power consumption creator pro

[anthony27]

Hi All,
just got my electricity bill for the past month at it is markedly higher,
does anyone know how much energy these things chew, it seems it may be quite a bit!
I am planning on getting a meter reader to understand it better, any info would be interesting
is there any advice on using less power?
cheers
Anthony

[warkmal]

Surprising. FFCP comes with a 350 W power supply and should only come close to drawing that when the heatbed and nozzle are both cold but just got turned on with their target temps still far away. That's only three old fashioned light bulbs and 3 hours at full power would cost me 11 cents. So, worst case of full on heaters 24 hours would be almost $1.

Of course, that's just back of the envelope math. Pretty easy to stick a killawatt in there and measure.

[obecny]

I have measured my FFCP and with printing (one nozzle) ABS at 230C with bed at 110C power consumption is at 215-225W

[Sebastian Finke]

I have measured my FFCP and with printing (one nozzle) ABS at 230C with bed at 110C power consumption is at 215-225W

That is very interesting. Thanks!

[anthony27]

That is very interesting. Thanks!

great info guys,
many thanks
Anthony

[curious aardvark]

I'd guess most of that goes to heating the bed.

[warkmal]

No doubt that the heatbed takes the most current when it is heating. Not sure what it looks like when its steady state in the PID loop, but I imagine it's a good portion of the 225W.

The recent FlashForge Creator Pro's with 2560 chips have a very low resistance bed that can draw north of 14 amps at 24v which is close to the whole power supply. To get some headroom back, FlashForge modified the firmware to PWM the heatbed to simulate 19v. That's why you have to be careful to get the FlashForge 2560 version of Sailfish if you upgrade the firmware.

Unfortunately, it also means that the motherboard and the connectors see that instantaneous draw and it's close to their ratings. And that's why you can find pictures of burnt connectors on the internets. Recommendation on the FlashForge Google group is to wire the positive side of the heatbed directly to the power supply (it's the negative side that is switched on the motherboard) and you can also use the CS fan connector on the motherboard as another power input (because that fan is both unnecessary and always on). Both of those mods can be done with some wire and a screwdriver.

Still leaves the connector on the heatbed itself carrying most of the current both directions, so some folks replace that too. But that mod isn't as easy to do correctly.