How Much Filament Does A 3D Printer Use?

“How much filament does a 3D printer use?”, “How far does a roll of 1KG 3D printer filament go?” We get asked about these questions many times and people are usually unsatisfied when you answer “it depends”. Therefore, today we’ll figure out in this article how much filament does a 3D printer use and how far does a roll of 1KG 3D filament go.

First, you can go to “3D model repository” sites such as Thingiverse and MyMiniFactory to search for 3D models that you want to print, filtering for free STL files. Once you have an STL file, you can load up your free slicer and open up your STL file, select your settings and slice that into .gcode.

Though exact settings vary from printer to printer, it would still be adequate to calculate filament usage before you even have your printer picked out. With a .gcode file at hand, you can now open up your gcode viewer and drip your .gcode file into that program. One of the features is an estimation of how much filament will be used to print the file.

What’s more, to make this question more explicit and straightforward, we’ve made experiments to see how far does a roll of 1KG 3D printer go since we know 1 KG 3D printer filament is the most common roll in the marketplace.

98 iPhone 5 Cases

The iPhone 5 case is approximately 128mm x 62mm x 9.3mm in dimensions and weighs 10.2g. One roll of 3D printer filament should print around 98 iPhone cases.

103 Chess Pieces

This chess piece is approximately 19.5mm x 4.4mm x 73mm in dimensions and weighs 9.7g. One roll of 3D printer filament should print around 103 of these chess pieces.

200 Keychains

The keychains are approximately 80mm x 20mm x 5mm in dimensions with an average weight of 5g. One roll of 3D printer filament should print around 200 keychains.

358 Chocolate Molds

These chocolate molds are approximately 96.7mm x 42mm x 10mm in dimensions with an average weight of 2.79g. One roll of 3D printer filament should print 358 of these molds.

With regard to many aspects of 3D printing, the exact answer will subject to and depend on a number of factors such as the dimensions of the object printed, the percentage of infill used and the amount of support material needed. However, there are still several ways for you to estimate how much filament does a 3D printer use and the number of prints you’ll be able to get. We hope you’ve found this article of value and can still learn something helpful.