Value Per Printer Hour
Minimum Scenario: Grid Electricty at 10 cents/kWhr
Indicates profitability at 10+ cents per printer hour, if marketing and distribution is not counted. If average power usage is about 100-200W, then cost per 24 hours is 25-50 cents.
Even a printer-hour value of $1/hr makes a lot of sense: $24 per day, at an energy cost of 50 cents (including shredding and filament making from waste plastic).
At 10 cents/printer hour - revenus is $2.50 per day, with 50 cents cost. 80% profit margin, not counting time or marketing, in an automated process. Assumes printers that work.
$75 revenue per month. Absolute minimal free money scenario in an automated microfactory.
10 Printhead Printer
With a 10 printhead printer, the enegy cost is 5 cents per hour, or $1.20day.
At 10 cents per printer hour per head, that is $25/day revenue.
$750 per month. This is where things like fittings can be produced, in an economically viable way. Here paypack time per 10-head printer could be as little as one month. This is an example of amazing potential, where mass production cannot compete with distributed manufacturing.
If one studies this, one can see that a small, local print cluster can produce fittings on-demand for people in a big box store. Print-on-demand, where you simply print from a menu of items, and watch the thing print. It could even be a 3D printing vending machine.
Optimization
- A single printer can be fitted with 4 printheads readily
- 10 cents per printer hour is absolute minimum value - but the more typical could be something like $1/printer hour - such as a single plumbing fitting that sells for $1 - and takes 1 hour to print. There are many objects like this that can be printed.
- $1/printer hour is more realistic. 1 hour prints such as open source cameras, where we print the housing, and drop ship a kit.
- With 4 heads, we have $4/printer hour - $3k/month revenue.
