Print time estimate
Quick answer
A 100 cm3 part at 0.2 mm layers, 0.45 mm line width and 150 mm/s extrudes at about 13.5 mm3/s, which is roughly 2 hours 3 minutes of print time at typical efficiency.
Time equals volume divided by flow rate, which is physics. The efficiency factor that accounts for travel, acceleration and layer changes is a convention.
Check this flow against your hotend limit with the flow rate calculator.
Efficiency covers travel moves, acceleration, layer changes and cooling holds. A tall thin part is far less efficient than a solid block.
Printers built for speed
- Creality
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Creality Ender 3 V3 SE 3D Printer Bundle with PLA Filament 4 Packs (Black+White+Red+Blue)
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Common questions
Why is my slicer estimate different from this one?
Your slicer knows the actual toolpath, including every travel move, acceleration profile and minimum layer time, so it will always be more accurate for a specific file. This calculator is for planning before a model exists, or for asking what happens if you double the layer height. Treat it as a figure that is normally within about 20 percent.
Does doubling the layer height halve the print time?
Close to it for the solid body of a part, because you extrude the same volume in half as many layers. It does not halve the total, because travel moves, perimeters and the fixed overhead per layer do not scale the same way, and surface finish degrades noticeably. Going from 0.2 mm to 0.3 mm is usually a better trade than going to 0.4 mm.
What efficiency figure should I pick?
Choose by geometry rather than by hope. A solid chunky bracket with few travel moves runs near 75 percent of theoretical. A typical functional part with holes and perimeters lands near 60 percent. A tall thin model, a miniature, or anything where each layer is small and the head spends its time travelling and waiting for cooling can fall to 40 percent or below.
Will a faster printer actually print this faster?
Only if the hotend can melt plastic fast enough to feed the speed. Print speed and volumetric flow are two different limits, and above roughly 20 mm3/s a stock hotend becomes the bottleneck no matter what the motion system can do. Run the numbers through the flow rate calculator before buying speed you cannot use.