# 3D Printing > General 3D Printing Discussion >  How Far does 1 KG of 3D Filament go?

## Larry

Ok, so I see you can buy 3D Printer Filament for about $40 or so.  My question is, how far does 1 KG go?  Can anyone put it into words for me?  Will 1 KG Filament last only a few small prints, or will it last dozens? What are your experiences?  Like for instance how many grams are used to print something like an iPhone case, or something like a plastic bottle? Just trying to get my mind wrapped around what the costs will be when my printer comes.  I see a ton of negative comments from bloggers and tech sites about the costs of printing.  Has me a little worried that I may be getting into a hobby I can not afford.

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## MysteryAlabaster

It depends on how you print things.

If you don't know, I work for a school with a Replicator 2 and a Replicator 2X, and you'd think that we burn through plastic like hell, right?

I don't think we've come close to finishing an entire roll of plastic yet, and we've been printing for a year and a half. That said, we do rotate rolls every now and then, and we print most things at a 5%-15% infill...


The closest we've come to finishing a roll is the orange plastic that we use for test prints and to print out work that students' make. That's like 85% gone now.


A roll of plastic should last you a few months...

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## thejollygrimreaper

it's highly dependant on what you are printing and with how high the infil percentage is , we normally go through around 10 kg per week, but thats slowing down a little

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## JohnA136

You can print out something like 365 full size chess pieces with a K of plastic.

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## Lil3dprinting

It's a lot. I bought every color the store had when I got my Afinia H printer and I've yet to finish a single roll of any given color. I printed out 10 sets (4 per set) of iPad corners (facebook.com/lil3dprinting for pic of part, several posts down) and it might have used half a roll and 1/2 filled a large ziplock freezer bag.

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## Larry

How about something like this below?  Could it be 3D printed with a 1 KG roll?

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## Lil3dprinting

I don't think you would have a problem getting that out of one roll.

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## JohnA136

Nice lamp but it is hard to judge size without a reference? You would need an awfully big printer to make it I think.  Our printers only go about 8" by 8" by 8" right now?  I was tempted to build a giant printer out of 80-20 after seeing Jetguy's printer at Maker Faire but when I realized the costs, I came to my senses!

9899119546_f9f0bf9a71_n.jpg

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## old man emu

According to Pronterface, it takes 8.1 metres of 3mm filament to print Wades Geared NEMA 17 Extruder. If you weighed one metre of filament, you would get a valued for grams/metre. 

grams/metre divided by 1000 should give you metres/Kg.

[metres/Kg * (0.003/2)^2 * pi] will give you cubic metres per Kg

Price of a roll divided by metres per Kg will give you a price per metre.

Pronterface will give you the number of metres of filament required. You have to do these calculations for each print job. You can reduce the amount of material required, and speed up the printing if you nest the components into the smallest print area possible.

Old Man Emu

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## DrLuigi

Well depends how big, how strong it has to be  etc etc,

For me its aprox gone in about a month or so. (1kg)
 depending what free time i've got and if i find something i wanna print of course. ;P






> How about something like this below? Could it be 3D printed with a 1 KG roll?


Well the question for that one is more, Is it print able (With 1 extruder) with 2 it might be print able, when you use PVA as support material.
But i don't think it will be very pretty with a extrusion printer.

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## old man emu

I weighed a metre of 3mm ABS filament today. It weighed 7 grams.

There are 1000 grams in a kilogram, so 1000/7 = metres per kilogram = 142.8.

The cross-sectional area of 3mm ABS filament is: pi * 1.5^2 sq mm (or pi * .15^2) sq cm = 0.7068 sq cm

One kilogram of filament contains 142.8 metres of filament.

142.8 metres is 14280 cm

The volume of ABS in a kilogram spool is: 14280 * 0.7068 = 1009.39 cc

It costs me $50 per kilo spool of ABS filament, delivered. That's 5000 cents per spool.

My cost per cc of filament is 5000/1009.39 = 4.95 cents 

My cost per metre is 5000/142.9 = 34.98 cents

That makes the price of printing a Wades Extruder $2.83.  Given that the Australian dollar buys about $US0.95, does about US2.70 sound right for this part?

Since $10 per spool is delivery charge, I think I'd better look elsewhere for my filament.

Old Man Emu

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## blissiictrl

I'm using a Rep2, with 1.75mm filament. That gives me something ridiculous like 330 metres or so (give or take, 1000ft). I'm yet to finish a roll - I have about 6. Being like Old Man Emu, I'm based in Australia, so my costs are a little bit pricier, however I usually use Bilby brand PLA which is $40/roll (more for tricky shit like glow, or timber). To put things in perspective, I've printed multitudes of ships from Eve Online in a multitude of colours, and still yet have to run out of anything. Including several test prints, and a few failed prints!

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## Vanguard

Much more basic than anybody is making it out to be.  Plastic is fairly bulky per gram, 1 kilo = 2.2 pounds, a kilo will produce nearly 2.2 pounds worth of stuff.  It takes a little bit more plastic than the finished part weighs, ~10%, purge, raft, if used, etc..    If they are small parts, probably more, since you would have more purges, than with a single large part.  So 2.2 pounds would print approximately 2 pounds of s***, with a little bit of waste, remember the approximate.     A kilo goes a LONG ways

We have several kilos, not as much as needed for the kinds of experiments we do, and we have not used a kilo.  Then we only use it for research. Having many kinds, but a small amount of each kind would be best for our purposes.

