FA+
Shop
Cost analysis of 3D printed life size Gus
a year ago
I did a bit of work on slicing parts to estimate the cost of 3D printing a life size Gus on my Ender 3 as it is currently set up, and it's expensive. Assumptions are that I want all walls to be 2MM thick and 5% infill and using the 0.4mm nozzle I've always used. Changes would be made to improve costs if I were to actually do this.
- 520 Days (not including filament swaps and starting new print jobs)
- 2.5 Gigawatt hours of electricity.
- About $400-600 in electricity costs.
- About 200 KG of filament.
- $4,000 at $20 per KG. I can get it cheaper in bulk though.
So it's definitely not going to happen on my current printer. I would want to upgrade to a 300x300 or 400x400 printer first. With less parts to print, less material will be needed for wall, base, and top layers. I can probably also get away with less infill. A 1MM nozzle on a high flow rate hot end would also cut costs by reducing print time which will result in less electricity usage.
Another possible option is to only print a shell, but since it is going to need to go outside in the yard, I'm not sure that would be sturdy enough.
I could also 3D print at 1/2 scale which is 1/8th the volume. It would still be an impressive size but should cost a good bit under $1000 in electricity and materials.
I will have to think more about what I want to do. I really want a life size Gus but I can't justify spending so much on it when I don't know for sure that it will last a long time outdoors.
- 520 Days (not including filament swaps and starting new print jobs)
- 2.5 Gigawatt hours of electricity.
- About $400-600 in electricity costs.
- About 200 KG of filament.
- $4,000 at $20 per KG. I can get it cheaper in bulk though.
So it's definitely not going to happen on my current printer. I would want to upgrade to a 300x300 or 400x400 printer first. With less parts to print, less material will be needed for wall, base, and top layers. I can probably also get away with less infill. A 1MM nozzle on a high flow rate hot end would also cut costs by reducing print time which will result in less electricity usage.
Another possible option is to only print a shell, but since it is going to need to go outside in the yard, I'm not sure that would be sturdy enough.
I could also 3D print at 1/2 scale which is 1/8th the volume. It would still be an impressive size but should cost a good bit under $1000 in electricity and materials.
I will have to think more about what I want to do. I really want a life size Gus but I can't justify spending so much on it when I don't know for sure that it will last a long time outdoors.
A 1 mm nozzle would be a great help, and I think you could get away without any infill or with very minimal infill. You could try filling it with something else like expanding foam to help maintain strength, or having some sort of internal skeleton made from something a bit more more sturdy like wood or metal.
And yeah,think your biggest problem honestly would be that darn sun. You would probably need to print with a UV-resistant material like ASA or paint it with some sort of UV-resistant paint.
But honestly if you go ahead with it even at 1/2 scale it would be a really impressive project, and. Would looove to see it.
And yeah, I'd be using UV resistant paint on it for sure. PETG is easy enough to print with and I've seen that black colored PETG can handle direct sunlight on a hot summer day here, but I don't know how many years it can handle the UV.