8 TOOLS TO EXPLORE

3D printing

Estimate print material, time and cost from slicer and supplier inputs.

Allocate spool purchase cost to the grams of filament reported by the slicer.

Subtract spool tare and an entered reserve, then count complete jobs at the sliced mass per job.

Add sequential batch print times and changeover intervals between batches.

Add separately estimated part, support and purge filament masses for a repeated batch.

Estimate kilowatt-hours and print electricity cost using measured average watts and runtime.

Combine entered material cost, measured energy cost, hands-on labor and other direct costs for a job.

Estimate equal-height layer count and the nominal stacked height after rounding upward.

Estimate cylindrical filament length from net mass, measured diameter and supplier density.