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## jzatopa

> Ok, so I see you can buy 3D Printer Filament for about $40 or so.  My question is, how far does 1 KG go?  Can anyone put it into words for me?  Will 1 KG Filament last only a few small prints, or will it last dozens? What are your experiences?  Like for instance how many grams are used to print something like an iPhone case, or something like a plastic bottle? Just trying to get my mind wrapped around what the costs will be when my printer comes.  I see a ton of negative comments from bloggers and tech sites about the costs of printing.  Has me a little worried that I may be getting into a hobby I can not afford.


Unfortunately thats like asking how long is a piece of string.  What you are printing, how much infill you use and how many print failure all affect how fast you go through a roll.  If you are concerned about the price of plastic here is what I recommend.  Buy good quality plastic, it will prevent wasted time and money on low quality and failed prints.  You should also expect that it will take you about a roll or two before you really get a feel for the machine.  If you are printing every day, expect to go through a roll a week.  Chances are a roll will last you two to three weeks unless you find something you want to print regularly.  I have found that after you get used to the machine and have made some good prints you end up printing less.  This is because useful prints take some thought and consideration, otherwise you end up with a bunch of "stuff".  

A quick side note, 3D printed objects can make great presents.  I'm not even sure how much I have saved by using prints as gifts.

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## botfeeder

If you are printing small product (like small chess piece), you can print around 400 of them according to 
http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2012/02...gle-1kg-spool/

Daniel Poon
BotFeeder Canada

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## ralphzoontjens

I've been actively 3d printing stuff for a while now, and I just think in terms of volume, amounts of cubed centimeters. Density of ABS is a little over 1g/cm so 1kg gives you a little less than 1000, say 950, cm3's. For each part you print you should estimate the volume required, and while modeling try to minimize things like wall thickness and required support structures. If you print a small bottle with wall thickness 1.2 mm it would probably use up around (rough estimate) 50 cm3. Cutting down on wall thickness and properly hollowing things out will save you lots of material, and it helps you think more intelligently about the things you design as well.

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## jfarfil

Hi all I am new to the Forum.  Good to be here.  I don't know if this will help but I thought that I would chime in.  The material that I manufacture is as follows:

1.75mm for a 2.2 pound (1kg) is 907 feet per spool.  

We are a U.S. company, and we supply 2.5 pounds per spool.  These spools have 1030 feet per spool.

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## GOC

> ...you can buy 3D Printer Filament for about $40 or so...


-    If that's a PLA cost your paying too much. I'm using *RioRand* filament at a cost of $25-$28 a 1kg spool.




> ...how many grams are used to print something like an iPhone case...


*PART:* Basic IPhone 6 Case_ (Thingiverse Find)_
*FILAMENT NEEDED:* 5867mm_ (@ 100% infill w/ 1.75mm PLA)_
*PART WEIGHT:* 17.7787g_ ([1000g / 330m] * [5.867m] = 17.7787)_
*PARTS PER SPOOL:* 56_ ([330 Meters per spool] / [5.867m per part] = 56.25)

_*Edit: _RioRand also has Free Shipping when you buy 2 or more rolls_

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## NNbonds

I am coming late to the game but found a website that was very helpful: http://www.toybuilderlabs.com/blogs/...ume-and-length.  I took and calculated the volume of the filament in mm. then converted it to inches and divided the cost of the filament role by the volume to get the cost of 1 in^3. then I calculated the volume of the part to find the approximate cost of a solid print at a given volume.  Obviously this can be done cheaper by using an infill vs. solid. I do have an excel worksheet I created but do not see how to attach it here.nbonds@madisonhighlandprep.org email and I will send it to you.

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## maxwell

Anyway, I benefit from it a lot.

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## Ezio Auditure

Depends on what you printer. Actually 1 kg of filament can make a lot of prints.
But, it feels different when you use different volume printers.
One of my friends got a Z18, and a Mankati or Mankato printer, both them pretty big.
he's more likely to print big things with them, so it feels filaments runs out more quickly with big printers.

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## Magicolor

Different slice setting tendency will lead to different results.

If you often print with solid infill objects, you will have a higher filament consumption.

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## teoterrence

It's the total weight of the Filament not the specific length of the Filament. As Filament is the blood of your printer and it is very important to use right type of filament.Filament generally comes in 1Kg spool. We can create upto 100 pieces of chess with 1Kg roll os filament. One roll of filament can create approximately 200 keychains. One roll of filament can print approximately 98 phone cases.

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## FilamentGuy

> Ok, so I see you can buy 3D Printer Filament for about $40 or so.  My question is, how far does 1 KG go?  Can anyone put it into words for me?  Will 1 KG Filament last only a few small prints, or will it last dozens? What are your experiences?  Like for instance how many grams are used to print something like an iPhone case, or something like a plastic bottle? Just trying to get my mind wrapped around what the costs will be when my printer comes.  I see a ton of negative comments from bloggers and tech sites about the costs of printing.  Has me a little worried that I may be getting into a hobby I can not afford.


Here's a video that goes into quite a bit of detail on filament weight, densities and what print settings will influence how long a spool can last: http://www.cubicity.com/blog/filamen...one-1kg-of-pla

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## djprinter

1kg of filament is 330m.

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