We ran a test last night for testing the Mini’s power consumption for those who had been asking in the past.
The results are as follows:
While heating up, the mini pulls ~190W. Once heated, the mini pulses the nozzle on and off so your peak wattage is 180W and drops to as low as 54W with about a 50% duty cycle.
For a 45 minute print, the mini used 0.11kW
The average price per kW/hr in the US is $0.12.
Based on this, if you printed constantly, you’d spend about $0.02/hour, $0.42/day, and $2.95/week to 3D print.
A few people asked about how much it costs to let your printer run idle…
The printer was left running idle for 2 hours and the meter had yet to register any Wattage. I think it’s safe to say it’s next to nothing. You’ll probably spend more replacing your electronics case cooling fan from having it run 24-7
Hey Jim, thanks for posting that info. I had a kill-a-watt hooked up and looked at the numbers when I first got my printer…though I don’t remember exactly what they were, pretty sure it was around what you saw. Maybe I’ll check it out again during my next print and compare.
On the topic of idle power consumption, I am seeing ~2.3 watts of continuous power draw when the printer is idle. That won’t add up to a lot of kWh, but there is some measurable power consumption even when idle.
I’m not claiming it’s zero. There’s obviously some draw there, but in the grand scheme of things, you can probably more than offset the cost of your printer running idle by checking your couch cushions or checking in your cup holder in your car
Worded differently…if you can’t afford the electric bill associated with leaving your printer running idle, you probably shouldn’t be 3D printing and concentrate more on staving off starvation.
Some time back a co-worker of mine though my power bill would go up with my printer. I started to look online and that didn’t seem to be the case, but I wasn’t sure. Reading this helps assure that.
Another reason to love my printer, lower power costs!
