure that you are 3D printing in a somewhat warm area.

When it comes to minimizing electricity expenditures with your 3D printer, it all comes down to finding ways to speed up your 3D prints while using less heating.

Simple things you can do to speed up prints include:

• using a larger nozzle
• using less infill
• printing less often
• printing multiple elements at once rather than individually.

The heating elements consume most of the electricity. Therefore, focusing on lowering the heat to conserve more power.

It isn't generally a problem because the accompanying expenditures aren't prohibitively expensive. You'll almost certainly spend more money on the filament than you would on the power.

What Is the Power Consumption of a 3D Printer?

How Much Power Does an Ender 3 Consume?

One Ender 3 user who used their 3D printer for 4 hours only consumed about 0.5kWh (kilowatt-hour), which included heating up twice (using 280 watts per). On a per-hour basis, we can save 0.12kWh by utilizing an Ender 3.

People want to know how much electricity it would cost to operate their Ender 3 for a whole day. Therefore, we'll use a 24-hour timeframe.

2.88kWh = 24 * 0.12kWh

According to NPR, the typical cost of one kilowatt-hour in the United States is 12 cents. Therefore, operating an Ender 3 for 24 hours would cost $0.35. If you use your Ender 3 24 hours a day for a month, the cost would be roughly $11.

Can a 3D Printer Produce Electric Shocks?

Now that you know 3D printers don't require much electricity, you might be wondering if they can still give you an electric shock. It is a good question, and the solution is straightforward.

A 3D printer can cause electric shock if not handled properly, but using it properly will protect you from electric shock.

One 3D printer user did get an electric shock from the power source/ However, it was due to overuse. They utilized an EU to UK adaptor and set the voltage to 230V after setting up their 3D printer.

Rather than using an adaptor, they should have purchased or had the seller send them a UK plug. Because a tiny current can pass through the connections from the live wire, this might have happened because of improper grounding.

Fortunately, it was only a minor tingle/shock! You should not utilize gadgets that are not grounded when they should be.

Measurement of Actual Electricity Use:

There is no such thing as measuring power consumption because there are so many disparities and factors. The greatest thing you can do to recognize how much electricity you are consuming is to measure it yourself rather than rely on us to estimate.

You may buy a power meter that includes a power use monitor. High-end models can also compute the cost of your power use, making it easy to answer your inquiry.

Electricity Consumption Range of a 3D Printer:

The MakerBot Replicator+, which has a power range of 100-240 volts and 0.43-0.76 amps, is an example of the least and highest levels of power that a 3D printer can utilize. To translate this, multiply the lower and upper ends to get our limits.

00 volts multiplied by 0.43 amps equals 43 watts

240 volts multiplied by 0.76 amps equals 182.4 watts.

As a result, the power can range between 43 and 182.4 watts.

When discussing large professional printers, electricity expenses may be considered, but it is cheap for the average residential 3D printer.