So we have no heated bed on the Vertex which I guess saves some power, but what is the average power consumption of a standard (unmodded) Vertex during a print? I’d like to try and work out the basic cost of printing an object, i.e. amount of filament + wattage.
On average 5A.
So for our UK supply @ 240 V, is that
P=5*240=1200W?
That sounds expensive. An electric kettle is 3000W… So basically a 3 hour print uses more electricity than boiling a kettle for an hour?
Please tell me I’ve got that wrong! That surely can’t be right?
I think they refer this to the low tension side. So 5 amps * 15 (?) Volts.
Whoops, I was talking garbage as I suspected!
Yes, the power supply is 15V of course. So 5 * 15 = 75W which actually seems on the low side.
This must be due to no heatbed, as I think the standard figure I found for RepRaps was around 100W, which goes to show that printing in PLA is more eco friendly all round.
I’m pleased about that, as long prints were making me feel a bit guilty at all the energy required to make such a small object! But given we get charged around 34p kW, then
0.034 * 75 = 2.55p per hour, therefore a ten hour print is about 25p worth of electricity. Plus your filament costs, obviously…
But what is strange is that if I leave a 75W light on in the room, I wouldn’t expect it to warm up. But after several hours of printing, the room is definitely warmer!?