Has anyone ever calculated a cost per minute or hour for the operation of a Form 2?
Reason I ask it s I do production printing for both casting masters and also sale of the printed item. It would be real helpful to have an estimated cost per minute or hour.
On my laser cutter the national average is $1 a minute plus material if supplied. This helps a long way in coming up with a realistic selling price.
Someone made and shared a really nice spreadsheet for the F1, way back in the day, but I can’t seem to find it. AFAIK threads are only locked, not deleted, if you want to keep searching.
Otherwise I would maybe throw a couple test STLs out to printer service sites and see if you can’t figure out a trend with others who are charging for SLA prints. You don’t have to be accurate, you just need to be competitive. =]
Also don’t forget to factor in your expertise when charging for prints, resin can be expensive, and machine time is limited, but so is your own, value it!
Best of luck!
Brandon,
Using a similar formula that I used for the laser cutter I came up with my costs around $5 an hour. Retail I’d look at $10 an hour. I know that’s high but I don’t want to do custom work anyway. [grin] I only use grey resin as most all my items are for master to make silicone molds for resin casting. I can make parts for sale a lot faster and cheaper that way.
In the above I amortized the Form 2 at one year seeing how fast machines are being upgraded. Allowing for 2,000 hours per year with 50% usage is the basics for my calculations.
It gives me a ball park figure should I be asked to do custom 3D work. And yes, that also is plus any extra work such as design, design fixing to actually work on the Form 2 and cost of materials.
Id like to know, for what lifetime a Form2 Laser is created…
whats the estimated printed time?
Basically they are well made machines, for the price. But what actually makes them obsolete is the new model as it generally has good improvements. Had a feeling the reason they discounted the Form 2 to previous Form 1+ customers is they wanted to move inventory as the Form 3 might be on the near horizon. [grin]